We Often Go To The Seaside,

and always take a few photographs of beach huts,

but where did the idea come from? the answer is these above, photographs via Love is Speed, lets go back to Georgian or Victorian times, a female beachgoer would make use of one of these, a bathing machine, 

 bathing etiquette upheld in the 18th and 19th century, dictated that women and their beach bodies should be kept out of sight,

the answer to this was the introduction of wooden carts with two doors on either sides allowed bathers to change out of their clothes and into their bathing suits without having to be seen by the opposite sex walking across the beach in ‘improper clothing’, which in those days, on the gender-segregated beaches of Europe was a definite no-no,

the four-wheeled box would be rolled out to sea, usually by horse or sometimes human power and hauled back in when the beachgoer signalled to the driver by raising a small flag attached to the roof,

once deep enough in the surf, the bather would then exit the cart using the door facing away from prying eyes on the beach and enjoy their time in waves,

at their most popular, bathing machines lined the beaches of Britain and parts of the British Empire, as well as France, Germany, the United States and Mexico,

when legal segregation of bathing areas in Britain ended in 1901 and it finally became acceptable for both genders to bathe together, it was the beginning of the end for the bathing machine, by the the 1920s, they were almost entirely extinct,

but what was it like inside of one of these bathing machines? here is an excerpt from The Traveller’s Miscellany and Magazine of Entertainment, written in 1847 recalls the details of a luxury bathing machine…

The interior is all done in snow-white enamel paint, and one-half of the floor is pierced with many holes, to allow of free drainage form wet flannels. The other half of the little room is covered with a pretty green Japanese rug. In one corner is a big-mouthed green silk bag lined with rubber. Into this the wet bathing-togs are tossed out of the way. There are large bevel-edged mirrors let into either side of the room, and below one juts out a toilet shelf, on which is every appliance. There are pegs for towels and the bathrobe, and fixed in one corner is a little square seat that when turned up reveals a locker where clean towels, soap, perfumery, etc. are stowed. Ruffles of white muslin trimmed with lace and narrow green ribbons decorate every available space,

as times and beach etiquette change there was a surfeit of bathing machine but what to do with them? take off the wheels, line them up side by side, and call them beach huts!