The Survey of Bath and District

The Magazine of the Survey of Old Bath and Its Associates

No.12, November 1999

Editors: Mike Chapman Elizabeth Holland

Left (Front Cover): The “cattle” fair in Ladymead, Walcot Street (see inside – Mike Chapman on Bath Fairs)

Right (Back Cover); Walcot Street, Ladymead, Cornwell Buildings and London Street, c.1932. The black outlines show areas of investigation by Bath Archaeological Trust.

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Also included in this issue;

• Roman Baths – Oh yes they are! Peter Davenport • Recollections of Widcombe Miriam & Ken Evans • Oldfield Park – a brief overview of its history Angela Marks

NEWS FROM THE SURVEY

Our booklet on the Guildhall has been completed and discussions have been held on raising money to allow for a wider selection of pictures than usual. The booklet, which draws on the research of a number of different people, concentrates chiefly on the Guildhall itself, rather than the topography of the area. The view below is taken from the roof of the Guildhall (photo: Mike Chapman).

We are completing our study of the Bimbery area for the Spa Project team (out of the various spellings available, we have finally decided on “Bimbery”). We hope the Bimbery booklet, with maps, will be out by the A.G.M. next year. Mike and Marek are planning to report on Bimbery at the lunchtime lecture this November.

We received a commission from Bath Archaeological Trust to study the area between the Corridor and Cheap Street and have been completing this project. Like the Bimbery study, this has been another step forward in the task of mapping the whole of the Old City through the ages.

With Marek Lewcun, we have joined the Bath Industrial Heritage Centre in discussing a possible exhibition on Walcot. Friends will remember their exhibition last year to which we contributed material on the Southgate area, especially on the site of the Stothert and Pitt foundry.

Mike has been appointed Editor of BIAS, the journal of the Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society. He has also lately been supervising an historic building survey of Stanton Prior similar to that carried out at Newton St.Loe.

He has completed the work he was commissioned to do on various databases. As he discovered that the post-medieval baths were not included in the Sites and Monuments Record (one of the databases), we produced a handy reference booklet, discussed later under Publications. Like our Guildhall booklet, this drew on the latest research by others as well as our own (the Survey began studying the baths in 1985, in preparation for our exhibitions in 1986).

Chairman of the Survey: Mike Chapman, 51 Newton Road, Bath BA2 lRW. 01225 426948

Secretary-Treasurer: Elizabeth Holland, 16 Prior Park Buildings, Bath BA2 4NP, B&NE Somerset. 01225 313581

NEWS FROM THE FRIENDS

At the A.G.M. in June once again held at the United Reformed Church Halls, Mark Beaton of Bath Archaeological Trust led an interesting discussion on the Bath Street Survey sponsored by the City Initiative Team, with the whole question of traffic in Bath. Peter Carey then spoke about conservation projects undertaken by his firm, Messrs.Donald Insall’s, with a wonderful display of slides, ending with the new proposals for the Cross Bath. (The Cross Bath was a little difficult to see at the public meeting at the R.L.S.I. The two overlapping ovals are actually placed north-south and not east-west as we reported.) An account of this meeting appears below.

There are also accounts below of three walks held for the Friends - the Sawclose area on 27 May, Bathampton in July, and Walcot in September. All these walks were very well attended and voted a considerable success, and our thanks go to those who organised and led them, as well as to June and her team for once again organising the meetings of the Friends.

Dr.John Wroughton has brought out a new book, An Unhappy Civil War, discussed under Publications. It was launched at the Empire on 1 October, in a joint presentation with Pegasus Retirement Homes. Friends will recall our evening at the Empire two or three years ago, which led to more of our number moving there. The beautiful room, speeches by the Mayor and John, excellent catering, and the reunion of many old friends made the launch a happy event.

Denise Walker was involved in the flower decorations for the Abbey celebrations. Her beautiful arrangements gained a great deal of praise and were featured in the papers. An account by Denise appears below in City News.

Professor Robert Alexander sends his regards, and he comments, as always, that he enjoys the magazine very much. Robert writes that at the moment his main project is arranging a medieval banquet at Point Park College with the aid of one of his classes - with medieval food, decorations and plays. He reports that the rest of the College seem somewhat amazed, but he feels that this banquet is needed.

The wine-glasses donated in memory of Tony Symons proved very useful at the A.G.M. They are available for hire by the Friends for their own gatherings, to be collected and returned by the hirers. Please contact Hazel Symons on 464528.

Philip Jackson has been composing a study of the 19th century in Britain, based on a prized possession of his, an old newspaper celebrating the dawn of the 20th century. He will be giving a talk on the subject to the Family History Society on 22 November at the Church Hall, Bathwick St.Mary. At the Christmas party at the Keynsham and Saltford Local History Society he will be speaking about Christmas 1901, from the same paper.

A new member is Malcolm Hitchcock of Prior Park Buildings, who has lately become a Mayor’s Guide. Malcolm is interested in the water supply of Bath, and the way in which water was conveyed to the individual houses. He will be glad to hear from any others who share this concern.

Mike and Elizabeth met Robin Lambert in the Record Office the other day, on a short visit from Paris. Robin is expected to have an article in Bath History in the year 2000.

Mrs.Dora Wedge has removed to Newbridge Towers, Newbridge Hill. She still follows our work with interest.

