Friday 28th June
2019
We walked the dog to a supermarket close to the boat. The supermarket
is located outside Green Park Railway Station, formerly Queen Square Station.
The last train arrived from Bristol in 1966 and the derelict site was restored
as a retail and market space in the 1980’s. It is quite an atmospheric place and
great to see such a building not only survive, but thrive, with lots of
boutique stalls.
We then returned back to the boat and dropped the dog off. It took us
quite a few months on the boat before we left Harvey alone, and then only for
very short periods to begin with. We forget he is getting older, does not
particularly like to walk too far and suffers greatly from the heat. Sometimes
we feel he just enjoys some time to himself.
We caught the hop on, hop off bus to the Royal Crescent, the furthest
away touristy point, and gradually walked back, visiting the sites we had seen
the day before. The whole city was actually mobbed by hordes of people doing
exactly the same.
Royal Crescent, Bath
The Royal Crescent is synonymous with Bath. The architecture, along
with the rest of the city is very grand. Today, any building work within Bath
has to be fronted with Bath Stone. This stone is actually porous and takes a
lot of treatment before it can be used for building work.
All within a short distance of the Royal Crescent are many beautiful
buildings, significantly, the Circus and Brock Street and the, today
unfortunately named, Gay Street.
Upstairs in the Circus, and Down
Bath owes it splendour to the popularity in Georgian times of “taking
the waters”. There are natural hot springs that rise within the city whose
mineral make-up are supposed to be good for health and these springs have been
used as such since at least Roman times. Wealthy people used to rent rooms or
floors within these houses, as part of the social scene of the day. Later sea
water bathing became more popular, leading to the decline of Bath as a spa
destination, until its revival in the late 20th century.
We meandered down Milsom Street with its older shops and bars,
including Jolley’s Department Store, the oldest in Bath and still retaining a
feel of opulence. We then came in to the city centre with the Roman Baths, The
Old Pump Room, where an expensive afternoon tea can be had, complete with
quartet, and the mineral waters drunk. We had done all this in the past. It is
expensive and the queues very long, so we elected not to do so again.
We did however, visit the Abbey, founded in 1090. While quite small,
and the outside not promising much, the interior is spectacular. The floor is
made up of 891 flat gravestones and the walls are adorned by 625 memorials. We
had never seen so many in one place. There is a stained-glass window that
depicts the coronation of King Edgar, the first Saxon King of all England. Lady
Jane Waller was the first wife of Sir William Waller, a significant
Parliamentarian commander in the Civil War. She died in 1633 and her tomb is
very ornate. There is also a memorial to an Admiral Sir William Hargood, a veteran
of the Battle of Trafalgar. But the piece de resistance, has to be the delicate
roof fan vaulting, dating from the 16th century, it has to be the
best example we have seen of a vaulted ceiling.
Currently, they are working in the Abbey and have found, beneath the floors, the remains of at least 8,000 corpses which are individually, being archeologically, excavated. Tours are conducted showing the excavations which we would like to go on.
Delicate Ceiling Fan Vaulting
We returned to the boat, collected the dog and went off to find a pub.
We found one not far away, but it was hot, the place was heaving with people, and
we felt hemmed in, so just had the one pint, and went back to “Bridge Street
Ale House” where we had a lovely, simple dinner of prawns, avacado and salad.
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