Bath England

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)
Location of Bath

Bath (बाथ) is city in the county of Somerset, England, known for its Roman-built baths. The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987. In 2011, the population was 88,859.

Origin

Location

Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, 156 kms west of London and 18 km south-east of Bristol.

History

The city became a spa with the Latin name Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis") c. 60 AD when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were known even before then.

Bath had long been an ancient borough, having that status since 878 when it became a royal borough (burh) of Alfred the Great, and was reformed into a municipal borough in 1835. It has formed part of the county of Somerset since 878, when ceded to Wessex, having previously been in Mercia (the River Avon had acted as the border between the two kingdoms since 628). However, Bath was made a county borough in 1889, independent of the newly created administrative county and Somerset County Council. Bath became part of Avon when the non-metropolitan county was created in 1974, resulting in its abolition as a county borough, and instead became a non-metropolitan district with borough status.

With the abolition of Avon in 1996, the non-metropolitan district and borough were abolished too, and Bath has since been part of the unitary authority district of Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES).] The unitary district included also the Wansdyke district and therefore includes a wider area than the city (the 'North East Somerset' element) including Keynsham which is home to many of the council's offices, though the council meets at the Guildhall in Bath.

Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the curative properties of water from the springs, and Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era. Georgian architecture, crafted from Bath stone, includes the Royal Crescent, Circus, Pump Room and Assembly Rooms where Beau Nash presided over the city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761. Many of the streets and squares were laid out by John Wood, the Elder, and in the 18th century the city became fashionable and the population grew. Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century. Further building was undertaken in the 19th century and following the Bath Blitz in World War II.

There are several museums including the Museum of Bath Architecture, the Victoria Art Gallery, the Museum of East Asian Art, the Herschel Museum of Astronomy and the Holburne Museum. The city has two universities – the University of Bath and Bath Spa University – with Bath College providing further education. Sporting clubs include Bath Rugby and Bath City F.C. while TeamBath is the umbrella name for all of the University of Bath sports teams.

Bath became part of the county of Avon in 1974, and, following Avon's abolition in 1996, has been the principal centre of Bath and North East Somerset.

The hills in the locality such as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period.[1][2] Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century.[3] Solsbury Hill overlooking the current city was an Iron Age hill fort, and the adjacent Bathampton Camp may also have been one.[4] A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down.[5]

Archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman baths' main spring may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons,[6] and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva; the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, appearing in the town's Roman name, Aquae Sulis (literally, "the waters of Sulis").[7] Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the sacred spring by archaeologists.[8] The tablets were written in Latin, and cursed people whom the writers felt had wronged them. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he might write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the goddess.

A temple was constructed in AD 60–70, and a bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years.[9] Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation, and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted structure that housed the caldarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath).[10]

The town was later given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century.[11] After the failure of Roman authority in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost as a result of rising water levels and silting.[12]

In March 2012 a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in an archaeological dig. The coins, believed to date from the 3rd century, were found about 150 m (450 ft) from the Roman baths.[13]

Post-Roman and Medieval:

Bath may have been the site of the Battle of Badon (c.500 AD ), in which King Arthur is said to have defeated the Anglo-Saxons.[14] The town was captured by the West Saxons in 577 after the Battle of Deorham;[15] the Anglo-Saxon poem The Ruin may describe the appearance of the Roman site about this time.[16] A monastery was founded at an early date – reputedly by Saint David although more probably in 675 by Osric, King of the Hwicce,[17] perhaps using the walled area as its precinct.[18][19] Nennius, a 9th-century historian, mentions a "Hot Lake" in the land of the Hwicce along the River Severn, and adds "It is surrounded by a wall, made of brick and stone, and men may go there to bathe at any time, and every man can have the kind of bath he likes. If he wants, it will be a cold bath; and if he wants a hot bath, it will be hot". Bede described hot baths in the geographical introduction to the Ecclesiastical History in terms very similar to those of Nennius.[20] King Offa of Mercia gained control of the monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, which was dedicated to St. Peter.[21]

