Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Town or country? British spas and the urban–rural interface

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1755182x.2012.697489

1755-1838

Peter Borsay,

Historical Art and Culture Studies

Abstract This paper explores the ambivalent geographical and cultural status of spas in Britain. Some were located in traditional urban centres, others expanded to the point where they became 'new towns'; all supported in some measure an urbane culture, and were part of a wider process where from the later seventeenth century many towns were becoming centres of up-market health and leisure services. However, most spas were established in rural locations and remained small. Moreover, even those which grew into substantial towns played to a green agenda, cultivating the natural environment within and outside their boundaries as a key recreational resource and aspect of their tourist image. It is argued that spas played to both the urban and rural elements in their make-up, and in so doing were able to develop a marketing strategy that offered their visitors and residents the best of both worlds. Keywords: Britainspastownscountrysidenatureculturespace Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the librarians at Great Malvern Public Library, Leamington Spa Library and Information Centre and Warwick Library and Information Centre, for their assistance, and Ian Rowat, the Director of the Malvern Hills Conservators, for allowing the author access to the Conservators' archives in Great Malvern. Notes 1T.B. Burr, The History of Tunbridge Wells (London: 1766), 98–9, 103, 273. 2P. Clark and P. Slack, English Towns in Transition, 1500–1700 (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 33–6; E. Jones, Towns and Cities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 28; C. and R. Bell, City Fathers: The Early History of Town Planning in Britain (Harmondsorth: Penguin Books, 1972), 109. 3A. Savidge, Royal Tunbridge Wells (Tunbridge Wells: Midas Books, 1975); C. Chalklin, Royal Tunbridge Wells (Chichester: Phillimore, 2008); B.S. Smith, A History of Malvern, 2nd ed. (Stroud: Allan Sutton and the Malvern Bookshop, 1978); R. Chaplin, 'The Rise of Leamington Spa', Warwickshire History 2, no. 2 (1972–1973): 13–29; P. Hembry, British Spas from 1815 to the Present: A Social History, ed. Leonard W. Cowie and Evelyn E. Cowie (London: Athlone Press, 1997), 8–32, 124–31, 182–98, 215–18. 4S. McIntrye, 'Bath: The Rise of a Resort Town, 1660–1800', in Country Towns in Pre-Industrial England, ed. P. Clark (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1981), 203, 214–15; P. Clark and J. Hosking, Population Estimates of English Small Towns, 1500–1851, rev. ed. (Leicester: Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, 1993), 55–6, 123–4. 5D. Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, ed. G.D.H. Cole and D.C. Browning, vol. 2 (London: Everyman, 1962), 34. 6A. Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 60–3, 68–9, 115–18, 129–40, 189–90. 7P. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 59–123; L.E. Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourses and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); J. Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 98–113; R. Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2000), 22–3; P. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society: Britain 1660–1800 (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001); P. Borsay, 'The Culture of Improvement', in The Short Oxford History of the British Isles: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. Langford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 187–90; idem, 'Fat Sources and Big Ideas: Society, Enlightenment and the Town', Journal of Urban History 24, no. 5 (1998): 643–53. 8P. Corfield, The Impact of English Towns, 1700–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 51–65; P. Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town, 1660–1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). 