The Corn Exchange, The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells - 01892 515675 touristinformationcentre@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

Royal Tunbridge Wells (usually shortened to Tunbridge Wells) is a town in west Kent, England, about 31 miles (50 km) southeast of central London, bordering the county of East Sussex. It is situated at the northern edge of the High Weald, the sandstone geology of which is exemplified by the rock formations at the Wellington Rocks and High Rocks.

Edward Hasted made the assertion that although the wells were originally named the "Queen's-Wells", they soon took on the name of Tunbridge Wells due to their proximity to the town of Tonbridge (then known as "Tunbridge"):

The town came into being as a spa in Georgian times and had its heyday as a tourist resort under Richard (Beau) Nash when the Pantiles and its chalybeate spring attracted visitors who wished to take the waters. Though its popularity waned with the advent of sea bathing, the town remains popular and derives some 30% of its income from the tourist industry.

The town has a population of around 56,500 and is the administrative centre of Tunbridge Wells Borough and the UK parliamentary constituency of Tunbridge Wells. In the United Kingdom Tunbridge Wells has a reputation as being the archetypal "Middle England" town, a stereotype that is typified by the fictional letter-writer "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells".

There is evidence that during the Iron Age people farmed the fields and mined the iron-rich rocks in the Tunbridge Wells area, and excavations in 1940 and 1957-61 by James Money at High Rocks uncovered the remains of a defensive hill-fort. It is thought that the site was occupied into the era of Roman Britain, and the area continued to be part of the Wealden iron industry until its demise in the late eighteenth century - indeed, an iron forge remains in the grounds of Bayham Abbey, in use until 1575 and documented until 1714.

The area which is now Tunbridge Wells was part of the parish of Speldhurst for hundreds of years, but the origin of the town as it is today, however, came in the seventeenth century. In 1606 Dudley, Lord North, a courtier to James I who was staying at a hunting lodge in Eridge in the hope that the country air might improve his ailing constitution, discovered a chalybeate spring. He drank from the spring and, when his health improved, he became convinced that it had healing properties. He persuaded his rich friends in London to try it, and by the time Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I, visited in 1630 it had established itself as a spa retreat. By 1636 it had become so popular that two houses were built next to the spring to cater for the visitors, one for the ladies and one for the gentlemen, and in 1664 Lord Muskerry, Lord of the Manor, enclosed it with a triangular stone wall, and built a hall "to shelter the dippers in wet weather."

Until 1676 little permanent building took place - visitors were obliged either to camp on the downs or to find lodgings at Southborough, - but at this time houses and shops were erected on the walks, and every "convenient situation near the springs" was built upon. Also in 1676 a subscription for a "chapel of ease" was opened, and in 1684 the church of King Charles the Martyr was duly built and the town began to develop around it. In 1787 Edward Hasted described the new town as consisting of four small districts, "named after the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant and Mount Sion; the other is called the Wells..."

The 1680s saw a building boom in the town: carefully planned shops were built beside the 175 yards (160 m) long Pantiles promenade (then known as the Walks), and the Mount Sion road, on which lodging house keepers were to build, was laid out in small plots. Tradesmen in the town dealt in the luxury goods demanded by their patrons, which would certainly have included Tunbridge ware, a kind of decoratively inlaid woodwork.

Following Dr Richard Russell's 1750 treatise advocating sea water as a treatment for diseases of the glands, fashions in leisure changed and sea bathing became more popular than visiting the spas, which resulted in fewer visitors coming to the town. Nevertheless, the advent of turnpike roads gave Tunbridge Wells better communications - on weekdays a public coach made nine return journeys between Tunbridge Wells and London, and postal servicecs operated every morning except Monday and every evening except Saturday. During the eighteenth century the growth of the town continued, as did its patronage by the wealthy leisured classes - it received celebrity cachet from visits by figures such as Cibber, Johnson, Garrick and Richardson - and in 1735 Richard (Beau) Nash appointed himself as master of ceremonies for all the entertainments that Tunbridge Wells had to offer. He remained in this position until his death in 1762, and under his patronage the town reached the height of its popularity as a fashionable resort.