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IN MEMORIAM

Bron Kellaway

We regret to announce the death of Bron Kellaway, wife of Dr.Geoffrey Kellaway, Consultant Geologist to B&NES and formerly to Bath. Mrs.Kellaway died at their home in Lewes, Sussex, in September. They were to have celebrated their Diamond Wedding in December.

Mrs.Kellaway took a great interest in Dr.Kellaway’s work and would accompany him on visits to Bath, where she would follow keenly all that was being done in connection with the Spa waters. Besides bringing up a family, she followed her own career in the field of education. In 1948 she became Head Teacher of Mile Oak Secondary Modern Girls School, where she encouraged wider opportunities for the girls in her charge. In 1963 she became Principal Lecturer at Seaford College of Education. From 1979-1990 she was Personal Tutor in Education at the University of Sussex, and also served on the University Education Board.

Bron leaves two daughters and three grandchildren. Besides her wide range of interests, her lovely personality ensures that she is very much missed by everyone who knew her.

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Harbutt’s Mill and the George Inn beside the Kennet & Avon Canal at Bathampton, c.1890 (BRL).

27 May: A WALK AROUND THE SAWCLOSE AREA

Studies commissioned by Bath Archaeological Trust and researched by Mike Chapman and Elizabeth Holland of the Survey of Old Bath, Marek Lewcun of Bath Archaeological Trust and Kirsty Rodwell, architectural historian, were the subject of a walk around the Sawdose on Thursday evening, 27 May 1999. Ruth Haskins, the Chairman, welcomed the speakers who gave nearly 30 members a fascinating and detailed description of this small area from Roman times to the present day.

Starting by the Garrick’s Head, on the site of the city wall, Mike described the present car park area as it was in the Middle Ages, with its timber yards and saw pits, and with later on a Pound nearby, the derelict remnants of its Victorian successor being still visible behind rusty ornamental gates. In 1615 development around this “open” area began when a piece of land was given to Biggs, the city paviour. Gradually, various developments grew up, including a coach house and stables, and later the Georgian buildings of St. John’s Court. The Corporation installed a

4 weighbridge (in the centre of the present car park) and the “space” became important as a delivery area using surrounding buildings for storage, and by the late 18th century as the city coal market. The area became a car park in the 1930s.

A property on the south side, once owned by John Parsons a “common carrier”, was acquired in the 1880s by a Variety Theatre Company who ran a very successful music hall under the name “Bath Pavilion”, later remodelled as “The Lyric Theatre”. Chaplin is said to have performed there before leaving for America. Nearby was a soap/candle manufacturer and the present garage was a cheese store.

In past years Bridewell Lane has been known by a variety of names, the most intriguing being “Plumtreos Twichene”, the latter being an old word for “alleyway”. In 1632 a house (Bridewell) was erected for “setting the poor to work” but was demolished in 1722 when Killigrew built the Blue Coat school for 50 boys and 50 girls. This school, in turn, was pulled down in 1859 and rebuilt by Manners & Gill. Roman mosaic work has been found not only here but also under the Mineral Water Hospital, a short distance to the east.

Marek then continued the tour by pointing out the site of a clay pipe factory behind the building in what was formerly the school yard. The factory, founded in 1770, was one of only two in Bath in the 19th century and was important as it supplied clay pipes as far afield as Dorset, Gloucestershire and Salisbury, although not Bristol. There was also a slaughterhouse in the vicinity, an almoner’s house, brewhouses and a malthouse. An old rubble limestone wall can be seen which was probably the original wall of the coach house and Kirsty drew attention to the wall of the former music hall which was possibly that of the earlier malthouse. In 1880 a soup kitchen was sited here, the excellence of whose soup was renowned and its recipe had a wide circulation.

We walked along Westgate Street towards the site of the West Gate where several other malthouses were formerly sited, and then gathered in the recently constructed courtyard of the Seven Dials Precinct. Here Marek explained that, following an archaeological dig not long ago, part of the old city ditch had been found, sited quite a way from the city wall. In this “gap” was discovered what may have been a rough Roman trackway which ran between the walls and the ditch, a route certainly used in later times by travellers passing around Bath after the city gates were closed – a very early by-pass.

The Friends were surprised and fascinated to learn how many small industries had prospered in such a small area, side by side with welfare endeavours such as the almoner’s house and the soup kitchen. In more recent times, of course, the Western Press offices had been established immediately adjacent to Bridewell Lane, before moving to a new site within the last couple of years.

