Here’s a nautical post to recall warmer times, in this cold weather. We spent some happy hours at the English seaside last summer. We idled away a few pleasant afternoons on two of the country’s remaining coastal piers – at Southend in Essex and Southwold in Suffolk.
Piers came into their own in Victorian times of course. The new railway network opened up the coast to the recently industrialised workforce. Factories closed in summer for essential maintenance. So, the compulsory summer breaks resulted in train-loads of factory workers arriving at the developing seaside resorts, such as Blackpool, Cleethorpes or Rhyll, for their fortnight holidays.
The newly-emerging middle classes, with money to spend, flocked to more genteel resorts like Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs. And their piers and promenades offered holiday-makers the chance to have a bit of exercise and fun, and to see and be seen.
Seawater for health
You might reasonably assume that the great British seaside holiday originated with the Victorians. Not so, actually. It was their predecessors, the Georgians, who first embraced the delights of the seaside. The Georgian period – officially from 1714, with the accession of German George I, up to 1837, when his great-great-great granddaughter Victoria ascended the throne – triggered the expansion of our well-known resorts. But the driving force for their visits wasn’t for frivolous fun and games. They visited for their health and well-being,
The Georgians were fervent believers in the health-giving properties of seawater: of any water, in fact. Hydrotherapy was a wildly popular treatment for a variety of complaints both mental and physical. Water was used in all manner of ingenious ways. In pursuit of a cure, you bathed in it, sat in it, had it sprayed at you under pressure, and in extreme circumstances, you drank the stuff.
Georgian doctors admired the work of Belgian chemist Jean Baptiste Van Helmont, whose Ortus Medicinae of 1667 recommended, amongst other treatments, the total immersion of a deranged patient in ice cold water, until they reached unconsciousness. Such treatment, he stated, would kill the madness which fuelled the patient’s illness. (How many of his patients actually died of the treatment rather than the illness? That’s hard to ascertain).
Evils of mankind
British doctors followed suit, with immersive water treatments to cure all manner of maladies. They used water to treat what we’d now term mental illness. And it was employed for every physical malady going, from consumption to obesity. What’s more, if fresh water from wells and spas was good, why, salty sea water was even better!
Dr. Richard Russell, of Lewes in Sussex observed that locals, living around the neighbouring Sussex seaside area of Brighthelmston, often drank seawater to cure abdominal complaints. In 1752, Russell published his masterwork:
“A Dissertation on the Use of Sea-Water in the Diseases of the Glands. Particularly the Scurvy, Jaundice, King’s Evil, Leprosy, and the Glandular Consumption” :
In his own words, “the sea washes away all the evils of mankind”.
Down to Margate
There are clues to this watery obsession scattered around the English seaside. Those remnants are what this particular Wren Hunt is about. It’s a fun game for the holidaying history sleuth to pick out the Georgian artefacts from the far more common Victorian ones.
Let’s start with the Royal See Bathing Hospital at Margate. Inevitably, it’s now been converted into private accommodation. But when built in 1791 – firmly in the Georgian era – its original title set out its stall: The Margate Infirmary for the Relief of the Poor whose Diseases require sea bathing. The hospital specialised in treating scrofula, known then as “the king’s evil”. We now recognise it as a form of tuberculosis.
But how were the poor – and the not so poor – to actually immerse themselves in seawater, to benefit from its health-enhancing properties? Modesty would impede the wild abandon you witness on English beaches today, when you slide into your cozzie, barely hiding behind a strategically placed towel.
Sea machines
Enter the bathing machine. Although “machine” is probably too fine a word to use, for what was essentially a wooden hut on wheels. After paying a fee, you entered the wagon, and undressed in privacy. You changed into a muslin shift, if you were female, assisted by a lady attendant called a “dipper”. Men tended to bathe nude. The machine was then trundled down to the sea’s edge, often being pulled by horses. The bather emerged from the sea-facing end and took the plunge.
