The Chalybeate Spring
N 51° 07.601 E 000° 15.549
31U E 308215 N 5667485
This is The Bath House built around the Chalybeate Spring located in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent UK
Waymark Code: WM14G
Location: United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/08/2005
Views: 56
In Georgian times particularly, Tunbridge Wells became a well-known and popular spa resort, a rival to nearby Brighton. Its visitors alternated between Bath for the summer season and Tunbridge Wells for the winter season. The lively social scene in Tunbridge Wells was famously organised by the dandy, Richard Beau Nash who also divided his time between Tunbridge Wells and Bath and made sure that residents and visitors alike adhered to the 'rules' of social behaviour.
Victorian Tunbridge Wells
In the early 1800s Tunbridge Wells became a very desirable place for rich business and professional people not just for a holiday but also in which to live. A great deal of building was undertaken to the north of the small spa as large villas and family houses were built - many of them by the architect Decimus Burton. Evidence of this grand period of new architecture in Tunbridge Wells still survives today.
King Edward VII officially recognised the popularity of Tunbridge Wells with its many royal and aristocratic visitors over the centuries by granting the town its "Royal" prefix. In 1909 the town became known, as it is to this day, as Royal Tunbridge Wells, one of only two towns in England to be granted this title. The picture is of the Bath house as it was known then but now tourist attraction of the Chalybeate Spring discovered in 1606 upon which the house was built to provide warm vapour and shower baths.
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