All the speakers were enthusiastically applauded by the Friends and thanked warmly by Ruth for such a knowledgeable and insight into yet another part of the city. In due course Mike and Elizabeth hope to write a booklet on the Sawclose area as a companion volume to those the Survey of Old Bath has already published. Priscilla Olver, June 1999

11 June: A.G.M. FURTHER NEWS OF BATH

Mark Beaton, Bath Archaeological Trust and Peter Carey, Donald Insall Associates, were the speakers at the A.G.M. of the Friends held on 11 June 1999. They were welcomed by the Chairman, Ruth Haskins, together with the President, Dr. John Wroughton, Friends and their guests. 5

Mark Beaton gave a brief account of the Bath Historical Streetscape Survey set up under the direction of David McLaughlin, to prepare a strategy and manual for Bath to implement radical ways of controlling traffic congestion and pollution, which are the main threats to the environment in the city. The intention was to look at the detailed history of the streets in the area from Norfolk Crescent to the Railway Station; Somerset Place to the Cleveland Bridge and London Road to Lambridge, which area probably contains around 100 streets. However, this presented an impossible task, as it was unrealistic and too costly, so the Bath Archaeological Trust, Mike Chapman and Jane Root collaborated and wrote their own brief including costs, which was subsequently agreed. A report was prepared of 6 streets - named below - together with an assessment of topographical prints, documents, etc., the historical development of which was largely the responsibility of Jane Root. The chosen streets were: Terrace Walk, Orange Grove, High Street, Milsom Street, Northgate Street, and New Bond Street.

Aspects examined in detail included traffic management and movement, street maintenance, street paving and lighting. One proposal was to reduce the passage of through traffic and provide access cells, completely reversing Bath Corporation’s strategy over the past 300 years of trying to provide easy access and to eliminate access cells.

Noise pollution and dust is a major problem. In past years the Corporation looked at technology for solutions, i.e. road surfacing materials, road widening etc. but the City Team is now trying to approach the problem in different ways. Tourism and recreation obviously contributes significantly to pollution and here Bath is a victim of its own success. Originally, in the early 18th century, the Orange Grove was part of the main tourist area, and money was generated by making the lower town successful. This success later spread to the upper town, resulting in more traffic passing through the lower town and the eventual opening up of New Bond Street, thus destroying the quiet and peaceful areas hitherto used for parading and social gatherings. In his summary, Mark reminded us again that the Corporation had chosen to look for solutions by technical means but now the City Team is taking a very radical approach, looking at how to put into effect a suitable proposal within the parameters of what already exists. A remedy can only accommodate the problem so far, further on it ceases to be of benefit to anyone.

Peter Carey, our main speaker, then dealt with the various challenges in conservation met by his company, Donald Insall Associates, as each building requires an individual approach. He described the history behind the ideas of conservation and restoration, quoting from Morris and Ruskin, and illustrated his talk with slides of prestigious buildings, ancient, historical and more recent. Ruskin spoke passionately: “Take proper care of your monuments, and you will not need to restore them.” “Watch an old building with anxious care... better a crutch than a lost limb…many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its shadow.” The Pantheon, for example, with its 2000 year old doors, remains in a complete state, doing the same job, yet is not ostentatious or restored. It was built of concrete otherwise it would have not survived and it looks back in style to Greek architecture. Donald Insall Associates have been involved with a structure in Shanghai requiring bamboo scaffolding; work at Petworth House; re-wiring at Windsor Castle, following the fire a few years ago, and other buildings requiring a sensitive and individual approach.

Peter concluded by illustrating and describing the proposed 21st century design for the Cross Bath in the city. Quite by chance Palmer’s original architectural drawings have recently been discovered in Midsomer Norton, and these fill the gap in the documented history of the bath. The proposed plan will reflect not only Palmer’s and Wood’s design but will look back to the earlier Roman bath, linking the past with the present. Both speakers were warmly thanked by Ruth on behalf of everyone present. Priscilla Olver, June1999

14 July: A WALK AROUND THE VILLAGE OF BATHAMPTON

On a warm sunny evening of the 14 July, the Friends of the Survey enjoyed a guided tour of the village, by one of our members, Arthur Green who is also a Mayor of Bath Hon. Guide.

He spoke of the invasion of the Batheaston by-pass in the parish, but this proved to “unearth” much of the past, revealing that life was in the neighbourhood of the village before the Birth of Christ, with the Romans following through to the Medieval period.

From time immemorial the Manor had been in the hands of the Crown and the Bishops of Bath, but from the reformation it was firstly given to William Crouch (a devious character to say the least) then to Thomas Popham – to William Bassett and to the Hungerfords, and eventually in 1701 to Richard Holder where our story starts.

The Holders had a daughter Elizabeth who became the second wife of Ralph Allen, but it is thought that Ralph Allen never lived in the Manor House even for a short period of time. The Manor estate was eventually sold off to the village in 1921.

The estate has much recent history in evidence; the canal constructed by John Rennie and opened in 1801 to bridge a link between Bristol and London, the G.W.R. by I.K.Brunel, also from Bristol to London, in 1840, and most of the village houses dating from the 19th century, with one or two from the 17th century.

The village school built on a new site was an hundred years old in 1996, the first being in the church yard and attended by village children to the age of 14 at 1/2 d. a day - but during haymaking and harvest time absenteeism was common.

The church built on Norman foundations (as so many English country churches are) we are told, has a very strong Victorian influence, and additions by Allen. Some notable people are buried in the church and churchyard – Admiral Phillip – Walter Sickert – and John Du Barry (Viscount), but it was felt that the church and its surroundings could be left to another walk and talk.

In the High Street we came to one of the older houses in the village, “Bathampton Lodge”, thought to be Elizabethan, with two wings added at a much later date. In the houses opposite in Chapel Row we could see that the front doors had been blocked up, and the story goes that the villagers would stand and sit outside to watch the gentry go by in horse and carriage; so they (the gentry) asked the Lord of the Manor if the doors could be filled in!

