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Home » Bath

Tag Archives: Bath

1807 Healthful Dipping In Jane Austen Times. Lady in chemise preparing to dip in spa waters. #Underclothing #JaneAusten #RegencyFashion

Suzi Love Posted on September 15, 2024 by Suzi LoveSeptember 2, 2024

1807 Healthful Dipping. Lady in her white linen chemise, or shift, preparing to take a  dip in the spa waters. Scenes of Spa life. By F.  Eginton, New Bath Guide. ‘How the ladies did giggle and set up their clacks, All the while an old lady was rubbing their backs.’ From Anstey’s ‘The New Bath Guide’. In Jane Austen’s novels, the resorts of Brighton, Scarborough, Cromer, Lyme and the fictional Sandy ton or Sanditon all get mentions. Women bathed in the sea, via bathing machines pulled down to the water’s edge, or promenaded along beautiful walkways, such as in Cheltenham, near Bat in Britain. Visiting seaside resorts became very popular during the Regency years. Le Beau Monde, or fashionable society, went to spa and beach towns to ‘take the waters’ or to holiday in a fashionable town. To see and be seen. Ladies dressed in light muslin gowns but added colorful accessories to make outfits more interesting.

Chemise Or Shift: Sleeveless, mid-calf length garment of white cotton or muslin was worn next to the skin under stays or corset. Called ‘Shift’ from early Georgian (1700-1750) until Late Georgian (1750-1790) to replace ‘Smock’. By 1800, name replaced by ‘Chemise’.  

1807 Healthful Dipping. Lady in her white linen chemise, or shift, preparing to take a dip in the spa waters. Scenes of Spa life. By F. Eginton. New Bath Guide. How the ladies did giggle and set up their clacks, All the while an old lady was rubbing their backs. From Anstey’s 'The New Bath Guide'. Suzi Love - suzilove.com
1807 Healthful Dipping. Lady in her white linen chemise, or shift, preparing to take a dip in the spa waters. Scenes of Spa life. By F. Eginton. New Bath Guide. How the ladies did giggle and set up their clacks, All the while an old lady was rubbing their backs. From Anstey’s ‘The New Bath Guide’. Suzi Love – suzilove.com
1807 Healthful Dipping. Lady in chemise preparing to dip in spa waters. #Underclothing #JaneAusten #RegencyFashion #Cartoon. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1805-1809 Share on X
HN_26_D2D Fashion Women 1805-1809
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Fashion Women 1805-1809 History Notes Book 26 What did Jane Austen and friends wear? https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1805-1809
Posted in 1800s, 1800s women's fashion, cartoon, England, Jane Austen, London, Regency Era, Regency Fashion, Suzi Love Images, underclothing | Tagged 1800s women's fashion, Bath, Cartoons, chemise, google books, Jane Austen, Regency Fashion, Suzi Love Images, underclothing | Leave a reply

1826 Bath Beau and His Lady. From Regency Life Around England. #RegencyEra #Cartoon #England

Suzi Love Posted on September 20, 2023 by Suzi LoveAugust 20, 2023

1826 Bath Beau and His Lady. Photo Editing By Suzi Love. ~ suzilove.com
From: 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)

1826 The Dinner Party. A Regency Gentleman's Life. From The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank.
1826 The Dinner Party. A Regency Gentleman’s Life. From The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank.
1826 Bath Beau and His Lady. From Regency Life Around England. #RegencyEra #Cartoon #England https://books2read.com/suziloveROver Share on X
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Posted in 1800s, cartoon, Customs & Manners, England, household, London, Music, peerage, Regency Era, Suzi Love Images, weapons | Tagged 1800s women's fashion, Bath, Cartoons, Customs and Traditions, Dress Or Gown, England, fashion accessories, google books, Jane Austen, Regency Era, Regency Fashion, Regency Life, Regency Life Series, Regency London, Regency Men, Regency Women

18th-20th Centuries The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. #RegencyEra #Bath #BritishHistory

Suzi Love Posted on September 10, 2023 by Suzi LoveSeptember 10, 2023

The Assembly Rooms in Bath, UK. One of my favorite places to visit.

Bath had two assembly rooms in the lower part of the town but they weren’t large enough for the rapidly increasing population so on the 30th September, 1771, New Rooms were opened on the north east of the Circus, between Bennett and Alfred Streets. These Upper Rooms were designed by the architect, John Wood, and were in a better part of town so they became much more fashionable. They were called the New, or Upper Rooms, to distinguish them from the older Assembly Rooms in the lower part of the town.

They were a set of public rooms purpose-built for the 18th century form of entertainment called an ‘assembly‘, where a large number of people came together to dance, drink tea, play cards, listen to music, or parade around the rooms and talk and flirt. The four rooms are the Ball Room, the Tea Room or Concert Room, the Octagon Room, and a Card Room. The Upper Rooms held two balls a week, a dress ball on Monday evenings and a fancy ball on Thursdays during the Bath season which was from October to early June. These balls were so popular they attracted between 800 and 1,200 guests at a time.

John Wood raised the money for the New Rooms by a “tontine” subscription, which was like a lottery. By April 1769,  £14,000 was raised amongst 53 people. When a subscriber died, their shares were added to the holdings of the other subscribers, which meant that the last surviving subscriber inherited everything.

The exterior of the Upper Assembly Room looks typically Georgian, but the interior is very grand and the high ceilings gave good ventilation on crowded ball nights and windows set at a high level prevented outsiders from looking in. Two long rectangular rooms flank the entrance hall and are linked by an octagonal room at the far end to form a U-shape.

