The Royal Pump Room Museum is a distinctive octagonal building with copper dome, built in 1842 by Isaac Shutt to shelter visitors ’taking the waters’ from the four sulphur wells at the site. A unique cast iron annexe was added in 1913. The building became a museum in 1953 and now offers displays of 19th century life in Harrogate along with examples of the bizarre spa treatments which made the town a favourite destination for elite Victorian’s. Harrogate water was purported to have healing properties that could cure anything including gout, rheumatism and lumbago - visitors with a strong constitution can still taste the waters at the museum.