Well, here I am recovering from that lovely working holiday! Three days in Bath was not enough to see everything, but was quite enough to exhaust me, especially anticipating a day trip to Brighton. Well, I haven't got around to sorting out the Brighton photos yet, but I have sorted out the Bath ones.
I have to say, nothing I had read prepared me for the idea that the main bathhouse and the pump room were in a paved plaza by the cathedral, with an arcade at the other end of the cathedral and beyond that was once, as I understand it, the White Hart Hotel. Now I really have an idea of how noisy it must have been - even without thinking of the dozens of coaches coming and going at all hours of day and night.
We stayed at what would have been something of the 'wrong' end of town, in Green Park, which used to be King's Mead.
It was a lovely apartment, deep squishy leather sofa and wide TV if you like that sort of thing as well as looking so delightfully period. Jack, the landlord was very helpful and I thoroughly recommend taking an apartment here if you do stay in Bath - Sainsbury's is just up the road and if you are able bodied it's about 10 minutes walk or less to the centre of the city. Failing that, the taxis are very good and the bus service extensive.
So, the centre of Bath:
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| the old Christopher hotel on the left, guildhall on the r |
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| the guildhall |
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| the abbey church |
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| guildhall |
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| this and the next two are the ladder-climbing angels on the Abbey |
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| the west front of the abbey looking towards the pump room |
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| more angels |
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| they go all the way up |
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| thanks to Anne and Michelle for coming with me! |
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| from the other side of the arcade |
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| from the abbey looking towards the site of the White Hart, on the left the pump room |
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| the pump; yes, I drank the waters - twice! it's not as nasty as I was expecting, a bit metallic and salty with a whiff of sulphur, certainly nothing like as nasty as coca cola |
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| Thanks to Anne Seebaldt for taking the photo |
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| the pump room; the alcove for the musicians at the far end and the alcove overlooking the King's Bath where the pump is situated on the left |
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| looking from pump room to baths |
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| looking from baths to pump room |
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| the bath entrance |
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| the baths with abbey in background |
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| under the arcade |
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| the notorious inscription, 'water better than wine' |
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| round the back - the entrance from opposite the white hart |
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| the king's bath |
More another time - the Assembly Room, the Royal Crescent, the Circus and poking around back alleys
I’m not surprised you’re exhausted. Bath in 3 days is hard going. I love the photos and look forward to the next batch. Thanks for posting them.
ReplyDeleteI've been wrestling with the formatting of the regency miss's guide; got the kindle version out of columns and with hyperlinks, something I've never attempted before, and then they turn round and tell me I have a pagination problem - I had numbered the maps and the forward with roman numerals, changing to arabic on the book proper, but it seems I may not do that. So! uploading as I write for the third time, having edited it after the proof arrived for having found a source which gave me market days, fairs, and when the post left and came in. I hope to post some more a little later when I have recovered. It's been 86F here today so I've been a puddle of sweat
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