A Trip To The Seaside

Mother and the girls have gone to Scarborough, one of the many seaside resorts of the day. As I have posted before, Britain's coast was not a Club Med location, but the Regency concept of beach activity was very different from ours. It was more about the supposed health-giving properties of brisk sea air and a firm saltwater dip than tanning on the beach and sipping tropical drinks. 

Ackermann's print series of Thomas Rowlandson's Poetical Sketches of Scarborough showed a place for the hardy traveler. Despite its rugged coastline and inclement weather, Anne Brontë, the youngest of the Brontë sisters, often visited Scarborough to escape the worse terrain and weather of her home in Haworth. It was in Scarborough that she died in 1849, during a visit which she hoped would benefit her health. It was decided that she should be buried in St. Mary's churchyard rather than have her body returned the 70 miles to her home.