The P.O., the fourth since the 1840s, was now in the village stores, the first being in “Court Leet”, the place where visiting magistrates would sit and pass judgement over petty crime carried out in the village.

The site of Harbutt’s plasticine factory was now retirement homes. William Harbutt, headmaster of the Bath Art School, invented a modelling clay in the basement of a house in Alfred Street which he called Plasticine, and he bought an old paper mill in the village to produce it in 1891. It closed from production in 1983.

Opposite the factory is the “Dog’s Head”, a trough with its supply of water which has never run dry, to our guide’s knowledge. This was the water supply to most of the villagers in the High Street.

The house which fronts the retirement homes was the Manor Farm, built by Ralph Shuttleworth Allen in 1863. The houses opposite the old factory entrance, “Dog’s Head Cottages”, were the last to be built by the Allen family in 1906, and bear the Allen crest.

Further up the road, and almost opposite the road leading to the A36, we came to the site of the Village Pound, where stray animals would be impounded until claimed by their rightful owners.

At Court Leet we were shown the Mounting Block, where the farmers and wives would get on to their horses to go about a trip to the fields or to town (market), and inside the gate the “Leat” (a play on the name of the house perhaps?) where a water course only a few years ago would run to feed the two animal troughs.

Bathampton House was demolished to make way for a modern development. What a shame! Although it was a “Victorian” house, it was a very Grand House.

The core of the “Old Rectory” was built in 1317 for the priests from Bath Abbey, and later occupied by the Fisher family who were lay rectors after the Reformation. A sundial on the chimney stack is dated 1687. A large fishpond was visited in the garden which was used by the monks of Bath and is fed by a spring which runs down to the canal. Adjacent to the Rectory was the Rectory Orchard. This still contains an ecclesiastical archway, on the top of which once stood a Trefoil Cross, now on the chancel roof of the church.

Opposite is the “Old Cottage” dated 1616, with additions in 1751 and 1981. This was where the “Water Man” lived. It had an old pumping engine in the garden, and when the water supply to the village was getting low, water would be pumped from the springs in the Rectory to a reservoir on the downs.

More 1825-1830s houses were seen and stories told of them until Meadow Lane was reached and the route to the Canal. We were shown the graceful lines of RENNIE’S canal bridge together with mason’s marks and graffiti dating back to the early 1800s.

A pleasant stroll back along the canal took us to a framework of “Fishbelly” rails used to hold the stop-planks for damming off the water in the canal for drainage. These rails had been purchased

8 from the Avon and Gloucestershire Railway which ran from the coalfields north of Bristol to the river Avon at Keynsham.

..And on to the “George”, dated circa 1840 (believe that if you will), where it was agreed that a good evening was had by all. Arthur Green, July 1999

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19 September: WALCOT STREET - ROMAN TOWN - MEDIEVAL SUBURB AND PRESENT DAY VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

David McLaughlin, Principal Conservation Officer (B&NES) and Marek Lewcun of Bath Archaeological Trust, led a walk for about 20 Friends along Walcot Street on Sunday evening, 19 September 1999. We set off from the Podium - an area under consideration in the late 1960s when the Buchanan Tunnel Scheme was proposed. This was abandoned and eventually the area was developed, but it was a great tragedy that archaeologists saw very little of what remained. A Roman pit was found, full of leather and shoes, and also a well containing a number of clay pipes. Everything else was wiped out. An excavation many years earlier just south of St. Michael’s Church recorded a Roman cobbled surface 8ft. Down and a pennant surface and drain at a depth of 11ft.

Farther along, we went into the former Bath Electric Tramways depot, with part of the access courtesy of Teresa Turner, Duty Manager of the Hilton Hotel. These modem buildings, some with brick walls, formerly housed Bath’s electric trams, boiler house, electricity generating house, foundry and workshops, and although dilapidated now, have a certain architectural charm with fine pillars, round-headed and circular windows. Some materials and features will be re-used when the owners, Future Heritage, develop the site for housing and workshops, thereby repeating the occupation pattern of Roman times.

Twelve excavation trenches were dug around here this summer, but the tramsheds had terraced away much of the Roman remains. However, outside in the nearby workshop/studio area about 9ft.2ins. (2.8m.) Below the ground was a small bit of Roman tessellated pavement, possibly a mosaic, alongside a Roman wall. The size of the room could not be determined but it was obviously a quality building. Other walls were found and it is now clear that in Roman times the plots were long and narrow, with houses fronting on to the road, workshops at the back in places and narrow passage ways in between and behind.

The walk continued past Major Davis’ fountain to Ladymead House where the warden, Margaret Bartlett, took us through to the garden at the rear. David told us that, from a painting now in the Victoria Art Gallery, Ladymead House appears to be a 19th century building, but his research and inspection of the basement revealed a plan form and architectural details dated around 1680. The garden, which was larger than expected, relates directly in concept to the traditional gardens of ancient Persia and it still has three terraces as depicted in the painting. On that evening, listening to the birds singing as the light faded, we were all captivated by the feeling of peace and tranquillity here.

