Edwardian Picnics and Bathing Machines
by Gwladys Ferris and Archie Webborn
Edwardian picnics, an essential part of the imagery of the long hot summers of almost a century ago, were indeed a sight to behold.
Bracelet Bay tea room
Mrs. Gwladys Ferris (nee Bowen), now over ninety-five years of age, recalled some memorable visits to Bracelet Bay with her mother and younger brother, Marchant.
They would travel on the Tram to Castle Street, from their home in Landore, to buy Eynon's pies, before boarding the Mumbles Train at Rutland Street to journey to the Mumbles Pier. There, they would climb the hill to Bracelet, where they then played on the beach and picnicked using the kettle, small paraffin stove and picnic basket, full of cups, saucers, plates and tins of cake and bread, which had been carried all the way from home by her mother!
One pastime, sea‑bathing, was becoming increasingly popular as a healthy pursuit. However, unlike today, modesty forbade mixed bathing or undressing on the beach. Many people still made use of that peculiar eighteenth‑century invention —the Bathing Machine, a wooden structure on wheels, which could be drawn down to the water’s edge by a horse. Sometimes Gwladys’s family would hire one, which ensured their privacy to don the elaborate neck‑to‑knees swim‑wear. She remembers the exhilarating feeling of the machine being drawn down the beach by a horse and of stepping down the wooden steps into the water, dressed in her favourite lavender swimming costume, which had straight knickers and a little frilly skirt edged with black.
Several machines were situated at ‘the slip’ on Swansea Beach and Limeslade, Langland and Bracelet Bays. At Bracelet, the licensed operators were John Ace of Thistleboon, R. Davies, Mr. Kift and James Webborn, who, in July 1905, had 8 machines. Archie Webborn, James’s grandson, recounted that if the holiday‑makers happened to choose one of his grandfather’s machines, it would cost 6d to hire a machine, towel and costume and a little comic ritual would often be played out for the customers' benefit. His Grandpa would whistle to his clever black retriever dog, named Don which would then run up to the tearooms at the top of the beach (see picture above) and return with the correct number of male and female costumes and towels for their customers! The holiday-makers would be amazed and compliment him on his very clever dog. However, it was actually Archie's Grandma in the tearoom, who would hear the whistle, look out of the window, count the number of customers and get the bathing apparel ready to give to the dog to carry back down the beach in his mouth!
Bathing machines were a feature of their time but gradually disappeared when attitudes and fashions changed.
Previously published in Once Upon a Village.
Archie Webborn passed away in 1999 and Gwladys Ferris in 2001.