Polite Society and the Rural Resort: The Meanings of Moffat Spa in the Eighteenth Century

Numerous small spa resorts dotted the British countryside throughout the eighteenth century. They played a key role in the annual leisure cycle of the polite, yet little scholarly attention has been paid to the precise workings of the polite sociability with which such resorts were associated. This article takes as a case-study Moffat spa, a small but significant resort in southern Scotland. It uses visitors' responses to and correspondence from the spa to explore the ways in which such resorts could be constructed as a place of politeness, and the social possibilities this opened up for those who frequented them.