9O. Goldsmith, 'The Life of Richard Nash', in The Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, ed. A. Friedman, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 288–9; J. Eglin, The Imaginary Autocrat: Beau Nash and the Invention of Bath (London: Profile Books, 2005), 7–8. 10Goldsmith, 'Life of Richard Nash', 306. 11J. Summerson, 'John Wood and the English Town-Planning Tradition', in Heavenly Mansions and Other Essays on Architecture, ed. J. Summerson (London: Cresset Press, 1949), 87–110. 12For example, The New Bath Guide (Bath: R. Cruttwell, [1772]), 40; The Improved Bath Guide (Bath: Wood and Co., [1812]), 12; P. Egan, Walks through Bath (Bath: Meyler and Son, 1819), 48, 50. 13 Letters from Bath 1766–1767 by the Rev. John Penrose, ed. B. Mitchell and H. Penrose (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1983), 41–2; Innocent Espionage: The La Rochefoucauld Brothers Tour of England in 1785, ed. N. Scarfe (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995), 151. 15P. Hembry, The English Spa 1560–1815: A Social History (London: Athlone Press, 1990), map inside front cover; London in 1710 from the Travels of Zacharias Von Uffenbach, trans. and ed. W.H. Quarrell and M. Mare (London: Faber and Faber, 1934), 120. 14A. Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 395–470. 16Hembry, English Spa, 70–1, 77, 308; C. Tongue, 'Thomas Thornton at Astrop Spa', Nortrhamptonshire Record Society 4, no. 5 (1970–1971): 281–5; http://www.kingssutton.net/-_Times_Past__html; http://www.kateandjames.co.uk/page20.html, accessed 10 January 2012. 17 The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, ed. C. Morris (London: Cresset Press, 1947), 31–2. 18R. Hyde, A Prospect of Britain; the Town Panoramas of Samuel and Nathaniel Buck (London: Pavilion Books, 1994), plate 49; Hembry, English Spa, 73–4, 173; Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 125, 216; R. Bearman, 'Bishopton Spa, Stratford-upon-Avon', Warwickshire History 2, no. 6 (1974/1975): 20–34; E.W. Gilbert, Brighton: Old Ocean's Bauble (London: Methuen, 1954), 60; Black's Guide to South Wales, 9th ed. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1896), 110. 19G. Hart, A History of Cheltenham (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1965), 124–6. 20J. Wood, A Description of Bath, 2nd ed. 1749 (reprinted 1765 and Bath: Kingsmead, 1969), 81–2; The New Bath Guide (Bath: J. Savage, 1809), 62; T. Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd: Amusements, Recreations and Gambling at the 18th-Century Spa (Bath: Ruton, 1998), 59. 21 The New History, Survey and Description, of the City and Suburbs of Bristol (Bristol: W. Matthews, 1794), 103, 105; D. Hussey, '"From the Temple of Hygeia to the Sordid Devotees of Pluto". The Hotwell and Bristol: Resort and Port in the Eighteenth Century', in Resorts and Ports: European Seaside Resorts Since 1700, ed. P. Borsay and J.K. Walton (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2011), 50–65. 22 Journeys of Celia Fiennes, 103. 23T. Fawcett, Voices of Eighteenth-Century Bath: An Anthology (Bath: Ruton, 1995), 15, 17. 24C.W. Chalklin, 'The Making of Some New Towns, c. 1600–1720', in Rural Change and Urban Growth 1500–1800, ed. C.W. Chalklin and M.A. Havinden (London: Longman, 1974), 233–4, 243–5, 248–9; Chalklin, Royal Tunbridge Wells, 1–59; Savidge, Royal Tunbridge Wells, 1–125; J. Cunningham, ed., An Historical Atlas of Tunbridge Wells, Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society Monograph No. 7 (The Local History Group of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society, 2007), parts 1–4. 25A.B. Granville, Spas of England and Principal Sea-Bathing Places, Ist pub. 1841, reprinted, vol. 2 (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1971), 224–5; Hembry, British Spas, 24–5; W.G. Gibbons, The Royal Baths and Pump Room at Royal Leamington Spa: A Short Account of the Early History (Leamington Spa: W.G. Gibbons, 1980). 26Hart, History of Cheltenham, 173 27S. Blake, Pittville Pump Room, 2nd ed. (Cheltenham: Cheltenham Borough Council, 1980), 3. 