The Balmoral Hotel

‘Ride the Millennium Wheel at the National Railway Museum!’ said the poster at York Station as Mr Smith and I sat, dolefully staring through the rain at the opposite platform and waiting for our connection to Harrogate. ‘It’s The Biggest Experience in Yorkshire,’ the poster continued, though whoever wrote that clearly hadn’t seen the bath or the vodka tonic I was planning on having in it once Mr Smith and I finally arrived at the Balmoral Hotel.

An hour later, I was sitting in the aforementioned large bath, looking admiringly at the Victorian bathroom suite, all oversized and painted with pretty blue flowers, listening to the clink of ice while playing with the friendly-looking rubber ducks I’d found waiting for me.

We’d arrived at the Balmoral Hotel looking rather less regal than the name suggested (us, not it; the hotel itself, perched on a little hillock in a leafy suburb, just up the road from the station, looked absolutely lovely), and been shown to the suite by perhaps the nicest receptionist I’d ever had the pleasure to meet. ‘Oh, was your train late? You didn’t get wet did you? I’ll tell the restaurant you’ll be eating a bit later shall I? Not that it was your fault you were late, of course…’ she comforted, as she bustled us into our suite.  

Highgrove. That was where we stayed. You know, like, where Prince Charles lives. Not that he was there at the time, of course. It was a good-sized suite, to be sure, but it still might have been a bit intimate with the three of us in that bedroom. He would have liked it though, I think. It was all plush furnishings and antique furniture – stately stripes on the wallpaper, velvet on the armchairs, plus a canopy bed with wooden bedknobs the size of your head.

The biggest experience in Yorkshire, however, turned out to be the wardrobe, which, though we hadn’t brought enough clothes to fill it, proved to be quite the best hiding place for a game of hide and seek in the whole luxury suite. (Is that not what you do on a romantic break in the rain?)

The restaurant, the Harrogate Grille, serves likeable, hearty fare – though I was served my main course on a breadboard. I’m not sure if it’s the latest thing, or if word just got around that I couldn’t be trusted with breakables, but it was a novelty, and enough to keep me amused all the way back to the bedroom hours later. Lucky for us, the suites were located conveniently at stumbling distance from the bar and food.

In the morning, the stumble went the other way and, fatigued by having a much more enormous breakfast than one would ever bother to make for oneself, we went for a lie down. That’s the best thing about staying in a genuinely luxurious hotel. There’s no shame at all in taking any opportunity you can to go back to your lovely room for a sneaky rest on a big comfortable mattress.

As we should have expected for a pleasant mid-August break, England was covered in a thick grey cloud, and our arrival in Yorkshire had been marked by all that cumulus unzipping and disgorging their miserable innards all over the rolling hills below.

But it was lovely. We sat in the famous Betty’s Café Tea Rooms drinking its famous tea and eating its famous fairy cakes, watching tourists run about in the drizzle outside. We moved to a bar called Banyan, where the wine flowed freely and the food was all proudly locally sourced and fresh, and sat in the window there, watching wet hen parties giggle their way down shiny cobbled streets. When the rain abated for a second, we tried to find the Royal Pump Rooms and instead got lost in the Estate Agent quarter. Charles Dickens once described Harrogate as the queerest place with the strangest people leading the oddest lives. Reaching the Pump Rooms and smelling the sulphurous restorative waters (think eggs and farts), we decided that while Dickens might have been slightly harsh, we wouldn’t be taking the waters today. Not internally, anyway, no matter how beautifully it was pumped.

Pretensions of grandeur sounds like a derogatory term, but it isn’t, really – the fascia of Harrogate is so very grand, it would be foolish for the fascia of its businesses to be much different. But a solid and honest friendliness sits behind them, as we found at a bistro the following night.

‘Have you got a reservation?’ said the maître d’, slightly haughtily, as the supremo at any bistro worth its salt is apparently trained to do at maître d’ school. ‘No,’ I peeped, sheepishly. ‘But if you have room for two little ones?’ added Mr Smith, winningly. ‘Aye, sit anywhere you like, mate. I’ll be with you in a second,’ he said, waving his arm generously around the room.

That night we ate well, then went back for a nightcap in the suite. Curled up in a chair, watching sports highlights, we realised that there were two special little fondant fancies set out for treats. And though we must have eaten half of Harrogate by then, we still found room. And then we slept, and dreamt of fondant fancies and smelly water.

The next day we sat at the station waiting for the train. As the cute carriages pulled in, the clouds rolled back and the sun shone over lovely Harrogate, as people tipped off the train to go and enjoy it. Mr Smith and I chugged back to the 21st century, away from the decadent Victorian manor with its special little treats and touches, taking the rain with us.