Part one of a bit of a sprawl across the UK, 9 days of 'content' book-ended with travel days
The whole trip:
Day 1: Bath, two tours.
--------------------------------------------------------
Tour 1: Mayor of Bath tours, 10:30-12:30
--------------------------------------------------------
Unesco site, twice-over, once the town itself and its architecture and again as one of the bath cities
Got a very quick rundown of Bath’s history.
First a stinky hot swamp, sacred to celts.
Roman soldiers circa 47CE found it, and imported engineers to deal with the extreme amounts of water (ca 1million liters a day), building a lead-sheet-lined reservoir pool and an overflow pipe leading the extra water to the river Avon (Still in use today!).
Grew and grew, and became Aquae Sulis (Sulis being the goddess of the celts)
Added a temple, fused with Minerva, grew into a proper town at some point.
After Romans, largely unused until Georgians.
3 hot springs in Bath, only hot springs in the UK. 46C when they emerge, >1 mil liters a day.
 |
UL: Cathedral. Paul head recarved into his beard after head shot off. Angels on ladders b/c of a dream of the bishop who got it built.
UR: Circus. Next to Crescent Garden, but 3mil more expensive. Fancy Georgian architecture.
LL: "the gravel walk" from Persuasion.
LR: last medieval street |
[Georgians]
Georgian period because the 3-4 Kings all named George in a row. The first (probably Georg) was imported from Hannover because he was the first possible heir who wasn’t catholic (was 52nd in line!).
[Georgian architecture and habits]
The Georgians tore down all the medieval sprawl and rebuilt – there’s 1 medieval street left.
They paved everything, no mud but also no grass, no trees.
Weirdly, cellars and such are at the natural “ground level”, roads built purposefully to meet the 1st floor. Easy to see when looking at a medieval gate.
Victorians came later and planted grass and trees, blocking a lot of the lines/views of the architecture (John Wood, the Elder, architect. Can’t see the (work of) “Wood” for the trees).
Bath was like a Vegas-Wild West cross for a long time. Money, gambling, “pleasure garden” (respectable during the day). There’s a theater that’s housed in a building built by a guy (‘Beau’ Nash’) terrible at everything but gambling so he founded a casino. Had to sell it when he was forced to surrender all his money because he’d been skimming the proceeds, moved in with one of his mistresses and died a pauper but had a lavish funeral due to his contributions.
[Bath ‘Season’ and the Georgians]
Georgians were stinky stinky people. Didn’t believe in bathing except for this healing Bath thing.
Leprosy was an umbrella term covering all skin conditions then. Georgians had lead in everything (white makeup, food, etc ) so bathing and drinking (mineral) water for a few weeks did a lot to “cure” leprosy.
Bath social society was special. Commoners and nobles were allowed to bump elbows.
You subscribed to the season and you were allowed to attend all events, regardless of your class.
During the Georgian times, typical schedule:
- Get up at 4am and go bathe, to get there before the lepers and sick people (water was only changed out 1x/day, despite the roman sluice gate functioning fine….)
- Go home
- At some point, leave to have a public brunch somewhere
- Promenade??
- tea?
- Evening events every day 6pm at assembly hall
- 9pm pause for…tea?
- 11pm sharp carriages home
Rinse wash repeat
6weeks to 3 months at a time
Entire ‘season’ usually Oct to March (winter made things muddy, wait for things to clear up)
Bathing so popular, also among the sick, they had a hospital here founded circa 1786, 3 pound ‘caution’. 1 for your carriage ride home or burial, others for your upkeep and uniform. Became a modern hospital for rheumatological diseases until they moved and expanded in the 90s(?). Bought by a company that wants to develop it into a luxury hotel, blocked by the whole unesco heritage thing…
[Bath stone]
Bath made of this buttery yellow limestone (long term coal usage meant it was grimy black before they power-washed it after WWII). Dude responsible (Ralph Allen): moved to Bath and worked in post service at 17, invested in ‘cross-post’ innovation (moving away from the historic and expensive hub-and-spoke model), postmaster by 19 and rich (3mil in modern cash?). Invested it in buying up small quarries for this stone everyone said was worthless and you couldn’t build with. Ordered a palace for himself in it, and built a train track next to it (and his quarries). Then sold it far and wide (including some made it to washington dc and capetown south africa). So this is why all of Bath was built in this stone (and largely in one go).
[Famous inhabited bridge, one of 4 in Europe]
Pulteney bridge is a bridge with shops and houses. Rejected design for Rialto bridge in Italy, from Palladio (the person whose architecture style was also used for the rest of of Bath). One of four bridges like this (Rialto, that one in florence, one in Erfurt,and this).
 |
UL, UR: Pulteney Bridge, from across the river and a shop on it (looks just like a street from on it)
LL Medieval east gate, looking down from above (Georgian raised-ground street level)
LR eastgate plaque |
--------------------------------------------------------
Roman Baths @ 14:30 (audio tour)
--------------------------------------------------------
This was just astonishing. Worth going to Bath if for nothing else.
 |
Top picture: Continuously functioning 2000 yr old reservoir to catch the water as it bubbles up
2nd row Left: overflow of excess hot water from reservoir (continuously functioning for 2000 years).
Bottom row Left: the pipe that carries said water to the river Avon (ibid.)
2nd row Middle: first view of roman baths. Had had a giant curved ceiling, blocked sun and algae.
2nd row Right: the mid-temp swimming pool (Natatio), around were the warm, hot, cold rooms & pools
Bottom row mid: schematic of what we can see in our visit
Botom row right: schematic of this amazing drainage system the romans developed
Just incredibly well-preserved, despite the missing roof. Really impressive. Lots of nice video screens showing what you're looking at, and then replacing chunks with what was there.
Hadrian split the genders for bathing, which resulted in the complex doubling in size.
|