In front of Aldridges another identical layout pattern to that already demonstrated has been uncovered together with a wall still surviving to the quite remarkable height of 24 courses, and two coffins, one of them lead. The walk ended in semi-darkness at the back of the Hat & Feather 9 where important excavations took place between 1989 and 1992. Marek explained that the south side of the Fosse Way was discovered along with a road joining it from an early river crossing to the east, and this area was the very centre of occupied Bath in Roman times, Walcot Street being the equivalent of the High Street, and the mini roundabout the point where all the Roman roads into Bath met. It was a large and very busy town, probably with quality housing for guests, services, trades (a blacksmith’s workshop and a kiln, probably for pottery, were found), all supporting the religious and cultural centre around the hot springs. Life patterns are repeated exactly today in Bath - it is a highly popular tourist centre and world heritage city surrounded by a busy and beautiful landscape.

David and Marek were warmly thanked by the Chairman, Ruth Haskins, for an extremely interesting evening and an informative voyage of discovery. Priscilla Olver, September 1999

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CITY NEWS

Festival of Flowers, Bath Abbey, June 1999

1999 is Bath Abbey’s 500th Birthday - and to help celebrate this, we held our first Flower Festival for perhaps 20 years. The Theme was “Signs of Life” - based on the miracles contained in John’s Gospel, supported with a variety of decorations around the Abbey, dominated by a golden cross outlined with roses, suspended high above the nave.

Approximately 40 arrangers were involved, half of those graciously coming from other churches, flower clubs etc. to help the arrangers at the Abbey. Seven interpretations of the various miracles were undertaken including the turning of water into wine, the raising of Lazarus, the feeding of the five thousand, and the healing of the blind man by the pool of Siloam. The latter was given the whole of the St.Alphege Chapel - which posed quite a challenge to its arranger who was helped by a friend from Oxford. The aim always is, I believe, not to hide the existing architecture but to work with it and enhance it if possible. This was the challenge certainly with the Alphege Chapel, together with its carpet - the only one in the Abbey and with delicate colouring generally.

Eventually, it was felt that Christ should be on high, so an arrangement in golds, yellows etc. was put on top of the roof of an inner vestry, looking down on a scene which depicted green arrangements to show the garden courtyard where it all took place, the blind man depicted in mainly black and white and grey (kneeling over a convenient grill in the floor of the Chapel,) bathing his eyes (as instructed by Christ), the font nearby spilling over with very blue water (delphiniums and agapanthus); his cloak, white stick, flung down behind him by some rocks, and three of the critical, sneering disbelievers, pointing to him - these in large triangles, geometrically arranged to show their uncompromising attitude, using mainly browny, gold, leucospernums (spiky, tropical flowers).

We were honoured by a visit on the Tuesday by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, who is a patron of the Abbey for the campaign to raise funds for the renovations begun 6 years ago, and virtually completed now. Quite apart from the loveliness of the Abbey in general, the Rector wanted the whole festival to be seen and used as an outreach to visitors, perhaps to stir them to 10 think of their Creator, recall His marvels, in the miracles. There was no charge for entry, but guidebooks to the Festival were on sale, and certainly some people donated to the Abbey. Any profit was to be sent to the Children’s Hospice, South West.

It was a year or so in the planning, and a tremendous amount of work by a large number of people, quite apart from those doing the arrangements; but a real privilege - we even forgave the Rector when he asked the Head of the Guild, Sylvia Bibbings, to stay open an extra day! Denise Walker, August 1999

The Industrial Heritage Centre

Since July, Tim Harvey has been acting as resident sculptor at the Bath Industrial Heritage Centre, demonstrating his stone-carving skill. It is reported that he completed a fireplace and a birdbath with four dolphins, and a sculpture of Bacchus. He has now moved to Drings in Locksbrook Road, where he will be completing a work based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The Centre has also been carrying on a project on the Snow Hill area. In its exhibitions next year, the Centre is planning to include material on some of the Men of the Millennium mentioned in our last issue. One of these is to be Isaac Pitman. Roland Symons has provided us with this drawing of the arms of Sir Isaac from his memorial in the north nave aisle of the Abbey. He has also provided this blazon:

Shield: Azure, a winged quill Or. Crest: A Catherine Wheel azure garnished Or.

Peter Chapman Plaque

This plaque is now in place on the wall of the north aisle. Part of the cost was met by the Friends of the Survey of Old Bath (especially members of the Chapman family) and part by the Friends of the Abbey.

Future of the Gainsborough Building

What was long ago referred to by lecturers and students there as “the Beau Street Tech” (formerly the Royal United Hospital) has been refurbished and is now called the Gainsborough Building. The frontage has been cleaned and stands out very impressively across the cleared site of the Beau Street Swimming Bath.

The City of Bath College is now marketing the building as a possible hotel site, strategically placed by Nicholas Grimshaw’s modern baths building. Some other hotel owners have complained of the number of new hotels being opened in the city, and B&NES tourism and marketing manager Peter Rollins has commented that he will be looking into the question of supply and demand.

Above: Students outside the Beau Street Building of Bath College, now the Gainsborough Building, which contains the School of Visual Arts, School of Media Arts, and Hot Bath Gallery. (photo: Elizabeth Holland)

East Twerton and Oldfleld Park Local History Society

The Society, now in its fourth year, has 70 members, and meetings attract quite a few non- members with an interest in a particular subject.

