23 - Health and leisure resorts 1700–1840

Summary

long before the orthodox onset of the Industrial Revolution, and well before Europe was facing a similar shake up, the traditional urban order in Britain was experiencing the forces of change that were to reshape its character. An important feature of the transformation underway was the emergence of the so-called ‘new towns’, and among these one of the most novel and distinctive categories was watering-places – inland and coastal resorts devoted to the provision of health and leisure. This chapter will examine the evolution of the resort from about 1700 until the arrival of the railways, an event whose influence can be exaggerated but which none the less represented a watershed. Four sets of issues will be explored. First, the chronology and pattern of development. Second, the broad factors responsible for this. Third, the urban status of watering-places, their relationship to other towns providing similar services, and their typology. Fourth, the particular economic, social, political and cultural characteristics of resorts. Because of their newness and distinctive profile, spa and seaside centres provide a litmus test of the urban transformation unfolding in the long eighteenth century. Though apparently very different from the classic ‘new newtowns’ of the Industrial Revolution, they were to form a vital element in the urban network which emerged.

CHRONOLOGY AND PATTERN OF DEVELOPMENT

In Britain the earliest commercial development of spas as a health cure for the social elite dates from the late Tudor and early Stuart era. This parallels the beginnings of a period of discovery and rediscovery of springs in France, though in Italy there seems to have been a network of widely used watering-places since at least the later medieval period, whose clientele included the aristocracy. In the case of Britain, Phyllis Hembry has located the foundation of sixteen spas in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and there are clear signs of exploitation of the springs at Buxton, Harrogate, Tunbridge Wells and most notably Bath (see Plate 3), which saw substantial investment in the health and visitor facilities.