Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. The town was a spa in the Restoration and a fashionable resort in the mid-1700s under Beau Nash when the Pantiles, and its chalybeate spring, attracted visitors who wished to take the waters. Though its popularity as a spa town waned with the advent of sea bathing, the town still derives much of its income from tourism. The prefix "Royal" was granted to it in 1909 by King Edward VII; it is one of only three towns in England with the title.
The town had a population of 59,947 in 2016, and is the administrative centre of Tunbridge Wells Borough and in the parliamentary constituency of Tunbridge Wells.
History
Iron Age
Evidence suggests that Iron Age people farmed the fields and mined the iron-rich rocks in the Tunbridge Wells area, and excavations in 1940 and 1957–61 by James Money at High Rocks uncovered the remains of a defensive hillfort. It is thought that the site was occupied into the era of Roman Britain, and the area continued to be part of the Wealden iron industry until its demise in the late eighteenth century. An iron forge remains in the grounds of Bayham Abbey, in use until 1575 and documented until 1714.Pre-modern era
The area which is now Tunbridge Wells was part of the parish of Speldhurst for hundreds of years.The origin of the town today came in the seventeenth century. In 1606 Dudley North, 3rd Baron North, a courtier to King James VI and I who was staying at a hunting lodge in Eridge in the hope that the country air might improve his ailing constitution, discovered a chalybeate spring. He drank from the spring and, when his health improved, he became convinced that it had healing properties. He persuaded his rich friends in London to try it, and by the time Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I, visited in 1630 it had established itself as a spa retreat. By 1636 it had become so popular that two houses were built next to the spring to cater for the visitors, one for the ladies and one for the gentlemen, and in 1664 Lord Muskerry, Lord of the Manor, enclosed it with a triangular stone wall, and built a hall "to shelter the dippers in wet weather."
Until 1676 little permanent building took place—visitors were obliged either to camp on the downs or to find lodgings at Southborough—, but at this time houses and shops were erected on the walks, and every "convenient situation near the springs" was built upon. Also in 1676 a subscription for a "chapel of ease" was opened, and in 1684 the Church of King Charles the Martyr was duly built and the town began to develop around it. In 1787 the antiquarian Edward Hasted described the new town as consisting of four small districts, "named after the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant and Mount Sion; the other is called the Wells..."
File:The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, ca. 1895.jpg|thumb|right|Photochrom of the Pantiles, 1895
In the 1680s there was a building-boom in the town: carefully planned shops were built beside the Pantiles promenade, and the Mount Sion road, on which lodging house keepers were to build, was laid out in small plots. Tradesmen in the town dealt in the luxury goods demanded by their patrons, which would certainly have included Tunbridge ware, a kind of decoratively inlaid woodwork.
"They have made the wells very commodious by the many good building all about it and around which are lodgings for the company that drink the waters. All the people buy their own provisions at the market, which is just by the wells and is furnished with great plenty of all sorts of fish and fowl. The walk which is between high trees on the market side which are shops full of all sorts of toys, silver, china, milliners and all sorts of curious wooden ware besides which there are two large coffee houses for tea, chocolate etc. and two rooms for the lottery and hazard board."—Celia Fiennes, 1697
Following Richard Russell's 1750 treatise advocating sea water as a treatment for diseases of the glands, fashions in leisure changed and sea bathing became more popular than visiting the spas, which resulted in fewer visitors coming to the town. Nevertheless, the advent of turnpike roads gave Tunbridge Wells better communications—on weekdays a public coach made nine return journeys between Tunbridge Wells and London, and postal services operated every morning except Monday and every evening except Saturday. During the eighteenth century the growth of the town continued, as did its patronage by the wealthy leisured classes—it received celebrity cachet from visits by figures such as Caius Gabriel Cibber, Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Samuel Richardson and the successful bookseller Andrew Millar and his wife—and in 1735 Beau Nash appointed himself as master of ceremonies for all the entertainments that Tunbridge Wells had to offer. He remained in this position until his death in 1762, and under his patronage the town reached the height of its popularity as a fashionable resort.
