Conversation:

Did it have automatic scrubbers or disrobers or something?

No, a bathing machine was just, essentially, a shed on wheels. The idea was that you got in, shut the door, got changed, and got your servants, or in the case of Sandown Bay, paid the bathing machine owners to wheel the shed into the sea, so that no-one would see you get changed or wear your costume - as you'd go from the shed straight into the sea.

It all seems to be a very prudish part of Victorian values, and extremely absurd, nowadays.

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In April 2001, a Wimpy Fast Food take-away opened on Sandown Pier.

OK, so that might make me want to use a bathing machine, so know one need know I'd gone there for some take out.

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