Bath - a beautiful small city

The days are going faster than I can keep up with blog/journal entries.  Our days are long as sunrise is about 4:45 and sunset is about 9:45 with another half hour of usable twilight.  It's usually late when our day finishes and so it's not always feasible to download the photos from our cameras and then "write up" the day's activities.  

On Friday 4th July (hum a few bars of "Star Spangled Banner") we left Newquay in Cornwall and took the highways north-east through Glastonbury and then Wells on our way to Bath.  It was hard to pass through both those significant small cities, but time in this region was limited and Bath had the highest priority.

Bath is a small city of less than 100,000 people.  Bronze Age and Iron Age people had lived in the Bath area in prehistoric times, and the Britons had established a shrine at the spa site to their goddess Sulis long before the Romans arrived in about 50 AD.  The Romans constructed a temple on the site between about 60 and 70 AD and over the next 300 years they expanded the temple and built a complex of buildings for bathing, exercising and relaxing (an ancient recreation centre with attached worship centre).  They identified the old Briton goddess "Sulis" with their goddess Minerva and called the site "Aqua Sulis".  

Gilded bronze head of Minerva discovered on site

The old Roman "overflow" drain taking surplus water from the baths.

"hand made" lead plumbing bring water from the spring to the baths

The complex fell into disrepair and eventual ruin when the Romans left Britain in the early 6th century.  The Saxons, the Normans, the Georgians and the Victorians enjoyed the beneficial properties of the waters. 

The Victorians built a complex for bathing and treatment ("taking the waters") but the (Roman and earlier) history was unsuspected.  Systematic excavations began in the 1800s and many artifacts and building remains have been discovered.  The museum and interpretive centre are fascinating.  Don't miss them if you are in the vicinity.

The Roman baths with Victorian mock-Roman
upperworks and statues (now eroding badly)

The main pool and the neighbouring Bath Abbey

A monastery was founded in the Saxon town in the late 7th century and the church was rebuilt in 781.  Edgar was crowned King of England there in 973. 

Henry VIII dissolved the priory but it later came into use again, and much later was rebuilt.  It's a beautiful and elegant building with a fine ceiling, typical of English cathedrals and large churches of the period.

Bath Abbey

Abbey front and portal

The beautiful fan vault ceiling

Ceiling details

Memorial to Capt Arthur Philip,
commander of the "First Fleet" and
first Governor of New South Wales

Royal Coat of Arms in the ceiling

Bath Abbey

Bath became fashionable and wealthy during Georgian times, and the Georgians like symmetry and fine lines.  The houses along Royal Crescent and in "The Circus" (a curved street of houses surrounding and facing in to a park) epitomise their ideals.

A part of "The Circus" in Bath

A part of the "Royal Crescent"

Our accommodation was not quite as high up the social and financial scale as The Circus, but was charming and not far from the city centre.  It was one of the houses built as a model development when bath expanded across the river. It was a gracious and comfortable house, with staff who provided a highly efficient service is a friendly, enthusiastic manner.  We were sad to leave and would love to have stayed longer but another city called us.

Henrietta House, Bath

Our view of Henrietta Road

Bath - quiet but pretty at night