Many Brighton hotels are today renowned for providing spa

and health facilities but it was the natural resouces of

the area that first inclined those seeking new therapies

to come to this part of Sussex. Since Roman times the

enjoyment of the natural warm waters at Bath had made

that town famous. In Georgian times Brighton was

to make a forceful challenge by rising up as a competitor

spa resort with a portfolio of good hotels.

This was the very beginning of good

health being  associated with a visit to Brighton.

Bathing in the sea at Brighton had not always been a fashionable

pastime. It came into vogue, not as a leisure activity, but

as a therapy, and with it came enormous paraphernalia.

Brighton began to offer an alternative to the warm spas and spring

waters that were widely held therapies for

so many of the ailments of the day.

Doctor Richard Russell (1687-1759) was a practising

physician in the nearby town of Lewes. He promoted

the benefits of consuming, and being immersed in,

seawater as a treatment for glandular disorders.

Most importantly Brighton seawater was local to

his practise and his patients were instructed to take

their ‘medicine’ in those waters. The growing

popularity of the cure made the doctor famous and

rich, in fact he was so successful that he bought a

home and practise, with direct access to the Brighton

shoreline. His patients would be diagnosed and

could go directly to the sea.

Jane Austen wrote in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ of the practise

of sea dipping. Along with sport and promenading it was

a routine activity for visiting members of high society.

It was a contrived and elaborate business that relied

upon the good temper of the sea. If the sea was rough,

and the waves high, it was dangerous to enter the water.

The procedure was well rehearsed. A bathing machine

was a horse drawn carriage, similar to the base of a

cowboy wagon topped by a garden shed. These vehicles

were parked along the shore waiting for a suitably gentle

tidal flow. At the appropriate time a bather would climb

the steps to the rear of the machine and enter the box.

A helper would then lead the horse and carriage to the sea

whilst the bather would change into a flannel swimming

costume. When the front end of the carriage reached the

sea level the horse would be taken away and curtain blinds

thrown open on either side of the seaward end to protect

the emerging bather from the gaze of onlookers. A dipper,

a competent strong local person already in the sea, would

then assist the bather to be safely immersed several times.

When the routine was finished the bather would climb back

into the carriage, dry off during the trip back up the beach,

and emerge fully dressed from the back of the carriage.