Cold baths, and bathing in the landscape

Research by Dr Clare Hickman of Bristol University has brought to light the little-known geography of Britain's cold baths.

A fashionable folly of Georgian Britain, cold baths were plunging pools set in panaromic landscapes, dotted across the country. The baths were filled with cold spring water to ensure purity and preserve good health.

Medical writers of the period promoted cold bathing as part of an exercise routine, fuelled by a trend at the time for more interaction of nature due to concerns that luxury and civilization caused ill-health amongst the wealthy classes.

Water wasn't the only attraction at these precursors to lidos. Occupying commanding views, cold bathers walked through the landscape to reach the baths. Their enjoyment and appreciation of the landscape was thought to contribute to health and wellbeing.

Cold baths' popularity declined in the early 20th century, to be replaced by lidos and swimming pools, which can be thought of an extension of cold baths, carrying on the linkage of health, water and landscape.

  Dr Hickman's research is part of the Historic Gardens of England project