1798 Fancy Dress Ball at the Bath Assembly Rooms.' By Thomas Rowlandson.
1798 Fancy Dress Ball at the Bath Assembly Rooms.’ By Thomas Rowlandson.
Bath-Interior of Assembly Rooms, Bath.
Interior of Assembly Rooms, Bath.
Entrance to Assembly Rooms, Now Fashion Museum. Bath, U.K.
Entrance to Assembly Rooms, Now Fashion Museum. Bath, U.K.
Bath_Entrance to Assembly Rooms, Now Fashion Museum. Bath, U.K.
Entrance to Assembly Rooms, Now Fashion Museum. Bath, U.K.
Bath_1805 Interior of Concert Room, Bath. By John Claude Nattes 'Bath Illustrated by a Series of Views.' Via Suzi Love - suzilove.com & Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org
1805 Interior of Concert Room, Bath. By John Claude Nattes ‘Bath Illustrated by a Series of Views.’ Via Suzi Love – suzilove.com & Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org
Bath_1799 Richard Nash Esq. Master of Ceremonies, Assembly Rooms, Bath From- 1799 The New Bath Guide Printed by R. Cruttwell.
1799 Richard Nash Esq. Master of Ceremonies, Assembly Rooms, Bath From- 1799 The New Bath Guide Printed by R. Cruttwell.
Bath_1771 The New Assembly Rooms Opened, Between Bennet and Alfred streets, Bath, U.K. via Suzi Love - suzilove.com & 1835 The Historical and Local New Bath Guide Published By C. Duffield.
1771 The New Assembly Rooms Opened, Between Bennet and Alfred streets, Bath, U.K. via Suzi Love – suzilove.com & 1835 The Historical and Local New Bath Guide Published By C. Duffield.

The Assembly Rooms are lit by a set of nine chandeliers, made for the building in 1771. Jonathan Collett of London originally provided a set of five chandeliers for the Ball Room when it opened in September 1771. Shortly afterwards the arm of one of the chandeliers fell off – narrowly missing the artist, Thomas Gainsborough, who lived nearby at the time. The Ball Room chandeliers were taken down and a new set was ordered from William Parker of London. Parker had already supplied three chandeliers for the Tea Room. It was agreed that Jonathan Collett should salvage the rejected set of Ball Room chandeliers and make one large chandelier to hang in the Octagon Room. The chandeliers in the three rooms had an average height of eight feet and they were made of Whitefriars crystal from the Whitefriars Glassworks in London and were originally lit by candles. The Ball Room and Tea Room chandeliers each had 40 lights and the Octagon chandelier had 48 lights.

During the 19th century, they were fitted for gas and were later converted to electric light. At the start of the Second World War, the chandeliers were put into storage and escaped destruction when the Assembly Rooms were bombed in 1942. During the extensive refurbishment of the building in 1988-1991, the chandeliers were restored by R. Wilkinson & Sons of London. The Bath Season ran from October to June. As the Season spanned the winter months and many activities took place in the evening it was essential to provide good artificial lighting.

The ball room is the largest of the three main rooms and is over 105 feet long and 42 feet wide and 42 feet high. It runs the whole length of the north side of the building and covers two storeys. The paint is called Ballroom Blue and was first created by David Mlinaric in the 1970s from an original colour swatch. “It is a stroke of luck that the colour sample of blue paint is still attached to the 1770s minute book of the Assembly Rooms Furnishing Committee.” said Lucy Powell, Assistant Archivist at Bath Record Office, “The building was bombed in 1942 so traces of the paint would never have survived otherwise.”  From: Fashion Museum, Bath.

On the other side, the tea room is 70 feet long and 27 feet wide and all the rooms had huge chandeliers to give light. In 1777, a card room was added to the Octagonal Room. Before the Card Room was added, the Octagon Room became famous for card playing, the favorite leisure activity from the Georgian Era through to the Regency, as the Upper Rooms were open for card games every day except Sunday. The Octagon Room is dominated by Gainsborough’s portrait of the first Master of Ceremonies at the Upper Rooms, Captain William Wade. Bath’s most famous Master of Ceremonies, Richard “Beau” Nash, never knew this building as he died in 1761.

Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_Octagon Room, The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Ball Room Chandeliers.
Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. Chandeliers.
Bath_Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Bath_Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Bath_Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Bath_Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.
Regency Era Paintings, Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K.

The tea room was used for refreshments, with tea generally served weak and black or perhaps with arrack and lemon, and on Wednesday nights during the Season concerts were held there. Fashionable visitors to Bath could also hold breakfasts there for their friends.

Many famous people visited the Assembly Rooms in the 18th and 19th centuries. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens both mention the Assembly Rooms in their novels and the diarist, Francis Kilvert, described a reception there in 1873. Subscription concerts were popular and many well-known musicians also visited, the most distinguished being Joseph Haydn, Johann Strauss the Elder, and Franz Liszt.

Today, the Octagon Room, the Tea Room, and the Cloak room Landings all showcase beautiful paintings and prints as the Upper Rooms were given to the National Trust in 1931. You can see paintings by Thomas Gainsborough and John Simmons as well as an Original ticket to the Thirteenth Dress Ball at the Assembly Rooms, 24 January 1803.

 Since 1963, the Upper Assembly Rooms have also housed the amazing Fashion Museum. The building is owned by the National Trust and is leased by Bath & North East Somerset Council.

18th-20th Centuries The Assembly Rooms, Bath, U.K. #RegencyEra #Bath #BritishHistory books2read.com/suziloveROver Share on X
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Posted in 1700s, 1800s, art, Bath, Bridgerton, cartoon, Jane Austen, Regency Era, Suzi Love Images | Tagged 1700s Or Georgian Era, 1800s Or 19th Century, architecture, art, Bath, Cartoons, Customs and Traditions, dancing, England, Jane Austen, music, Regency Era, Regency Life, Regency People | Leave a reply

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