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London was once blessed with spas set in gardens, where beneficial waters could be consumed and enjoyed in agreeable surroundings, sometimes with music, food and alcohol. They were, in effect, the pleasure resorts of the 18th century. With the aid of many images, the author - one of England's most distinguished architectural historians - provides a racy, informative, humorous and well-researched social history of these fascinating, if ephemeral, little-known features of London life, some of which survived until early Victorians times.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Professor Curl has written many standard works on architecture and the history of taste. Some are encyclopedic, while others treat a single subject that no one else has paid much attention to. They include the authoritative books on the Egyptian Revival, the Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, Victorian Funerary Monuments, and now the Spas, etc., of London. You may know as much about London's Spas as I did (which was nothing), but if you trust the author to draw you into his enthusiasms, you will soon be sharing them.
Confidence in the healing power of mineral springs drew Londoners out to dozens of "Spaws", as close as Lambeth and as far as Epsom. Once there they took the waters, listened to music, watched acrobats and balloonists, flirted and boozed. You will never think of London's seedier districts in the same way, once you know what holy wells and Arcadian pleasures they once harbored. The fashion began in the world of Pepys and ended in that of Pooter. Since then, not only has London become a much uglier place, but Worms, Syphilis, Palsies, Convulsions, Hysterics, Scurvy, Gravel, Gout, and the King's Evil no longer succumb to draughts of Islington Water.
Professor Curl started writing about Spas for "Country Life" four decades ago, and no one can possibly know more than he has packed into this book. It was first published "By Subscription," presumably because no publisher could see the commercial sense in it. But its defiance of contemporary values is precisely what will please a certain type of reader and book-lover. "Spas" is beautifully produced: sewn, bound in real cloth, printed on glossy paper to favour the 194 illustrations, many of them from old hand-coloured prints and from the author's collection. The text is elegant, opinionated, amusing, and utterly immune to postmodern influences. It is the kind of scholarly writing in which British academics used to excel, that turns erudition into a high form of entertainment.
Confidence in the healing power of mineral springs drew Londoners out to dozens of "Spaws", as close as Lambeth and as far as Epsom. Once there they took the waters, listened to music, watched acrobats and balloonists, flirted and boozed. You will never think of London's seedier districts in the same way, once you know what holy wells and Arcadian pleasures they once harbored. The fashion began in the world of Pepys and ended in that of Pooter. Since then, not only has London become a much uglier place, but Worms, Syphilis, Palsies, Convulsions, Hysterics, Scurvy, Gravel, Gout, and the King's Evil no longer succumb to draughts of Islington Water.
Professor Curl started writing about Spas for "Country Life" four decades ago, and no one can possibly know more than he has packed into this book. It was first published "By Subscription," presumably because no publisher could see the commercial sense in it. But its defiance of contemporary values is precisely what will please a certain type of reader and book-lover. "Spas" is beautifully produced: sewn, bound in real cloth, printed on glossy paper to favour the 194 illustrations, many of them from old hand-coloured prints and from the author's collection. The text is elegant, opinionated, amusing, and utterly immune to postmodern influences. It is the kind of scholarly writing in which British academics used to excel, that turns erudition into a high form of entertainment.
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