By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern was lost and Bath was a royal possession. King Alfred laid out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct.[22] In the Burghal Hidage, Bath is recorded as a burh (borough) and is described as having walls of 1,375 yards (1,257 m) and was allocated 1000 men for defence.[23] During the reign of Edward the Elder coins were minted in Bath based on a design from the Winchester mint but with 'BAD' on the obverse relating to the Anglo-Saxon name for the town, Baðum, Baðan or Baðon, meaning "at the baths",[24] and this was the source of the present name. Edgar of England was crowned king of England in Bath Abbey in 973, in a ceremony that formed the basis of all future English coronations.[25]


Administrative systems fell within the hundreds. The Bath Hundred had various names including the Hundred of Le Buri. The Bath Foreign Hundred or Forinsecum covered the area outside the city and was later combined into the Bath Forum Hundred. Wealthy merchants had no status within the hundred courts and formed guilds to gain influence. They built the first guildhall probably in the 13th century. Around 1200 the first mayor was appointed.[26]

Early Modern:

By the 15th century, Bath's abbey church was dilapidated and Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided to rebuild it on a smaller scale in 1500. The new church was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII[27] The abbey church became derelict before being restored as the city's parish church in the Elizabethan era, when the city experienced a revival as a spa. The baths were improved and the city began to attract the aristocracy. A Royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590 confirmed city status.[28]

During the English Civil War, the city was garrisoned for Charles I. Seven thousand pounds was spent on fortifications, but on the appearance of parliamentary forces the gates were thrown open and the city surrendered. It became a significant post for the New Model Army under William Waller.[29] Bath was retaken by royalists following the Battle of Lansdowne fought on the northern outskirts of the city on 5 July 1643.[30]

Thomas Guidott, a student of chemistry and medicine at Wadham College, Oxford, set up a practice in the city in 1668. He was interested in the curative properties of the waters, and he wrote A discourse of Bathe, and the hot waters there. Also, Some Enquiries into the Nature of the water in 1676. It brought the health-giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the attention of the country, and the aristocracy arrived to partake in them.[31]

Several areas of the city were developed in the Stuart period, and more building took place during Georgian times in response to the increasing number of visitors who required accommodation.[32] Architects John Wood the Elder and his son laid out the new quarters in streets and squares, the identical façades of which gave an impression of palatial scale and classical decorum.[33] Much of the creamy gold Bath stone, a type of limestone used for construction in the city, was obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines owned by Ralph Allen (1694–1764).[34] Allen, to advertise the quality of his quarried limestone, commissioned the elder John Wood to build a country house on his Prior Park estate between the city and the mines.[35] Allen was responsible for improving and expanding the postal service in western England, for which he held the contract for more than forty years. Although not fond of politics, Allen was a civic-minded man and a member of Bath Corporation for many years. He was elected mayor for a single term in 1742.[36]

In the early 18th century, Bath acquired its first purpose-built theatre, the Old Orchard Street Theatre. It was rebuilt as the Theatre Royal, along with the Grand Pump Room attached to the Roman Baths and assembly rooms. Master of ceremonies Beau Nash, who presided over the city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761, drew up a code of behaviour for public entertainments.[37] Bath had become perhaps the most fashionable of the rapidly developing British spa towns, attracting many notable visitors such as the wealthy London bookseller Andrew Millar and his wife, who both made long visits.[38] In 1816 it was described as "a seat of amusement and dissipation", where "scenes of extravagance in this receptacle of the wealthy and the idle, the weak and designing" were habitual.[39]

Architecture

A panoramic view of the Royal Crescent

There are many Roman archaeological sites throughout the central area of the city. The baths themselves are about 6 metres below the present city street level. Around the hot springs, Roman foundations, pillar bases, and baths can still be seen, however all the stonework above the level of the baths is from more recent periods.[40]

Bath Abbey was a Norman church built on earlier foundations. The present building dates from the early 16th century and shows a late Perpendicular style with flying buttresses and crocketed pinnacles decorating a crenellated and pierced parapet.[41] The choir and transepts have a fan vault by Robert and William Vertue.[42] A matching vault was added to the nave in the 19th century.[43] The building is lit by 52 windows.[44]

Most buildings in Bath are made from the local, golden-coloured Bath Stone, and many date from the 18th and 19th century. The dominant style of architecture in Central Bath is Georgian; this style evolved from the Palladian revival style that became popular in the early 18th century. Many of the prominent architects of the day were employed in the development of the city. The original purpose of much of Bath's architecture is concealed by the honey-coloured classical façades; in an era before the advent of the luxury hotel, these apparently elegant residences were frequently purpose-built lodging houses, where visitors could hire a room, a floor, or (according to their means) an entire house for the duration of their visit, and be waited on by the house's communal servants.[98] The masons Reeves of Bath were prominent in the city from the 1770s to 1860s.[45]