Falling attendances meant that we decided to discontinue our twice-yearly exhibitions for a while, but we did contribute to the Industrial Heritage Centre’s Summer Exhibition Work in Progress last year, with an exhibition on the history of Oldfield Park. We have been fortunate in having a run of well-received speakers, including some of Bath’s most prominent local historians. The wide range of topics, some serious and learned, some more light-hearted were presented by both professionals and amateurs.

The professionals included scholars Dr.Graham Davies who gave us an illuminating and thought- provoking talk on the Odd Down Workhouse and Dr.John Wroughton who took us further back to tell us how the Civil War affected our area; archaeologists and cartographers like Marek Lewcun, who took us even further back to Roman discoveries, and gave us the lowdown on the latest archaeological finds and Mike Chapman, whose slides of Southgate produced not only some unexpected new knowledge, but some amusing moments.

Then there were the semi-professionals: Mayor’s Guides: Jim Cantello, who gave us the slide version of his walk round Bath, A Copper’s Eye View of Bath, a hugely entertaining evening linking Bath’s buildings and history with his memories of his career in the police force, and Ruth Haskins who shared with us her unique and fascinating research into the history of the Guildhall market. Ruth also falls into another category: our home-grown speakers, members who have been conducting their own private research. Angela Marks gave a talk on Brunel and the Great Western Railway, The Man who Split Twerton in Half, and also had to step in to cover for a speaker who was unable to come, with a rather hastily cobbled together history of Oldfield Park.

At the time of writing, two more members have yet to speak: Beryl Brooks talking about No.1 Royal Crescent on 21 October and Charles Marks on the history of gas lighting on 25 November. Members of the Society also joined in Julie Amos’ production of Songs for Oldfield Park, an anthology of photographs and poems and songs about the area, written by local people, which was presented on Moorland Road Flower Day in July.

The year ended with an evening walk and talk around East Twerton and Oldfield Park, conducted by Angela Marks, which proved so popular there have been requests for another one. A video of the walk is now being considered. Meetings are held at Oldfield Park Baptist Church Hall, The Triangle, normally on the third Thursday in the month (although this is variable) at 7.30pm. Further information may be obtained from the Chairman, Margaret Day, on 01225 872843

Prior Park Buildings: the Habitat

Prior Park Buildings, built from 1820 onwards on part of the former Forefield and Forefield Orchard, is renowned for the beauty of its setting. Recently a notable ecological disaster took place there. Someone upstream tried to disconnect an old central heating tank with an oxy- acetylene blowlamp. By the time his hair was on fire he realised that the tank was not in fact empty (if it had been, it would probably have exploded). Ambulance men attended to the operator, while fire crews extinguished the general blaze. Somehow a large quantity of diesel oil flowed into the stream, originally the millstream leading into the pond above Gibbs’ mill, which stood on a site by the present Toll Bridge.

As many of the fish were surface feeders, trout and their offspring, residents and passers-by rescued a number and housed them in buckets and baths, while the Garden Centre provided tablets to counteract the chlorine in tap water. The Environment Agency, which had rushed to the scene, rehoused them in the Chew, and set up booms to catch the spillage. Weeks later, diesel oil can still sometimes be smelt passing. Enquiries have been held to establish how the oil progressed, apparently, from a house basement into the stream.

The yellow irises or flags have survived, but not the magnificent white waterlilies, formerly cared for by the Residents’ Association. Friends will draw their own moral about the right way to deal with central heating, etc.

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LETTERS PAGE

Letters Editor: Leslie Holt

Many thanks to Angela Marks, Ruth Haskins, and Bernadette Kondrat, who have submitted our first letters, which we reproduce below. We hope that many other readers will now feel inspired to send in their letters! Please send to me – Mr.Leslie Holt, “Westwinds”, Hayesfield Park, Bath BA2 4QE.

Bath, 8 September 1999

Dear Sir

The allegedly dire state of the railways being much in the news at present illustrates the historical principle of plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chôse, as a glance at the log book of Bath Spa Station demonstrates.

The first train was due to arrive at the station on 21 August 1840 on a test run. This proved not to be possible as neither the station nor the Skew Bridge were complete, and at Temple Meads the last rail was laid just an hour before the train was due to leave. Pulled by Arrow, the train ran as far as St James Viaduct arriving at 4.35 p.m. It returned to Bristol at 5.32 p.m., and the station log book records that G.W.R. directors Messrs R.Bright, W.Tothill, T.Guppy, C.Fripp, R.Scott, Superintendent Clark and I.K.Brunel were on board.

During the next ten days there was a frantic scramble to complete the station and bridge, and a thousand men worked round the clock with huge fires and thousands of candles to light the work at night. The station, called the “Bath Depot” by Brunel, was completed on 30 August, the day before the launch of the new service.

The first passenger train from Bristol arrived at Bath at 8.33 a.m. on 31 August 1840 with the eight-coach train being pulled by Fireball. The return journey, with Arrow hauling the train, set a precedent which the railway system has honoured ever since: the train’s departure was half an hour late. No leaves on the line, then, but there was a problem with a coach wheel, which caused the train to catch fire at Twerton. The first day was, however, quite a financial success: the Bath log book records ticket receipts of £231.

Then, as now, smoking on trains was frowned upon, despite the clouds which the engine produced. The penalties were draconian: on the 9 October 1840 a man was fined the considerable sum of 40 shillings for “smoking at Bath station and on a Bristol bound train”.