By the early nineteenth century Tunbridge Wells experienced growth as a place for the well-to-do to visit and make their homes. It became a fashionable resort town again following visits by the Duchess of Kent, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and benefited from a new estate on Mount Pleasant and the building of the Trinity church in 1827, and improvements made to the town and the provision of facilities such as gas lighting and a police service meant that by 1837 the town population had swelled to 9,100. In 1842 an omnibus service was set up that ran from Tonbridge to Tunbridge Wells, enabling visitors to arrive from London within two hours, and in 1845 the town was linked to the railway network via a branch from South Eastern Railway's London-Hastings Hastings Line at Tonbridge. During this time Decimus Burton developed John Ward's Calverley Park estate.

In 1889 the town was awarded the status of a Borough, and it entered the 20th century in a prosperous state. 1902 saw the opening of an Opera House, and in 1909 the town received its "Royal" prefix. Due to its position in South East England, during the First World War Tunbridge Wells was made a headquarters for the army, and its hospitals were used to treat soldiers who had been sent home with a "blighty wound"; the town also received 150 Belgian refugees. The Second World War affected Tunbridge Wells in a different way - it became so swollen with refugees from London that accommodation was severely strained. Over 3,800 buildings were damaged by bombing, but only 15 people lost their lives.

The prefix "Royal" dates to 1909, when King Edward VII granted the town its official "Royal" title to celebrate its popularity over the years amongst members of the royal family. Royal Tunbridge Wells is one of only two towns in England to have been granted this (the other being Royal Leamington Spa).

Tunbridge Wells is located on the Kentish border with East Sussex, about 31 miles (50 km) south of London; the original centre of the settlement lies directly on the Kent/East Sussex border, as recalled by the county boundary flagstone that still lies outside the church of King Charles the Martyr.

The town is situated at the northern edge of the High Weald, a ridge of hard sandstone that runs across southern England from Hampshire along the borders of Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent - the town's geology is illustrated by the exposed sandstone outcrops at the Wellington Rocks and High Rocks (a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to its exposed gulls), and the quarries at nearby Langton Green from which sandstone was taken to build houses in Tunbridge Wells. The town is sited at the head of valley that runs south-east to Groombridge; like the River Teise, which originates in Tunbridge Wells, the stream in the valley is one of the many tributaries of the River Medway, which runs through a much larger valley north of the High Weald.

Nearby villages have been subsumed into the built-up area of the town, so that now it incorporates High Brooms to the north, Hawkenbury to the south, and Rusthall (whose name resonates with the iron content of the rocks) to the west.

The Pantiles and its chalybeate spring have been the landmarks most readily associated with Tunbridge Wells ever since the founding of the town, though the 5 metres (16 ft) high steel Millennium Clock at the Fiveways area in the centre of town, designed by local sculptor Jon Mills for the Millennium celebrations, stakes a claim to be a modern landmark.

Tunbridge Wells contains green spaces that range from woodland to maintained grounds and parks. The most substantial areas of woodland are the Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall Commons, which comprise 250 acres (0.39 sq mi; 1.0 km2) of wood and heathland and are close to the centre of the town. Open areas of the common are popular picnic spots, and there is a maintained cricket ground situated next to Wellington Rocks.

Located in the town centre opposite the train station, Calverley Grounds is a historic park with ornamental gardens and a bandstand. The park was part of Mount Pleasant House - which was converted into a hotel in 1837 - until 1920 when the Borough Council purchased it for the town. The bandstand dates from 1924.

Dunorlan Park, at 78 acres (0.122 sq mi) the largest maintained green space in the town, was once a private garden that was part of the millionaire Henry Reed's now demolished mansion, and only passed into public possession in 1941. The gardens were designed by the renowned Victorian gardener Robert Marnock, but over the years they became overgrown, making it hard to distinguish the full scope of Marnock's design. In 1996 Tunbridge Wells Borough Council applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant to restore the park in line with the original designs, and in 2003/4 Dunorlan underwent a £2.8 million restoration. The River Teise rises in the park, and two dams on it have created a pond and a boating lake. Dunorlan is listed as Grade II on English Heritage's National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

The oldest public park in Tunbridge Wells is Grosvenor recreation ground, located close to the town centre. It is adjoined by the Hilbert recreation ground, parts of which have been designated as a local nature reserve by the Kent High Weald Project; these include Hilbert Woods and the adjoining grass areas.

The Salomons Museum preserves the home of Sir David Salomons, the first Jew to serve as Lord Mayor of London and the first non-Christian to sit in Parliament. It preserves the bench from which Salomons rose to speak as the first Jewish MP ever to speak in Parliament.