The vast majority of our day was spent on the Mayor of Bath's official city walking tour. Libby and I have been on it each time we've been to Bath, and will probably continue doing so should we return.
Before the tour we went to a restaurant on West Gate called Bills. We chose this destination because we had yet to have a "full English" breakfast and they had one. For the uninitiated this is (and there are variances):
- Bacon
- Toast
- Sausage
- Tomato
- Eggs
Additionally today it had mushrooms, and my "brunch" one had black-pudding and baked beans. Libby doesn't like black pudding, and my dad didn't love it, but I like it just fine. It tastes very herby. I'll let you look it up though if you're curious to find out what it consists of. Oh, and we each had americanos.
We didn't have to wait long before the tour started, and after divvying up the rather large group into smaller (yet still rather large) groups our guide Michael introduced himself to us and we were off. The tour breezes by all the parts I'm personally most interested in--which is a shame--to get to the 18th century when Bath was at it's influential peak.
You learn a bit about the geology of Bath and the surrounding landscape; how the water that is currently coming up through the three springs is water that landed as rain water in the nearby Mendip hills 10,000 years ago or longer before making their way down through the earth to be heated, pressurized, and sent up through a fault right under Bath. This landscape attracted native Iron age Britains that took up residence in the surrounding hillsides in hill forts. They likely only came down on special occasions.
You also learn, briefly, how and why the Romans would have come to Bath and setup a religious and healing center in the temple and Roman Baths. The Romans leave, everything falls apart and gets buried, the Saxons built an Abbey (a church for them and not the laity). The Normans arrived, tore it down, and built a church two times larger than the current one but it was too large and not well built and quickly fell into ruin. The monks that remained the area revived the town as a medieval spa town for the needy, poor and sick. Finally the current church was constructed after Oliver King had a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder with information that he should rebuild the church. So he knocks down what was left of the Norman church and sets about rebuilding the new one.
Henry VIII does his thing, robs the abbey of what wealth it had (lead roof and bells), and his daughter Elizabeth I is said to have saved it after visiting Bath and when taking shelter within the church was appalled at the state. She levied a tax that had the result of (though likely not the only result) restoring the church.
It took me dang near the amount of time to write this out from my notes as it did for him to say it. The rest of what he had to say was mostly about events and folks from the 1700s and later (out of 2hr+ tour).
Coronation Chicken Baguette for lunch. As James May (Top Gear) once said: all you need is chicken, and coronation.
Queen Anne thought the waters here helped her gout for the 18th century royalty showed up on holidays. This in turn required a support system, and with the court also arriving in the "season" Bath became a wealthy town. The town grew to 30,000 within the century (from what I cannot recall). A man named Richard "Beau" Nash styled himself as the "master of ceremonies" and charged to let folks into his parties. They paid and as a result folks with new money and old intermingled. He had rules about decorum, and that the balls/dances must end at 11pm so folks could go about their day as normal the following morning. There is an anecdote about how the King of England's daughter asked if they could have one more dance when it was time to go home, and he said he said no because he was "king of Bath".
The Royal Crescent
Aside from the "Abbey" and the Roman baths, Bath is likely most known for its contemporaneously trendy and important architectural style. John Wood was influenced by Andrea Palladio. Wood designed Bath's famous "circus" and his son the Royal Cresecent nearby. The style morphed into something more English but I can't recall the important points and am getting tired. He breezed through a handful of other individuals who were of note (one of which left his money to Washington DC which ended up starting the Smithsonian) and ended the walk summing up why Bath is a world heritage city because of the hot springs, Roman baths remains, influence of Wood's architecture.
Center of the circus
The Circus
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Bath and head to Oxford.
That breakfast looks amazing!!
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