Modern complaints as to the state of carriages, however, pale into insignificance when compared with the experience of one hapless traveller on 14 March 1845. The log records, “John Jonathan, aged 50, travelled from Bristol on the 1010 service in an open 3rd class coach. Mr.Jonathan suffered exposure on route. Porter John Fennell assisted him off the train to a Chemist in Southgate st (sic), where Mr.Jonathan died.” The Bath Chronicle reported that he only had sufficient money for his own fare: his wife had to walk from Bristol. At least she lived to tell the tale. Yours faithfully,

Angela Marks

Angela has mentioned that the provenance of the “Fireball” picture, overleaf, is not known, other than its being a photocopy of a picture which hangs in the announcer’s office at Bath Spa Station. The drawing is slightly at odds with Tyte’s contemporary description of the engine: “The most conspicuous feature about the engine was the large dome-shaped copper boiler, which gleamed brightly in the sunshine”. However, as he was a small boy at the time, from his perspective the boiler might have appeared “Dome-shaped”. Details from Angela’s letter come from a transcript of the station log-book which one of the staff produced. 14

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY “Fireball”, Firefly Class, 2-2-2 Broad Gauge engine. Built by Jones Turner and Evans-Newton le-Willows. Fireball hauled the first-ever train into Bath Station on Monday 31 August 1840.

Bath, 23 Sept.1999

Dear Leslie

The recent closure of the Westgate Bldgs. store of the Bath Cooperative Society brought back memories of the Haskins’ connections with the local Cooperative Movement. My late husband’s father, Edwin Haskins J.P., was a life-long supporter of “Cooperation”. He became President of the Bath Society in 1913 and retired in Spring 1939, in office over 25 years. Although not a Bathonian by birth he was devoted to the City. Born in Wells, he came to Bath age 17 years to be a telephone clerk at Green Park Station (then S&D) and later Goods Superintendent for L.M.S. A J.P. from 1914, he sat on the bench twice each week – Thursday with Miss Kathleen Harper, and the other day on the Juvenile Court. He became a Councillor for East Twerton in 1945; his particular interest was Education. Governor of several schools and instigator of Newton Park Training College, he became Governor there. Also involved in Special Schools, he held office at Sutcliffe School and was primary mover of selling premises in Walcot Street and moving to Winsley House. The school was there for many years; it is now “Dorothy House”.

He was proud of the Westgate Bldgs. store and opened it on 24 March 1934. Also present were the Mayor, Lt.Col. the Hon.H.S.Davey, and the full committee. The membership was 14,078 and the dividend paid was 1s.6d. in the pound, plus a bonus in goods of 6d. It was popular locally, as it offered a wide range of goods and services, from the C.W.S. bank on the top floor to the café in the basement. The Co-op. Congress was held in Bath in 1937 to celebrate 50 years of retailing here.

At a later date I hope to submit an article written by my husband John, on life in the 1920s and 1930s, the aims and activities of the Bath Cooperative Committee, and the effects on his family. Between the Co-operative Society and Railway, Court and Council, my devoted mother-in-law Nell hardly saw her husband; she was a saint! Yours, Ruth Haskins

Bath, 22 Sept.1999

Dear Sir

I thoroughly enjoyed the walk round Walcot when I joined my sister Mrs.Graham on Sunday 19 September. The gardens at Ladymead House were lovely, like being in heaven, with one bird singing loudly, bushes all around, and seats and little walkways. Ladymead House was itself painted a beautiful shade of green inside.

Our paternal grandmother, Mrs.Kelly, used to work at Ladymead House, and my sister used to wait for her there in the courtyard at the front of the building. She had never been to the back areas before the walk. Yours sincerely, Bernadette Kondrat

NOTES AND QUERIES

Preparations for York Street

Allan Keevil has sent us the following note on the plans to create York Street:

Monday last at Guildhall in full chamber... At the above court the Corporation agreed on an exchange of property with Lord Newark for the purpose of enabling his Lordship to make the long wanted coach-road to the Lower Assembly Rooms which is intended to be at the south end of the Pump Room from Stall Street in a strait (sic) line across Abbey and Church Streets and is to be called York Street; for the completion of which Lord Newark with a noble liberality not only sacrifices much property but has also laid out in the purchase of houses &c. to be pulled down above £5,000. This will it is hoped be a prelude to further improvements in the Old Town. Bath Journal, 28 September 1796

“The south end of the Pump Room” seems to be a figure of speech. Baldwin’s Private Baths stood in the way, and south of them the corner houses were not removed until Major Davis extended the bathing establishment in the 1880s. It is interesting that the Deed of Covenant for making and widening streets was not exchanged with the Manvers family until 1808.

Abbey Church House

In the Proceedings of the Bath & District Branch of the S.A.N.H.S., 1914-1918, there are two interesting accounts of Abbey Church House. One is a discussion of the layout by Mowbray Green, beginning on p.227. The other, on pp.224-227, is a report of a talk by Prebendary S.H.Boyd, given when he conducted a party round the house.

