ABSTRACT
The long eighteenth-century in England (1660-1830) was an age of urbanisation.1 Not only metropolitan areas but also many provincial towns thrived during this period, buttressed by the political stability that followed the Restoration as well as by the commercial and consumer revolutions and improved agricultural techniques. The provincial towns increased not only in size and number, moreover, but they also became more diversified than before. New types of towns with spa or resort functions appeared, and older towns were refashioned socially and culturally as well as materially.
