Brighton A Royal Bathroom and Bath House by Rosemary Morris

To find out more about Rosemary's work please click on the cover above.

History inspires, fascinates and triggers my imagination, so it is a pleasure to share a fraction of my research for my new novel Saturday’s Child, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week, Book Seven.

During the summer months, when London was usually hot and malodourous many people considered it detrimental to their health. After Parliament rose in June, they retired either to their estates in the country or a seaside resort. A popular choice was Brighton, only fifty miles from London. There the Prince of Wales, subsequently the Prince Regent, entertained on a grand scale at his Pavilion, which resembled an oriental palace. Members of the bon ton followed the pleasure-loving prince to Brighton where he enjoyed gambling, riding on the downs, shooting, the theatre and other pastimes. Another attraction was the belief that bathing in sea water and drinking brine could cure anything from – for example – corns to serious diseases.

I assume the Prince Regent, who succeeded as George 1V in 1820, believed sea water was beneficial. His bathroom at the Royal Pavilion was supplied with fresh and sea water, contained a vapour bath, a warm bath, a shower bath, a douche bath and a large plunge pool. Sea water was pumped into a tank in the garden and heated by a boiler for the king to have therapeutic baths.

Few could afford a bathroom as luxurious as the king’s, but bath houses existed either for people too elderly, infirm or shy to bathe in the sea or when there were storms. The first bath house commissioned in Brighton by Dr John Awister was built at the south end of the Steyne. In 1803 the rectangular building with a Neo-Classical façade contained two cold baths, four hot baths and a shower bath which were supplied with sea water.

In 1823 Gilburd’s Baths attached to The New Steyne Hotel is listed by William Scott. At every high tide sea water was pumped by a steam engine through a chalk tunnel. Clients could have hot or cold plunging baths, vapour baths etc. Scott also listed the luxurious oriental Mohamed’s Baths.

Undoubtedly, the patrons at many seaside resorts enjoyed the facilities but, unfortunately, the water was not purified so they were at risk of infection; and it is not known how effective bathing in the sea, in baths and drinking salt-water was.

Classical Historical Fiction by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books One to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Bathing in the Sea during the Regency Period by Rosemary Morris

To learn more about Rosemary's work please click on the cover above.

Mermaids at Brighton swim behind their bathing machines. William Heath 1829.

18th Century to the 19th Century. In the 1730’s few people either bathed in the sea or visited the coast, where each of three towns Scarborough, Margate and Brighton, claimed to be the first seaside resort. By the 1750’s resorts developed in locations within easy reach of the capital and large cities. When sea bathing first became popular the advice was against swimming either after exercise or during warm weather when the pores of the skin were open. Members of the medical profession considered cold water during winter to be best. They advised bathers to swim before 10 a.m. to provide a good start to the day. By 1800 most people preferred to swim early in the morning, but some swam for pleasure all day in every season.

Bathers At first men and women bathed in the same areas but they were soon segregated. In Brighton ladies bathed to the east of the beach and gentlemen to the west.
However, in Bognor, nude bathing was not banned until 1868, and in 1882 byelaws were passed to ensure bathing machines were used to undress in.

Bathing Machines and Dippers. Those, who did not know how to swim but wanted to take advantage of the health benefits of sea bathing, took advantage of bathing machines attended by dippers who dunked their clients in the sea. The bathing machines were wooden huts on large wheels which the dippers or horses pulled in and out of the sea. Female dippers wore gowns with full skirts and hats. In Brighton, the setting for my new novel, Saturday’s Child, Mrs Martha Gunn dipped the Prince Regent and in Southend Mrs Glascock and Mrs Myall dipped Princess Charlotte. For some ladies being dunked was a frightening experience., for example, the novelist, Fanny Burney thought she would never recover.

Jane Austen at Lyme Regis. On the 14h September, 1804, in Jane Austen’s letter to her sister Casandra she wrote. “The bathing was so delightful this morning and Molly so pressing me to enjoy myself that I believe I staid (sic) in rather too long.”

Classic Historical Fiction by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books one to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk http://bookswelove.n1et/authors/morris-rosemary

Brighton A Famous English Seaside Resort by Rosemary Morris

For more information on Rosemary's latest novel please click on the cover.

