Royal Tunbridge Wells
Tunbridge Wells (sometimes called Royal Tunbridge Wells) is a Wealden town in Kent in England, just north of the border with East Sussex. It has a population of about 60,000, and is the administrative centre of the Tunbridge Wells borough.
The town was founded around the Chalybeate Spring, discovered in 1606, and developed as a spa town around it. It was named after the nearby town of Tonbridge, which was at the time spelt 'Tunbridge'. The similar names and alternative spellings have been a source of confusion ever since, especially to uninformed people travelling on the London-Hastings railway line.
The spring can still be visited in the Pantiles area of the town, surrounded by Regency architecture.
The famous mathematician the Reverend Thomas Bayes lived in Tunbridge Wells. So did the novelist William Thackeray; his house is now an acclaimed restaurant.
Tunbridge Wells is traditionally associated with the prim middle classes, especially in the locution 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'. This phrase was apocryphally used to sign a letter to a newspaper some time in the nineteenth century, and has remained in circulation because of its perceived aptness in describing the inhabitants of the town. References to Tunbridge Wells abound in literature as diverse as Zadie Smith's White Teeth and E.M.Forster's Room With a View - generally the town is used as shorthand for an impossibly dull and elderly point of view.