Module Information

The module is introduced by placing the development of the spa and seaside resort within the broad context of social change and urbanization in the long eighteenth century. The sessions in the module are then organized on a thematic basis; the built environment (which has been the subject of a good deal of research by planning and architectural historians), health and leisure, society, gender, and culture and nature. In exploring these themes there will be an emphasis upon the polarities and tensions in spa and seaside life, and the way that this offers a window on the character of Georgian society as a whole. The module ends with an examination of how watering-places were represented, both at the time and subsequently, in a range of literary and visual texts. The nature and variety of the source material deployed in the module will allow an interdisciplinary approach to study.

During the long eighteenth century Britain was undergoing rapid economic and urban growth. Rising levels of wealth generated demands for novel fashionable health treatments and forms of leisure, and this in its turn gave rise to what were effectively new types of urban settlement, the spa and seaside resort. Both were innovatory forms and provided models of urban planning and culture that were to spread throughout Europe and the world. The interrelationship between the spa and seaside resort, and the role of the watering-place in the process of urbanization, will be particular features of this module, and will locate students at the cutting edge of research in this field.