Photo Credit Brighton-royal-pavilion-Qmin Creeative Commons

I am enjoying the research for my next novel, Saturday’s Child, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week, Book Six, set in Regency Brighton, so much that I have shared some of the facts in this brief blog, which I hope you will enjoy.
The assumption that until the Regency era, Brighthelmstone, later called Brighton, was a small fishing village is false. The town became a popular health resort in the 1750’s due to the belief that bathing in the sea and drinking brine cured every ailment. (A subject I blogged about last month.)
When the twenty-one-year old heir to the throne first visited Brighton to enjoy merry-making, it was already a centre of fashionable, somewhat louche society. Nevertheless, in 1811 when the population numbered 14,000 residents, crime was negligible, and doors were not locked at night.
Fashionable Regency Brighton boasted elegant houses on the north side of Marine Parade, which was parallel to the ocean, facilities for bathing, assembly rooms, a theatre, shops, libraries, and the future Prince Regent’s ground where the nobility played cricket.
Parliament rose in June, after which the heat in London became intolerable and the capital city was considered unhealthy. Families retreated to their estates in the country or to a seaside resort along improved roads that shortened their journeys.
Those who did not own a house in Brighton could lease one, stay in clean, comfortable hotels, boarding houses or lodgings, which replaced accommodation in previously dirty, overcrowded inns.
An illustrious visitor was the future King George IV. The twenty-one-year-old Prince, later the Prince Regent, first came to Brighton to escape from his father’s rigid control and the court’s formality. In 1785 he rented a farmhouse situated by the River Steine, on a site only six hundred yards from the sea. Subsequently he bought the property. During the next thirty years the modest building was transformed into The Royal Pavilion which has been restored and is open to the public.
The Prince Regent knew more about architecture and fine arts than any other European Prince. He put his knowledge to good use when he commissioned the building. Yet, because of its domes and pagodas Sidney Smith commented that it looked ‘as if St Paul’s had gone to sea and pupped’. The Royal Pavilion became a Chinese fantasy with paintings of emperors and empresses, mandarins and high-born ladies on the walls, tasselled canopies with bells overhead and a profusion of imperial five-clawed dragons. As well the magnificent décor, the prince installed bathrooms, gas lighting, an early type of central heating, and the most up to date kitchen gadgets. He was so proud of these that he often took his friends to the kitchen to admire them.
Brighton is still a popular seaside town and a visit to The Royal Pavilion is a worthwhile experience.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books one to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

The Sea Kill or Cure by Rosemary Morris

To explore more of Rosemary's work please click on the cover.

In September 1804, Jane Austen, wrote to her sister, Cassandra, from Weymouth, “I continue quite well in proof of which I have bathed again this morning.”
Dr Richard Russell had developed the ‘sea water’ cure and made swimming in the sea and drinking the water fashionable. The doctor’s description of the sea was ‘a vast medicated bath’ which patients could benefit from.
In 1783 when the Prince of Wales was twenty-one, he visited Brighthelmstone, later called Brighton, and from then on visited the seaside resort every year. Society followed the pleasure-loving prince to the seaside where they enjoyed sea-air and swam.
Clean sea-air provided relief from smoke from coal fires which polluted cities. Due to poor diet deficient in fruit and vegetables and lack of personal hygiene, chronic constipation, gout, skin diseases, and other health problems were rife. Drinking sea water either killed, cured or had no effect on patients.
In my novel Friday’s Child, the heroine, Lady Margaret declares the spa water in Cheltenham tastes disgusting. However, for hundreds of years, drinking the waters had purged those who drank them, and in Dr Robert Wittie’s pamphlet published in 1667 he also mentioned the benefits derived from sea water.
Spa water was bottled and sold. Subsequently sea water, to which crabs’ eyes, tar and sponges were sometimes added, was bottled and marketed. Mixed with milk, patients drank a lot.
As a child I shuddered when my mother dosed me with milk of magnesia but, looking back, I would prefer her noxious medicine to that sea water and its additives. I doubt even spoonful of sugar would have helped me to swallow the foul-tasting medicine.
In my novel Wednesday’s Child, Amelia, the heroine protests when Dr Cray breaks the news that her grandmother is suffering from a fatal tumour in her stomach. Amelia protests. “But, before you examined my grandmother, on Doctor Sutton’s instructions she has been bled, blistered and purged, besides drinking seawater with roasted crabs’ eyes, and bathing in the sea, all of which he assured us would cure her.”
In common with the fictional characters, Cray and Sutton, many doctors in seaside towns made their fortunes from those seeking cures.
At the thought of drinking sea water every day, I am grateful for conventional treatment and after reading this I am sure you will agree.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books one to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child and Thursday’s Child. Friday’s Child. (The novels are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary