Do you think these bath machines contributed to the development of seaside excursions?
Kathlyn Glover
2025-05-30 11:21:23
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It’s interesting to note that until the Renaissance, bathing in the sea was not popular. When it was discovered that bathing in the sea had health benefits, it became more popular. By the early 18th century, small British seaside towns were becoming popular as people travelled there to seek “the cure” –both by drinking sea water and bathing in it. Popular seaside resorts at the time included Brighton, Ramsgate, Margate and Scarborough. In the beginning, these resorts were visited for medicinal and therapeutic purposes, but later the towns became centres for leisure, entertainment and gambling. The Victorians solved the problem of bathing in the sea by inventing the bathing machine. This was basically a hut on wheels that could be pulled into the water, and the bather could then enter the water from the side not facing the shore and bathe in privacy. Even then, bathers ensured they were well covered.
Faustino Raynor
2025-05-24 06:00:05
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Beach Trips
By the 1860s, railway companies were offering cheap excursions to many seaside destinations on Sundays and at holiday times such as Easter and Whitsun.
In 1862, 132,000 visitors arrived in Brighton in one day.
Its population at the time was less than 80,000.
Swimming at the beach
Before the Victorian era, men and women swam separately.
Most people used bathing machines or carts.
These were first used in the middle of the 18th century and looked like small horse-drawn caravans.
The bather walked up the steps to get changed inside while the horse pulled the cart into the water.
The bather could then enter the water without being seen.
Sometimes chains were used instead of a horse to drag the cart into the sea.
If you couldn’t swim, you might be accompanied by a ‘dipper’, someone to help you into the water.
Jessica Pagac
2025-05-14 15:15:24
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The wooden carts with two doors on either sides allowed bathers to change out of their clothes and into their bathing suits without having to be seen by the opposite sex walking across the beach in ‘improper clothing’. The four-wheeled box would be rolled out to sea, usually by horse or sometimes human power and hauled back in when the beachgoer signalled to the driver by raising a small flag attached to the roof. Bathing machines began popping up around the 1750s when swimwear hadn’t yet been invented and most people still swam naked. At their most popular, bathing machines lined the beaches of Britain and parts of the British Empire, as well as France, Germany, the United States and Mexico. When legal segregation of bathing areas in Britain ended in 1901 and it finally became acceptable for both genders to bathe together, it was the beginning of the end for the bathing machine. By the the 1920s, they were almost entirely extinct, only finding use catering to an elderly clientele. Some of the bathing machines have indeed survived to this day as beach huts. Those adorably photogenic and colourful little beach houses? They’re direct successors of the Georgian bathing machine! When they were no longer needed for being carted out to sea, many were simply stripped of their wheels and plonked permanently back on the beach– a little-known reminder of eccentric seaside history.
Willard Gleason
2025-05-04 17:52:48
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Ranging from piers to pavilions and bathing pools to beach huts these colourful historic assets reflect almost 300 years of seaside holidays and are still welcoming millions of visitors each year.
In 2007 English Heritage’s England's Seaside Resorts, described the architectural development of these distinctive settlements.
Our research at Weston-super-Mare has been focused on informing heritage-led regeneration as part of the now completed Heritage Action Zone project there and an ongoing High Street Heritage Action Zone.
Once a relaxing place to promenade and look out to sea, it is now a busy thoroughfare of competing interests, the pursuits of holidaymaking co-existing with these towns’ everyday life and sometimes the local industries that predated tourism.
The seafront may also serve as a town’s public park, a space for celebration and commemoration.
A book written by Historic England’s tourism history expert Allan Brodie features over 150 aerial photographs of England’s best-loved seaside resorts.
The images were taken between the 1920s and the 1950s, when England’s coastal destinations were nearing the peak of their popularity.
Read also
- What is the history of the bathing machine?
- What is the history of beach huts?
- What is the history of the Brighton Beach Huts?
- What is the history of sea bathing?
- What are the bathing machines in the Regency era?
- What is the history of the bath pump rooms?
- What was the beach house called before?
- When was the Brighton Baths built?
- What is the history of Bath Beach?
- Why do people shower after swimming in the ocean?
- How often did people bathe in Regency times?
- Did they drink water in the Regency era?
- How did the Bath houses work?
- Can you drink the water in the pump room Bath?
- Can you bathe in ocean water?
- How did Beach House start?
- What is the history of the Westover Hall Hotel?
- When was New Brighton baths built?