Bathing machines allowed women to enjoy the health benefits of sea bathing, with a degree of modesty. Mind you, many young males took any opportunity to cop a sly glance at the scantily-clad members of the opposite sex cavorting in the water. The cartoons of the day reflect the highly-charged atmosphere. And what a febrile atmosphere it must have been: sea, sun and an absence of clothing, in an age of relative up-tightedness!
You can still see replicas of these contraptions – or in some cases, the real thing – scattered around the English seaside. There’s this wonderful renovated machine at Weymouth in Dorset. It’s the bathing machine used by George III and his family, on their annual visits to the resort. Apparently, similar machine would be tethered next door, sheltering a band. Every time the king plunged into the sea, the band would strike up a version of “God Save the King”.
George loved Weymouth, and the town loved him back. Regular royal visits bought prosperity to the town. As you may recall from an earlier post, the town even sports a carved chalk figure of the king on horseback.
A dip in the pool
At Ilfracombe, along the north Devon coast, there’s another late-Georgian wonder. Two bathing pools lie, built under the cliffs, replenished naturally with fresh sea water at high tide. The pools were lined with limed mortar and boulders, to stop the water draining away between tides.
But how to access the pools, with a massive cliff between town and beach? The answer was a series of tunnels through the cliff face, built over two years by a team of Welsh miners. You can explore some of those tunnels and the two pools today, for a very modest fee.
Once you emerged from the tunnels, there were the pools, one for ladies and one for gentlemen. To preserve decorum, an “overlooker” patrolled between the two. He blew a bugle if he happened to spot a male attempting to spy on the bathing ladies. This would lead to the immediate arrest of the culprit! Segregated bathing in the pools only ended in 1905.
When we visited the pools on an overcast October day a few years ago, I was coerced into taking a dip in the larger of the two pools. Yes, included in your entrance fee, is the chance to swim in them. Following the literally breath-taking shock, after plunging in, I certainly began to feel the health benefits of cold water sea bathing – especially once I came out of the water!
The smaller pool was closed when we visited, being repaired to plug leaks. The attendant told us that previous repair attempts with modern materials had failed. It was only when the engineers resorted to the original methods and materials used by those Georgian pioneers, that the repairs held.
For the love of Ada
The rich did things in their own way. You may have heard of the mathematician, Ada, Countess Lovelace, born 1815, and the daughter of Lord Byron. With Charles Babbage she developed the “analytical engine”, an early form of mechanical computer. (The modern computer language ADA is named in her honour).
Her husband’s country estate was at Porlock, on the north Devon coast. He built a bath house on the beach below the grounds, to allow her to change in privacy, before taking the sea-water cure for her ailing health.
On a windy autumn day a few years ago, we picked our way across the stony beach to visit it. The hard going over rocky terrain left you in no doubt: the purpose of the descent to the beach and the sea was for the benefit of your health, not for light watery entertainment.
Brighton breezy
As time progressed, frivolity and entertainment crept into the worthy medical aims of seaside visiting. Resorts such as Margate and Brighton started to develop diversions for the rich folk who visited the resorts for their health.
You might recall “Prinny”: George IV, the Prince Regent. In a previous post, I mentioned Beau Brummel, the famous Regency fashion pioneer, who pointedly, and loudly, asking a crony of the prince, “who’s your fat friend”?
Prinny spent a lot of time at the emerging health resort of Brighthelmston in Sussex, as feted by the good Dr. Russell. The prince came primarily for his health and to reduce his weight, but couldn’t resist indulging his tastes for naughtiness, frivolity and decadence. And so in the 1780s, he built the utterly bonkers Royal Pavilion, in the racy Georgian town of Brighthelmstone, now of course renamed Brighton.
Health visits to the seaside by royalty helped these coastal resorts become very fashionable. Of course, as mentioned, much earlier than Prinny’s visits to Brighton, his father – the third George, who lost the American colonies – would regularly visit Weymouth with his children to bathe in the sea, using those newfangled bathing machines.
