Swanley History Group – April 2018 meeting
Following a cold and miserable Easter weekend, our members and visitors appreciated the opportunity at our April meeting to rediscover the joys of fondly remembered childhood visits to our Kent seaside resorts.
Our knowledgeable speaker, Mike Bundock, provided an excellent selection of paintings, postcards, posters and photographs to illustrate his talk, giving a vivid impression of trips to the seaside from the earliest days onwards.
It all started with visits to thermal springs, beloved of the Romans. Therapeutic benefits of spring water had a revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, attracting people from the middle classes and aristocracy to sample the treatments at famous ‘spa towns’ – such as Celia Fiennes who travelled throughout England on her black horse in the 1700’s, recounting her visits in her travel memoirs.
A canny lass from Yorkshire, Thomasin Farrer, appears to have initiated the first seaside resort in Scarborough in the 1700’s, after she discovered a spring in the cliffs and profitably promoted the benefits of both the spring and cold sea bathing. Other seaside resorts followed including Brighton, famously patronised by The Prince Regent.
Resorts in Kent - Herne Bay, Westgate, Margate, Cliftonville, Broadstairs and Ramsgate - soon became popular, due to the relative proximity to London. Even so the journeys were long and complicated. In 1816 it took five hours to come by paddle steamer. Horse drawn coaches to Margate took twelve hours and included a change in Canterbury and some visitors came by ‘hoy’, a commercial sailing boat which took between twelve to forty eight hours, depending on the tides and did not have any facilities! In 1830 visitors could take the railway from Canterbury to Whitstable and other routes followed. The towns and the railway companies worked together to advertise the resorts with posters which are now very collectable and later these towns were promoted as healthy places to live.
With visitors came the need for accommodation and entertainment on the piers and in the towns and eating and drinking establishments. The commanding Royal Pavilion in Ramsgate is now the largest Wetherspoon’s in the country. Margate’s Dreamland is one hundred years old. Westgate was known for boarding schools and gentility.
In the early days modesty prevailed – only the lower classes were apparently happy to bathe in the nude. We enjoyed illustrations and photographs showing women preparing to bathe in crinolines and men in stripy one pieces. Bathing machines – looking very much like garden sheds on wheels – were towed into the sea by horses then hefty ‘dippers’ would dunk their customers in the sea. Cantilevered ‘modesty hoods’ were the invention of Benjamin Beale of Margate. Lots of clothes were still being worn in the 1920’s and beyond - bronzed skin was seen only on the labouring classes and rough types!
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser
Following a cold and miserable Easter weekend, our members and visitors appreciated the opportunity at our April meeting to rediscover the joys of fondly remembered childhood visits to our Kent seaside resorts.
Our knowledgeable speaker, Mike Bundock, provided an excellent selection of paintings, postcards, posters and photographs to illustrate his talk, giving a vivid impression of trips to the seaside from the earliest days onwards.
It all started with visits to thermal springs, beloved of the Romans. Therapeutic benefits of spring water had a revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, attracting people from the middle classes and aristocracy to sample the treatments at famous ‘spa towns’ – such as Celia Fiennes who travelled throughout England on her black horse in the 1700’s, recounting her visits in her travel memoirs.
A canny lass from Yorkshire, Thomasin Farrer, appears to have initiated the first seaside resort in Scarborough in the 1700’s, after she discovered a spring in the cliffs and profitably promoted the benefits of both the spring and cold sea bathing. Other seaside resorts followed including Brighton, famously patronised by The Prince Regent.
Resorts in Kent - Herne Bay, Westgate, Margate, Cliftonville, Broadstairs and Ramsgate - soon became popular, due to the relative proximity to London. Even so the journeys were long and complicated. In 1816 it took five hours to come by paddle steamer. Horse drawn coaches to Margate took twelve hours and included a change in Canterbury and some visitors came by ‘hoy’, a commercial sailing boat which took between twelve to forty eight hours, depending on the tides and did not have any facilities! In 1830 visitors could take the railway from Canterbury to Whitstable and other routes followed. The towns and the railway companies worked together to advertise the resorts with posters which are now very collectable and later these towns were promoted as healthy places to live.
With visitors came the need for accommodation and entertainment on the piers and in the towns and eating and drinking establishments. The commanding Royal Pavilion in Ramsgate is now the largest Wetherspoon’s in the country. Margate’s Dreamland is one hundred years old. Westgate was known for boarding schools and gentility.
In the early days modesty prevailed – only the lower classes were apparently happy to bathe in the nude. We enjoyed illustrations and photographs showing women preparing to bathe in crinolines and men in stripy one pieces. Bathing machines – looking very much like garden sheds on wheels – were towed into the sea by horses then hefty ‘dippers’ would dunk their customers in the sea. Cantilevered ‘modesty hoods’ were the invention of Benjamin Beale of Margate. Lots of clothes were still being worn in the 1920’s and beyond - bronzed skin was seen only on the labouring classes and rough types!
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser