SOCIETY AT ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS - Online Book

People, Society & Culture of Tunbridge Wells in the 18th Century & later.

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Royal Tunbridge Wells
orders generally; the Upper Walk was tacitly reserved for the company and the gentry. So clearly was that understood that when, on the occasion of the Prince of Wales's birthday, the Duke of Leeds gave a public tea-drinking and ball to the company, he was able, without fear of interruption, to hold the first part of the entertainment on the Parade. " The tables were spread, according to the numbers to be accommodated, down the Walks," Amsinck has recorded; "and it may be noticed, as a singular contrast to the unmannerly intrusion of the present times, that, although the novelty of such a scene might be supposed to yield attractions, and almost to justify some deviation from a rigid propriety, there never was any advance on the part of the lower classes to disturb the comfort of the meeting."
" But then the next Morning, when Phoebus appears, And with his bright Beams our glad Hemisphere cheers, You rise, dress, get shav'd, and away to the Walks, The Pride of the Place, of which ev'ry one talks. There, I would suppose you a-drinking the Waters, Didn't I know that you care not for any such Matters, But to see the fine Ladies in their Deshabille, A Dress that sometimes the most studies to kill.
" The Ladies you see, aye, and Ladies as fair, As charming, and bright as you'll see anywhere :
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