28McIntyre, 'Bath: The Rise of a Resort Town', 222–37; P. Borsay, The Image of Georgian Bath, 1700–2000: Towns, Heritage and History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 11–16, 299–304. 29Defoe, Tour, vol. 1, 162. 30Quoted in Chalklin, Royal Tunbridge Wells, 44; Cunningham, Historical Atlas of Tunbridge Wells, various maps. 31R. Whalley, 'The Royal Victoria Park', Bath History 5 (1994): 147–69; 'A New and Correct Plan of the City of Bath', in New Bath Guide (1809); H. Conway, Public Parks (Princes Risborough: Shire, 1996), 9. 32 The Original Bath Guide Historical and Descriptive (Bath: William Lewis, 1876), 103–7; A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Bath, 8th ed. (London: Ward Lock, 1922–1923), 91–3; R. Gilding, Historic Public Parks Bath (Bristol: Avon Gardens Trust, 1997); S. Harding and D. Lambert, Parks and Gardens of Avon (Bristol: Avon Gardens Trust, 1994), 100–1; B. Snaddon, The Last Promenade: Sydney Gardens Bath (Bath: Millstream Books, 2000). 33 Beck's Leamington Guide, 6th ed. (Leamington: J. Beck, 1840), 86; W.G. Gibbons, The Story of Jephson Gardens Royal Leamington Spa (Warwick; Warwick District Council, 1996); Conway, Public Parks, 36–7. 34K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984); M. Andrews, The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989); P.M. Harman, The Culture of Nature in Britain 1680–1860 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009); M. Bunce, The Countryside Ideal: Anglo-American Images of the Landscape (London: Routledge, 1994). 35Wood, Description of Bath, 439. 36 The Original Bath Guide (Bath: Meyler and Son, 1840), 135–6; Original Bath Guide (1876), 125. 37 Black's Guide to South Wales, 173. 38R. Oliver, Ordnance Survey Maps: A Concise Guide for Historians (London: The Charles Close Society, 2005), 47–52. 39Chalklin, Royal Tunbridge Wells, 43–4. 40D. Hollett, The Pioneering Ramblers 1850–1914 (North Wales Area of the Ramblers' Association, 2002), 61–72; B. Cowell, 'The Commons Preservation Society and the Campaign for Berkhamstead Common, 1866–70', Rural History 13, no. 2 (2002): 145–61. 41Malvern Hills Act 1884, clause 13. 42P. Hurle, The Malvern Hills: A Hundred Years of Conservation (Chichester: Phillimore, 1984), 14–31. 43Hembry, British Spas, 182–98; Great Malvern Conservation Area: Appraisal and Management Strategy (Malvern, Malvern Hill Development Council, 2008), 5–11. 44C.F. Grindrod, Malvern: What to See and Where to Go (Malvern: John Thompson, 1904). 46MHC, Ranger's Report Book (1884–1886), 9 January 1885. 45Malvern Hills Conservators (MHC), Committee (1884–1886), 6 March 1885. 47MHC, Committee (1886–1889), 24 June 1889; Assistant Ranger's Report Book (1905–1911), 9 July 1906. 48MHC, Minutes in Committee (1910–1919), 14 February 1910 and 12 February 1912. 49MHC, Ranger's Report Book (1905–1911), 13 July 1908. 50MHC, Ranger's Report Book (1911–1916), 8 July 1912. 51MHC, Ranger's Report Book (1911–1916), 13 October 1913. 52See, for example, MHC, Committee (1886–1889, 1889–1909), 20 August 1888, 11 October 1899, 13 February and 8 May 1901. 53MHC, Ranger's Report Book (1887–1891, 1891–1896), 7 May 1890, 10 May 1893. 54MHC, Minute Book of the Quarrying and Disfigurement of the Hills Committee (1907–1909). 55Hurle, Malvern Hills, 67–98. 57Defoe, Tour, vol. 1, 143; vol. 2, 176. 56J. Towner, A Historical Geography of Recreation and Tourism in the Western World, 1540–1940 (Chichester: John Wiley, 1996); E. Moir, The Discovery of Britain: The English Tourists 1540–1840 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964); I. Ousby, The Englishman's England: Taste, Travel and the Rise of Tourism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 58Harman, Culture of Nature; T. Williamson, Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995); Andrews, Search for the Picturesque. 59P. Borsay, A History of Leisure: The British Experience Since 1500 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 177–90. 61R. Mainwaring, Annals of Bath, from the Year 1800 to the Passing of the New Municipal Act (Bath: Meyler and Son, 1838), xxvi. 60 St James's Chronicle, 28–31 August 1790. I am indebted to Peter Clark for this reference.