Before driving home we had a wander around Harrogate and regretted that we could not stay longer.  It became a very fashionable spa town in late Victorian times and there are many very fine buildings from the time including the Royal Hall which was completed in 1903 as the Kursaal.  The architecture was very state of the art but in 2002 was declared unsafe so closed.  Today as it had an open day we visited to see how it had been restored in 2008 and were very impressed.  It has been described as a ‘Glittering Palace of Gold’ and the walls and ceiling shone with 112,500 sheets of 23.5 carat gold leaf and 15 kg of Gold bronze powder having been used to recreate its former splendour.