Tunbridge Wells is not on the direct road to Hastings, but it gave so distinctive a feature to the first half of the road, and lies so near at hand, that it will simply not be disregarded.
XXV
The father of Tunbridge Wells was Dudley, Lord North, a dissolute young nobleman, who in 1605 “fell into a consumption,” and was advised by his doctors to try the country air and that remedy at the present moment so much talked of but little practised, unless empty pockets and the lack of credit compel—the “simple life.”
Suffering from “the pleasures of town,” as to whose nature we need not inquire too closely lest we be shocked, my lord resorted to Eridge, on a visit to Lord Abergavenny. But the bracing air did him little good, and he was returning, despondent, to London in his carriage across the then lonely woods and heaths, when he noticed a pool of water by the way, covered with a slimy mineral scum. The idea occurred to him that here was his remedy. He drank of the water, felt better, and returned as soon as possible, to drink again and be well. He clearly did not deserve his good fortune, for he had no sooner recovered his tone than he “again gave himself up to all the gallantries of the age.” But medicinal waters—fortunately—make no discrimination between the deserving and others, and so, by carefully alternating his debaucheries with spells of fresh air and “taking the waters,” Lord North lived to the age of eighty-five, and died in 1666, an example to his fellows of how much you can dare and do if only you do and dare with discretion.
He published a work to show the advantages of the place to his brother libertines, and in this curious book, entitled “A Forest Promiscuous of Several Seasons’ Production,” he in this manner claims their discovery: “The use of Tunbridge and Epsom waters for health and cure I first made known to London and the King’s people. The Spaw,” that is, the Spa in Belgium, “is a chargeable and inconvenient journey to sick bodies, besides the money it carries out of the kingdom and inconvenience to religion. Much more I could say, but I rather hint than handle—rather open the door to a large prospect than give it.”
Already, in 1630, twenty-four years after his discovery, he had seen the place stamped with the approval of royalty, when Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles the First, stayed six weeks here under canvas. It was then quite uncertain what name would find favour among all those proposed for it. “Queen’s Wells” was suggested, “Frant Wells,” “Speldhurst Wells”; but the circumstances of travel finally resolved the choice. Visitors from London not only approached the health-giving springs by way of Tonbridge, but were originally, in the absolute lack of accommodation, obliged to lodge in that town, nearly six miles distant. Thus the springs, by dint of association, became “Tunbridge Wells,” the spot being actually in the three separate parishes of Speldhurst, Frant, and Tonbridge.
That famous promenade afterwards known as the Pantiles was first made in 1638, when the sloping side of a meadow was levelled and embanked to afford a recreative walk for those who took the waters. Two buildings only stood on the spot, the Ladies’ and the Gentlemen’s Coffee-houses. Things remained very much the same through the long years of the Commonwealth. The “wells” were not deserted, for there were ailing bodies even among the elect; but the coffee-houses were not so gay, and the religious cast that came over the scene was reflected in the names then first given to the encircling hills. The Puritans named them after some fancied resemblance to Jerusalem, and thus Mount Ephraim and Mount Sion were christened, and the neighbouring Calverley is in like manner supposed to derive from “Calvary.”
With the Restoration “the happy springs of Tonbridge” began to grow merry again, and the card-playing, the dicing, the dancing that were all ended under Puritan rule grew again furious. There was still no town, and the men and women of fashion who did not choose to lodge at Tonbridge had to find rustic accommodation in the cottages of Speldhurst. Presently wooden huts on wheels appeared on the common, and were moved from place to place, as the fancy of the fashionables, playing at rustics, dictated.
To add to the Arcadian delights of that most primitive and pleasant period in the existence of Tunbridge Wells, a daily fair went forward at the spring-head. Rosy-cheeked farmers’ daughters brought chickens, cherries, and cream and sold them with great profit to town gallants, much too taken with the unspoiled graces of those rustic beauties to be able to drive bargains; and soon a bazaar became established under the trees, where milliners designed “rustic” dresses at town prices for ruralising London fair ladies. You might lose or win a fortune at basset under those innocent trees, and wind up the summer evening with open-air dances on the green. It was the “open-air life,” if not the simple one, that then prevailed, and for at least a century that was the especial note of Tunbridge Wells. Evelyn describes it as “a very sweet place, private and refreshing,” but that privacy may be questioned, for when houses were so few it was impossible to be other than public, and at a later period, when the town came into existence around the spring, it was especially ordained by the autocratic Nash that “every visitor should live in public.”