The Circus consists of three long, curved terraces designed by the elder John Wood to form a circular space or theatre intended for civic functions and games. The games give a clue to the design, the inspiration behind which was the Colosseum in Rome.[100] Like the Colosseum, the three façades have a different order of architecture on each floor: Doric on the ground level, then Ionic on the piano nobile, and finishing with Corinthian on the upper floor, the style of the building thus becoming progressively more ornate as it rises. Wood never lived to see his unique example of town planning completed as he died five days after personally laying the foundation stone on 18 May 1754.[46]

The most spectacular of Bath's terraces is the Royal Crescent, built between 1767 and 1774 and designed by the younger John Wood.[47] Wood designed the great curved façade of what appears to be about 30 houses with Ionic columns on a rusticated ground floor, but that was the extent of his input: each purchaser bought a certain length of the façade, and then employed their own architect to build a house to their own specifications behind it; hence what appears to be two houses is in some cases just one. This system of town planning is betrayed at the rear of the crescent: while the front is completely uniform and symmetrical, the rear is a mixture of differing roof heights, juxtapositions and fenestration. The "Queen Anne fronts and Mary-Anne backs" architecture occurs repeatedly in Bath and was designed to keep hired women at the back of the house.[48] [49]Other fine terraces elsewhere in the city include Lansdown Crescent[50] and Somerset Place on the northern hill.[51]

Around 1770 the neoclassical architect Robert Adam designed Pulteney Bridge, using as the prototype for the three-arched bridge spanning the Avon an original, but unused, design by Andrea Palladio for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.[52] Thus, Pulteney Bridge became not just a means of crossing the river, but also a shopping arcade. Along with the Rialto Bridge and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, which it resembles, it is one of the very few surviving bridges in Europe to serve this dual purpose.[53] It has been substantially altered since it was built. The bridge was named after Frances and William Pulteney, the owners of the Bathwick estate for which the bridge provided a link to the rest of Bath.[54]The Georgian streets in the vicinity of the river tended to be built high above the original ground level to avoid flooding, with the carriageways supported on vaults extending in front of the houses. This can be seen in the multi-storey cellars around Laura Place South of Pulteney Bridge, in the colonnades below Grand Parade, and in the grated coal holes in the pavement of North Parade. In some parts of the city, such as George Street, and London Road near Cleveland Bridge, the developers of the opposite side of the road did not match this pattern, leaving raised pavements with the ends of the vaults exposed to a lower street below.

The heart of the Georgian city was the Pump Room, which, together with its associated Lower Assembly Rooms, was designed by Thomas Baldwin, a local builder responsible for many other buildings in the city, including the terraces in Argyle Street and the Guildhall.[55] Baldwin rose rapidly, becoming a leader in Bath's architectural history. In 1776 he was made the chief City Surveyor, and Bath City Architect. Great Pulteney Street, where he eventually lived, is another of his works: this wide boulevard, constructed around 1789 and over 1,000 feet (305 m) long and 100 feet (30 m) wide, is lined on both sides by Georgian terraces.

In the 1960s and early 1970s some parts of Bath were unsympathetically redeveloped, resulting in the loss of some 18th- and 19th century buildings. This process was largely halted by a popular campaign which drew strength from the publication of Adam Fergusson's The Sack of Bath. Controversy has revived periodically, most recently with the demolition of the 1930s Churchill House, a neo-Georgian municipal building originally housing the Electricity Board, to make way for a new bus station. This is part of the Southgate redevelopment in which an ill-favoured 1960s shopping precinct, bus station and multi-storey car park were demolished and replaced by a new area of mock-Georgian shopping streets. As a result of this and other changes, notably plans for abandoned industrial land along the Avon, the city's status as a World Heritage Site was reviewed by UNESCO in 2009. The decision was made to let Bath keep its status, but UNESCO has asked to be consulted on future phases of the Riverside development, saying that the density and volume of buildings in the second and third phases of the development need to be reconsidered. It also demands Bath do more to attract world-class architecture in new developments.

