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Beau Nash at Tunbridge Wells
of pleasure arose to plan and improve the amusements of the great," Burr wrote in his history of Tunbridge Wells, " public places, but little esteemed in themselves, were only resorted to by invalids, to whom their medicinal waters were necessary; and, as the manners of that age were far removed from that easy politeness and refinements of behaviour which distinguishes the present, the company was generally disunited and unsocial, consequently the pleasures to be found amongst them were neither elegant nor diverting." It was to change this state of things that Nash laboured : to attract to " The Wells" the fashionable folk who were not drawn there by the springs, and to induce the different classes of society that assembled there to unite and make a body willing to amuse itself.
Nash at once made his presence felt at Tunbridge Wells, and in a very short time ruled the town with a hand as firm as that with which he controlled the destinies of Bath. " Tunbridge Wells, in common with Bath," wrote Burr, a few years after the Beau's death, " owes the present agreeable and judicious regulation of its amusements, to the skilful assiduity of the celebrated Mr. Nash, who first
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