Hamlet into a City
And Prinny’s much-hated wife, poor princess Caroline of Brunswick, probably in an effort to avoid her husband in Brighton, would visit a small hamlet on the Thames estuary to bathe. That hamlet is now a city, called Southend-on-Sea. She stayed at the Royal Hotel, overlooking the seafront. This lovely Georgian building is still open for guests.
Another famous resident stayed at the hotel during the same period. This was Lord Nelson along with his paramour, Lady Hamilton, although whether there for their health or for a discrete assignation away, is not recorded.
As time moved on from the Georgians to their Victorian offspring, the seaside came into its own as a place for enjoyment, as well as to improve health. And so we enter the era of the pier- along with the promenade, the esplanade and the pleasure gardens, much easier spotting for the history sleuth. These facilities were enjoyed by the fashionable arriving in their carriages, as well as the working classes, arriving on those new innovations, the railway and the steamer.
High tide and low tide
More essentially, piers were vital for resorts with wide tidal ranges. Pleasure steamers from nearby cities used the piers to disembark their day-trippers, whatever the height of the tide. (Craft today still employ these old pier slipways. Last summer I walked down such an example on Southend pier, to board a boat to view the Maunsell forts in the Thames Estuary).
Southend pier – and its original slipways – was built in 1830, out of commercial competition. The businessmen of the town were alarmed that the rival resort of Margate across the river had started to run pleasure steamers to and from London. Southend couldn’t do the same, because there was nowhere for steamers to disembark when the tide was low. In fact, earlier travellers to Southend by boat were carried to shore on the backs of fisherman, at low tides.
Modern Southend visitors will know just how far is the trudge to reach the water’s edge. When the tide’s out, it can take over an hour. And so, back in 1830, the money was raised and the pier was built. It’s the longest in the world- because it had to be, to reach the water.
At the end of the pier
Other resorts followed suit, and vied with each other to offer the Victorian holiday-maker entertainment and leisure. Some piers had amusements on them – I seem to recall “dodgems” on Clacton pier, as a kid. Others, like Cromer and Blackpool, even had theatres, of which half a dozen remain.
In all, there’s around 50 piers left around the coast of the UK, half of the number completed in the Victorian era. The National Piers Society was founded by John Betjeman. Its current patrons Giles Brandreth and Joan Bakewell encourage well-wishers to take an interest in those that remain. It even awards a “Pier of the Year’ award. (Bangor pier won in 2022). You can sign up for their weekly newsletter at piers.org.uk.
Thames Water
Even though the focus of seaside trips moved from their medicinal benefits to fun in the sun, the Victorians continued to believe in the effectiveness of seawater bathing on wellbeing. In the 1870s, a portable pool was erected in the Thames at Charing Cross. It was filled with filtered seawater, and the quality was promoted as “clear and green, as at Ramsgate or Margate”.
It didn’t last long though. With the expansion of the railways and pleasure steamers, it was too easy to hop on a train and sample the delights of the real thing, at Southend or indeed Ramsgate or Margate themselves.
We’ll end our journey on the pier at Southwold, in Suffolk. It was originally built in 1900, to accommodate pleasure steamers travelling up from London Bridge. It’s a delightful place to spend a seaside afternoon, with cafes and shops, benches, and ice creams. There’s a collection of restored “automata”, which replicate the machines which fascinated our Victorian ancestors. Who could resist taking out their frustrations on the “Whack a Banker” machine?
Or how about renting a very friendly dog to walk?
And, rather than waiting for that elusive NHS appointment, why not try the services of this always-available doctor?
Hiding in Plain Sight
Of course, there’s plenty of relics around to evidence the Victorian’s love of the seaside. It’s easy to tick off the piers and the proms and the funiculars, the esplanades and the pleasure gardens. But the earlier artefacts of the Georgians take a bit more effort to uncover. Their buildings give the best clues. Look for the hospitals, the spas, the bathing rooms. Or the hotels (often with the tell-tale wrought iron railings beloved of the Georgians).
Once you get your eye in, you’ll find them spotted around our coast, often overshadowed by their louder, more garish Victorian neighbours. Happy hunting!