Nineteenth and twentieth centuries
By the early nineteenth century Tunbridge Wells experienced growth as a place for the well-to-do to visit and make their homes. It became a fashionable resort town again following visits by the Duchess of Kent, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and benefited from a new estate on Mount Pleasant and the building of the Trinity church in 1827, and improvements made to the town and the provision of facilities such as gas lighting and a police service meant that by 1837 the town population had swelled to 9,100. In 1842 an omnibus service was set up that ran from Tonbridge to Tunbridge Wells, enabling visitors to arrive from London within two hours, and in 1845 the town was linked to the railway network via a branch from South Eastern Railway's London-Hastings Hastings Line at Tonbridge. During this time Decimus Burton developed John Ward's Calverley Park estate.In 1889 the town was awarded the status of a Borough, and it entered the 20th century in a prosperous state. 1902 saw the opening of an Opera House, and in 1909 the town received its "Royal" prefix. Due to its position in South East England, during the First World War Tunbridge Wells was made a headquarters for the army, and its hospitals were used to treat soldiers who had been sent home with a "blighty wound"; the town also received 150 Belgian refugees. The Second World War affected Tunbridge Wells in a different way—it became so swollen with refugees from London that accommodation was severely strained. Over 3,800 buildings were damaged by bombing, but only 15 people lost their lives.
Following the war, large-scale housing estates were built at Sherwood and Ramslye to accommodate population growth.
Toponymy
asserted that although the wells were originally named the "Queen's-Wells", they soon took on the name of Tunbridge Wells due to their proximity to the town of Tonbridge :
In compliment to doctor, Lewis Rowzee, in his treatise on them, calls these springs the Queen's-wells; but this name lasted but a small time, and they were soon afterwards universally known by that of Tunbridge-wells, which names they acquired from the company usually residing at Tunbridge town, when they came into these parts for the benefit of drinking the waters
—Edward Hasted, 1797
The prefix "Royal" dates to 1909, when King Edward VII granted the town its official "Royal" title to celebrate its popularity over the years among members of the royal family. Tunbridge Wells is one of only three towns in England to have been granted this.
Although "Wells" has a plural form, it refers to the principal source, the chalybeate spring in the Pantiles.
Governance
Tunbridge Wells is the administrative centre for both Tunbridge Wells Borough and the parliamentary constituency of Tunbridge Wells. The Borough is governed by 48 Councillors, representing 20 wards. Elections are held for 16 Council seats each year on a rotational basis, with elections to Kent County Council taking place in the fourth year of the cycle. Each councillor serves a four-year term. Councillors meet regularly at Tunbridge Wells Town Hall.Tunbridge Wells local elections show a pattern since 1973 of Conservative party dominance, apart from a two-year period from 1994 to 1996 of no overall control and a two-year period from 1996 to 1998 when the Liberal Democrats held a majority. By 2008, the Conservatives had a large majority with 44 seats compared with the Liberal Democrats' four. The extent of the Conservatives' dominance is further illustrated by the fact that in some wards Labour did not even field a candidate in the 2008 council elections.
By 2019, the local political situation had changed. In the 2019 local elections, the Conservative majority was cut to 8, and the council leader David Jukes lost his seat following months of controversy over the council's plan to borrow £90 million in order to build new council offices, a new 1200-seat theatre, and underground car parking in Calverley Grounds.
The member of Parliament for the Tunbridge Wells constituency is Mike Martin of the Liberal Democrats, whose majority at the 2024 general election was 8,687. In September 2019 its MP at the time, Greg Clark, was one of 21 Conservative Party MPs to have the whip removed, after failing to back the Government, in keeping the option of a no-deal Brexit on the negotiating table. The constituency has been mostly Conservative since its inception in 1974 for the 1974 general election; electing a Conservative every election until 2024. Its three previous MPs were Sir Patrick Mayhew, the former Asda chairman Archie Norman and Clark.