Accessible Britain

the Red Drawing Room and its collection of French and English porcelain; the Chinese
Room, featuring some stunning Chinese lacquer screens; and the Garden Gallery, which
houses paintings by a number of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, including
Walter Sickert and Albert André. If you aren’t able to climb the great oak staircase up
to the bedrooms and Long Gallery, head out to the beautiful grounds, which boast an
enchanting Elizabethan walled garden and a mile-long woodland sculpture walk.
There is designated Blue Badge parking in the car park. The ground floor is fully
wheelchair accessible, and there are rest seats in every room, with plenty of staff on
hand to assist. The upper floors can only be accessed via the large staircase; if you can’t
manage this and want to know what’s up there, ask for a printed guide with photos at
reception. Outside, there’s a disabled toilet in the courtyard, next to the café. Most areas
of the grounds are wheelchair accessible, including the woodland sculpture walk, which
has a level hard-surfaced path, and the walled garden, where a ramped entrance allows
you to bypass the stone steps.
FOOD & DRINK aa The Courtyard Café offers an appetising selection of tea and cakes,
light meals and hot dinners, with much of the fresh produce grown on-site in the
kitchen gardens.
121 Harrogate, Yorkshire
THE NORTHEAST AND YORKSHIRE
Harrogate (www.visitharrogate.co.uk) is a prosperous, historic and classy town, packed
with beautiful old manor houses, stately architecture, avenues of trees and some
wonderful public gardens. The town falls into two distinct areas: upper and lower
Harrogate; most of the sights are concentrated in the compact lower town, which is
pretty level, and has plenty of on-street parking (free for Blue Badge holders).
A good place to start a visit is the Royal Pump Room Museum on Crown Place,
which details Harrogate’s rise to riches in the eighteenth century as a fashionable spa
town – while you’re here, you can sample the famed sulphurous water that brought
visitors flocking, convinced of its medicinal properties. The museum is fully wheelchair
accessible and has a disabled toilet.
If this puts you in the mood for some spa action, head to the nearby Turkish Baths
on Parliament Street (01423 556746, www.harrogate.gov.uk/turkishbaths), whose
grand, beautifully tiled steam room and heated chambers are fully accessible (the only
exception being the plunge pool). There’s a ramped entrance, a lift to all floors and an
accessible changing room.
From here, you could pay a visit to the Mercer Art Gallery, on Swan Road, which
has rotating displays of nineteenth- and twentieth-century fine art from its extensive
collection, which includes works by the likes of Alan Davie and William Powell Frith.
The wheelchair accessible entrance is at the back of the building (ring the bell if it’s not
open), and once inside everything’s on one level.
Further up the road, the elegant Old Swan Hotel (www.classiclodges.co.uk) is
where Agatha Christie went into hiding for eleven days in 1926, prompting a massive
manhunt. If you want to find out more, pick up a leaflet at reception, which you can
peruse while having a bite to eat in the sumptuous dining room, or a cocktail at the bar.
There’s ramped access to the hotel, a disabled toilet inside and four Blue Badge spaces
available for parking.
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