Bath became the centre of fashionable life in England during the 18th century when its Old Orchard Street Theatre and architectural developments such as Lansdown Crescent, the Royal Crescent, The Circus, and Pulteney Bridge were built.

Bath's five theatres – Theatre Royal, Ustinov Studio, the Egg, the Rondo Theatre, and the Mission Theatre – attract internationally renowned companies and directors and an annual season by Sir Peter Hall. The city has a long-standing musical tradition; Bath Abbey, home to the Klais Organ and the largest concert venue in the city, stages about 20 concerts and 26 organ recitals each year. Another concert venue, the 1,700-seat Art Deco Forum, originated as a cinema. The city holds the annual Bath International Music Festival and Mozartfest, the annual Bath Literature Festival (and its counterpart for children), the Bath Film Festival, the Bath Digital Festival. the Bath Fringe Festival, the Bath Beer Festival and the Bath Chilli Festival. The Bach Festivals occur at two and a half-year intervals. An annual Bard of Bath competition aims to find the best poet, singer or storyteller.

The city is home to the Victoria Art Gallery, the Museum of East Asian Art, and Holburne Museum, numerous commercial art galleries and antique shops, as well as a number of other museums, among them Bath Postal Museum, the Fashion Museum, the Jane Austen Centre, the Herschel Museum of Astronomy and the Roman Baths. The Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) in Queen Square was founded in 1824 from the Society for the encouragement of Agriculture, Planting, Manufactures, Commerce and the Fine Arts founded in 1777. In September 1864, BRLSI hosted the 34th annual meeting of the British Science Association, which was attended by explorers David Livingstone, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and John Hanning Speke. The history of the city is displayed at the Museum of Bath Architecture, which is housed in a building built in 1765 as the Trinity Presbyterian Church. It was also known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, as she lived in the attached house from 1707 to 1791.

