Jane Austin in Bath

Not sure that this was quite Jane's experience.
While Jane was in Bath though she made many observations
of the characters and follies in the society that her Admiral brother
 was able to introduce her to.
Her novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were written here
though not published until after her surprisingly early death.

According to some who know better than I, Jane Austin did not very much like Bath.  They take their opinion from hints in her letters to her sister Cassandra and I think, are reading deep scores between the lines by quoting one of her heroines - Anne in Persuasion - as their evidence. "She persisted in a very determined, though very silent, disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish of seeing them better..." Chapter 14.

This picture was taken in winter, we
passed when it was surrounded by brilliant green

Well House Manor - even has its own library for guests!
Didn't have time to look for Jane.

Our experience was very different, we arrived via a B road from Melksham (20 mins to Bath), where we stayed the night at Well House Manor. 5 star amenities and service at a 3 star price - Charlie had his own doggy bed provided and bowl in the en-suite, beautiful grounds for wee walks and a short stroll from the town centre, continental breaky included with a fridge full of soft drinks and coffee machine for free use. http://www.wellho.net/mouth/3985_Special-weekend-at-Well-House-Manor-come-and-see-Wiltshire.html The B3108 took us over one of the 7 hills that surround Bath, just like Rome. Coming over a crest, we saw a little hotel called the Swan perched on the edge of the ridge with spectacular views down a valley way down below with a river running at the bottom.

Willow claiming the bed by the window

Petal charging her i-pod through her Surface

Where is my bed?

Squeezing oranges for fresh breaky juice

Charlie's bed under the apple tree

 All was green and lush, Bath glowed with the morning sun bouncing off the cream stone buildings it is so famous for. Unfortunately that was the last of the sun, the clouds only had a tiny leak but hung very low all day.

Being the last day of the Jane Austin Festival week, we saw many in Regency dress and booked a Jane Austin walking tour of Bath. Our guide was all dressed up and very knowledgeable about Jane and the town she had lived in for a few years. I was amazed to learn that the Roman Baths were not uncovered until 1810 when the failure of the Regency Pump Rooms spring forced an investigation.  The Victorian buildings now surrounding the excavated Roman remains were not constructed until 1897 - some  80 years after Jane's death.  This means that all my imaginings as I have read Austin and Heyer Historical Fiction have been wrong.  As I sat in the square by the Abbey with it's angels forever trialing up and down carved ladders to heaven and back, I enjoyed my raspberry and pavlova ice-cream and tried to imagine the space crowded with Regency shops and housing- right up to the doors of the Pump rooms.

Incredible detail but a little slower for he news
to get heaven than the faithful hope. 

Entrance to the Pump Rooms - spot the Regency dress ups.

The Victorian architect carved the Roman lookalike figures around the edge of the terrace.
Historians think that the Anglo Saxon chronicles hint at the destruction of the Roman remains through flood and warfare
Modern Street level is 1/2 m down from where the terrace is.  This pool had an arched ceiling of hollow brick and wood
higher than the Abbey towers.  It must have been visible around the whole valley. There were ladies baths behind the
 wall visible in this shot and mens baths including a plunge pool of frigid water under where M is standing to take it.  This was necessary when the Emperor Hadrian banned mixed nude bathing which had been common until then.

Touching the water was discouraged by large
signs saying not to. About to jump Petal?

Taking the waters from a stainless tap in the museum.
Petal hasn't added it to her list of cool new beverages.
High in Sulphate, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and
Fluoride it may have been helpful to many. At least
it didn't taste like Hanmer springs sulphur!

In front of Sally Lun's restaurant, creator of the
famous Bath bun or Sally Lun, known to many as a
Boston Bun when imported to the USA.
The box beside Willow is a sedan chair,
these could be hired to carry the wealthy to
places around Bath. Long planks would be slid through
the loops on the side and two men would use these
as handles to lift the box. Hide if the servant of a large
person heads your way!

Ice cream beside the Abbey

The Jane Austin walk took us over Pulteney bridge that had shops built on it to hide the river from the pedestrians. Perhaps many Regency folk suffered from Vertigo. The markets were pointed out where Jane would have shopped for produce and Laura place that was featured as a desirable residence by both Heyer and Austin. At the end of this road is the building that was a famous club with leisure gardens at the height of Bath's social popularity.  Many other haunts were destroyed by floods or developers in the Victorian age. We walked up Milsom St towards the Assembly rooms (Upper rooms) and saw where the coffee shop where Anne met Captain Wentworth for the first time in Bath had been - yes a real place! On our way to the rooms on Bennett St we were taken past a little lane that had a little green gate opening onto it. This was the back of cheaper rented accommodation that the Austins were forced to take after the death of the Reverend from a bilious fever. There was a large Eucalyptus growing in the yard which of course would not have been there in Jane's time for the first fleet didn't land in Sydney cove until 1788.