External links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_House#/map/0

References

  1. ↑ Wessex Archaeology. "Archaeological Desk- based Assessment" (PDF). University of Bath, Masterplan Development Proposal 2008. Bath University.
  2. ↑ "Monument No. 204162". PastScape. Historic England.
  3. ↑ Thomas, Rod (2008). A Sacred landscape: The prehistory of Bathampton Down. Bath: Millstream Books. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-948975-86-8.
  4. ↑ 1. Thomas, Rod (2008). A Sacred landscape: The prehistory of Bathampton Down. Bath: Millstream Books. pp. 46–48. ISBN 978-0-948975-86-8. 2. "Bathampton Camp". PastScape. Historic England.
  5. ↑ 1. "The Beaker people and the Bronze Age". Somerset County Council. 2. "Charmy Down". Pastscape. Historic England.
  6. ↑ 1. "History of Bath's Spa". Bath Tourism Plus. 2. William. "Romano-British Somerset: Part 2, Bath". British History Online. Victoria County History.
  7. ↑ A L Rowse, Heritage of Britain, 1995, Treasure of London, ISBN 978-0-907407-58-4, 184 pages, Page 15
  8. ↑ "A Corpus of Writing-Tablets from Roman Britain". Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, Oxford.
  9. ↑ "City of Bath World Heritage Site Management Plan". Bath and North East Somerset.
  10. ↑ "The Roman Baths". TimeTravel Britain.
  11. ↑ "Alfreds Borough". Bath Past.
  12. ↑ Southern, Patricia (2012). The Story of Roman Bath. Amberley. p. 202–203. ISBN 978-1445610900.
  13. ↑ Hough, Andrew (22 March 2012). "Hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins discovered in Bath". The Daily Telegraph.
  14. ↑ "Dobunni to Hwicce". Bath past.
  15. ↑ "History of Bath England, Roman Bath history". My England Travel Guide.
  16. ↑ Klinck, Anne (1992). The Old English Elegies: A Critical Edition and Genre Study. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 61.
  17. ↑ Davenport, Peter (2002). Medieval Bath Uncovered. Stroud: Tempus. pp. 31–34. ISBN 978-0752419657.
  18. ↑ "Timeline Bath". Time Travel Britain.
  19. ↑ "Saint David". 100 Welsh Heroes.
  20. ↑ Campbell, James; John, Eric; Wormald, Patrick (1991). The Anglo-Saxons. Penguin. pp. 40–41.
  21. ↑ "Bath Abbey". Robert Poliquin's Music and Musicians. Quebec University.
  22. ↑ "Alfreds Borough". Bath Past. Southern, Patricia (2012). The Story of Roman Bath.
  23. ↑ Davenport, Peter (2002). Medieval Bath Uncovered. Stroud: Tempus. pp. 40–42. ISBN 978-0752419657.
  24. ↑ Davenport, Peter (2002). Medieval Bath Uncovered. Stroud: Tempus. pp. 50–51. ISBN 978-0752419657.
  25. ↑ "Edgar the Peaceful". English Monarchs – Kings and Queens of England.
  26. ↑ Davenport, Peter (2002). Medieval Bath Uncovered. Stroud: Tempus. pp. 97–98. ISBN 978-0752419657.
  27. ↑ ."Renaissance Bath". City of Bath.
  28. ↑ "Civic Insignia". City of Bath.
  29. ↑ Crutwell, Clement (1801).
  30. ↑ Rodgers, Colonel Hugh Cuthbert Basset (1968). Battles and Generals of the Civil Wars. Seeley Service & Co. p. 81. ASIN B000HJ9TUG.
  31. ↑ Burns, D. Thorburn (1981)
  32. ↑ Hembury, Phylis May (1990). The English Spa, 1560–1815: A Social History. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press. pp. 114–121. ISBN 978-0-8386-3391-5.
  33. ↑ "John Wood and the Creation of Georgian Bath". Building of Bath Museum.
  34. ↑ "Ralph Allen Biography". Bath Postal Museum.
  35. ↑ "Ralph Allen Biography". Bath Postal Museum.
  36. ↑ "Ralph Allen Biography". Bath Postal Museum.
  37. ↑ Eglin, John (2005). The Imaginary Autocrat: Beau Nash and the invention of Bath. Profile. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-86197-302-3.
  38. ↑ The manuscripts, Letter from Andrew Millar to Thomas Cadell, 16 July, 1765. Andrew Millar Project. University of Edinburgh". www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk.
  39. ↑ A memoir of major-general sir R. Rollo Gillespie by Major Sir William Thorn. 1816. Printed for T. Egerton, at the Military Library, Whitehall. Page 5
  40. ↑ "City of Bath World Heritage Site Management Plan — Appendix 3". Bath and North East Somerset Council.
  41. ↑ "Bath Abbey". Images of England. Historic England.
  42. ↑ http://www.buildinghistory.org/bath/abbey/vertue.shtml "A Building of Vertue". Bath Past.
  43. ↑ "Bath Abbey". Planet Ware.
  44. ↑ "Bath Abbey". Sacred destinations.
  45. ↑ "St Mary's Churchyard". Friends of St Mary's Churchyard.
  46. ↑ Gadd, David (1987). Georgian Summer: Rise and Development of Bath (2 ed.). Countryside Books. p. 50. ISBN 978-0905392608.
  47. ↑ "Royal Crescent". Images of England. Historic England.
  48. ↑ 1. Gogarty, Paul (1 July 2000). "Bath: Georgian on my mind". Telegraph. 2. Forsyth, Michael (2003). Pevsner Architectural Guides: Bath. Yale University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0300101775.
  49. ↑ Moon, Michael; Davidson, Cathy N. (1995). Subjects and Citizens: Nation, Race, and Gender from Oroonoko to Anita Hill. Duke University Press. p. 405.
  50. ↑ "1 to 20 Lansdown Crescent". Images of England. Historic England.
  51. ↑ "Nos 5–20, Somerset Place, Bath". Images of England. Historic England
  52. ↑ Manco, Jean (1995). "Pulteney Bridge". Architectural History. SAHGB Publications Limited. 38: 129–145. doi:10.2307/1568625. JSTOR 1568625.
  53. ↑ Manco, Jean (1995). "Pulteney Bridge". Architectural History. SAHGB Publications Limited. 38: 129–145. doi:10.2307/1568625. JSTOR 1568625.
  54. ↑ Manco, Jean (1995). "Pulteney Bridge". Architectural History. SAHGB Publications Limited. 38: 129–145. doi:10.2307/1568625. JSTOR 1568625.
  55. ↑ "Guildhall". Images of England.
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