The Lower rooms were where Grand Parade is now full of tour buses and cars desperately looking for parking. The tea rooms looked out through arched pillars overlooking the Parade Gardens.  These were considered too small and informal for the ton so the upper rooms were designed with a large room for dancing, an octagonal room for cards with a smaller, quieter suite for serious gamblers and a large refreshments room that was catered by Messrs Kuliff and Fitzwater. One account of the 'taking of tea' in the upper rooms mentions "justling,scrambling, pulling, snatching, struggling, scolding and screaming" (from J.Melford's Humpfry Clinker) No wonder it was the gentleman's duty to secure refreshments for the ladies.

Another 'Aha' moment was when I discovered that Bath became a popular winter resort for high society when a very confident chap called Richard 'Beau' Nash decided to make a set of rules that provided more freedom of contact between the tiers of polite society.  Bath became a popular place where young ladies and gentlemen might find a marriage partner higher up the social ladder than themselves or impoverished titles could find a well educated and dowered merchant's daughter. The aristocracy bent to join the well to do with in the social safety of Nash's rules. A couple of examples are, "That no person take it ill that any one goes to another's play or breakfast instead of to theirs - except captious by nature." and "That all whisperers of lies and scandal be taken for their authors." These ideas wouldn't go astray in today's society.

Charlie had to be carried in here.

The Circus

House at the end of the Royal Crescent
Now a Georgian Museum - didn't get there.

Front of the Royal Crescent the stone Haha fence just visible.

1 Laura St - where Lady Russell may have rented rooms.

Palace facade on Queen Square

 Many of the building designed and built in this prosperous time of Bath's history were a Father and Son team called John Wood the Elder and John Wood the Younger. They built the Circus which is a semi circle of white buildings with a grassy circle in the centre for promenading(Nicholas Cage has just vacated his apartment here recently) - this area also had the first street gas lamps which made loitering in the evenings without chaperons another allurement of Bath.

'The Gravel Path' gave wide pedestrian access from the Royal Crescent (The Circus on steroids - built by the Woods) to the centre of town, there was a duelling grounds half way along it and the first indoor flush toilets can be seen hanging from the back of the some houses in the Circus.  They were added to the buildings after completion with their plumbing running down the backs of the structures into drains. They were dubbed 'thunder boxes' for reasons that don't need explanation. Opposite the fearfully expensive Royal Crescent was a private lawn that overlooked pastures and farmlands.  A 2m rock wall was built to raise the lawn level from the field so the beasties couldn't mess up the lawn.  This is called a Haha fence, apparently because poor sighted individuals roaming the lawn would occasionally fall off it and provide great entertainment for peers and passersby.
Another famous architectural wonder invented by the Woods was the Palace front.  This is where a collection of houses were built in a terrace but they shared a front of pillars and plinth so it appeared to the outside world as if it was one large- grand building.  Jane Austin spent a happy holiday living with her Admiral brother and his family in lodgings across from a fine example of this style in Queen Square. Just around the corner from this is the Jane Austin Center on Gay St.

The River Avon looking back to Pulteney Bridge and the Weir. You can hire a canal boat for a day - catered.
The building on the left was built through a council loophole and is taller than the Abbey by a little.
It has three different era roof lines, the castle turret on the corner used to be owned by Van Morrison.
The line of houses below the tree line on the right is Camden place - for Persuasion fans. Sir Walter was not in
the best position but Elizabeth was very proud of the spacious drawing rooms in their rented apartment.

Very interested in the ducks

Oh! Just going in to visit Jane and her mum

For Captain Arthur Philip - The first Governor of  Australia

Time for a country dance Willow - where's the partner? Upper Assembly rooms. Original chandeliers escaped
the Bath blitz in WWII because they had been taken down and hidden in caves outside of Bath.

Victorian dressups in the
Fashion Museum

Mr Darcy!

A interesting teapot in the Bath Markets

Aladdins cave of antique and modern jewelry in the Bath Markets

Read: Persuasion - Jane Austin to the family in the car driving back to Watford after our day in Bath!
I bought it at the Jane Austin centre, a little 'Collectors' one that matches the Pride and Prejudice that Kim Wright gave me for Christmas one year. The reading of the first 2 chapters was greatly appreciated - ran out of voice so read the rest to myself!!!!
Ms Austin's observations on human pretenses and struggles are just as relevant today without being as damning as they must have been when they were first published.  We can pretend that the issues she tackles don't exist in our modern lives but next time you read an Austin see if you can't match characteristics to people you know - I bet you'll be able to.

One of  the 30+ Historic Romances Heyer wrote.

Georgette Heyer's Regency romances often mentioned Bath, one was set there in 1816 - written in the 1920's though so without the vivid observations of Austin's comments on her contemporaries.