Prebendary Boyd pointed out that an Old-Time Fair was held at the Assembly Rooms in February 1911 to raise money for the restoration of Abbey Church House. The north-west front of the house facing Westgate Buildings was then “restored” in true Victorian-Edwardian style, and Tudor-headed windows installed with glass of Old English character. The same kind of transformation was planned for the doorway. It was at this time the armorial bearings were placed in the windows, so that the presence of the Clarke, Hungerford and Skrine arms there is actually no proof of the history of the house.

The entrance hall was widened, “the ceiling being adorned and strengthened with two great oak beams”. The reformers also planned to strip the painting and gilding off the fireplace in the Great Room, presumably meaning the overmantel. This was so that the beauty of the stonework could be revealed, an interesting point. Altogether this article seems to be essential reading for anyone making notes on the history of the fabric of this house.

Non-Millennium

As everyone knows, the year 2000 is the last year of the 20th century, and the 21st century begins in 2001. This issue will not therefore be bidding farewell to the 20th century. Perhaps next year will see some retrospective material. It might be possible to have a display at one of the meetings of old-time photographs belonging to the Friends, or laser copies thereof.

Elizabeth has a fine 19th century photograph of her grandmother Maud Chapman in pantalettes, frock and smart hat, with her two Chapman sisters and brother Charles Chapman. One of the girls is holding a hoop. Even up to the last World War, hoops and skipping ropes were all the rage with children: Elizabeth also possesses a pre-war picture of Christopher with a hoop almost as big as himself. Perhaps we can arrange a show on the customs of the past. If it took place in June, some of the pictures might form a supplement to the November magazine. Let us know what you feel!

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PUBLICATIONS

John Wroughton, An Unhappy Civil War The Experiences of Ordinary People in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, 1642-1646, the Lansdown Press, Bath, October 1999. Paperback £14.99, hardback £25.99.

We had the privilege of attending the launch of this book, which is certainly a beautiful product, and well worth giving to interested friends at Christmas (we met someone at the party who was to receive it for his birthday). The publicity material sums it up well:

An Unhappy Civil War tells the story of ordinary people in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire as they faced up to the horrors of a conflict, which eventually engulfed their lives. It also tells of the failure of army commanders to cope with the logistics of war, thus forcing soldiers on both sides to “live off the country”. Incidents in scores of local villages and towns within this vital war zone are vividly described to show how it felt to be at the mercy of hungry, unpaid and lawless troops. Although some people, as always, gained handsomely from the war, many experienced the depths of human suffering - families split by divided loyalties, conscripts dragged unwillingly to battle, houses plundered by marauding soldiers, homes requisitioned as billets, villages fired for military convenience, churches vandalised and desecrated, prisoners abused and neglected, ploughs and horses seized for army service, goods snatched en route to market... This lavishly illustrated book, which also deals with both the terror of the siege and the lingering effects of war, includes the most comprehensive chronology yet published of military events in the three counties.

“The plundering of a private house, 1642” – one of the fine illustrations from John’s book by Angus McBride, © Osprey Publishing Ltd.

The National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum now stocks The Survey of Bath and District. As they were copyright holders, Elizabeth sent them her material on the Warwick Book of Hours, and they rang us up earlier this year to ask us if they could have a set. We told them frankly that we are a local studies and not an art magazine, but they said they would like to hold it, and we are grateful for the privilege. Bath being what it is, there are likely to be items which will interest the Museum’s clients.

The Survey has lately brought out a limited edition booklet, Baths and Pump Rooms of Bath An Historical Summary, by Elizabeth Holland and Mike Chapman. Copies have been deposited at the Record Office and the Library. Copies could also be made available if anyone wishes to buy it. It is as the title states a summary, meant for reference, and not a jolly read. The text draws on the latest research, such as Jane Root on Baldwin, and David McLaughlin on the Beau Street Baths.

There is always more that might have been included in a document like this. For instance after bringing it out we re-encountered David MacLaughlin’s report on the conservation of the Bladud statue in the King’s Bath, available in the “Pamphlets” in the Record Office, and presumably also the Library.

Also in “Pamphlets” we came upon Kate Clarke’s talk to the Bath Medical History Group at the Lansdown Grove Hotel, 12 October 1993, “Early History of the Royal United Hospital”(PP. 628). It confirms the picture one has of 19th century nursing, with unlimited porter for the Matron and beer money for the nurses. One heart patient fell out of bed not once but twice one night, and as the nurse was dozing by the fire, no doubt under the influence of beer, the other patients simply replaced him.

In Guidelines No.58, June 1999, pp.12-16, Trevor Fawcett has published an article on “Custodians of the Pumps”, for which he made an extensive study of the different people who held the office of Pumper. By the end of the 18th century, he remarks, “the Pumper was always a woman”, usually a widow trying to lay by some savings. It is interesting that in the Guildhall as extended by Brydon the Hallkeeper for a time was the last keeper’s widow, followed by their daughter.

Exploring Widcombe and Lyncombe by Keith Dallimore was published in September by Millstream books, at £3.50. Keith Dallimore’s artwork is well-known, while a number of local

18 historians were consulted over the text. The book is available at shops such as Prior Park Garden Centre.

David Falconer, a member of the choir of Bath Abbey and honorary secretary of Bath Abbey Music Society, has brought out a volume of photographs and prints of the Abbey, available at Waterstone’s and elsewhere. The book also tells the story of the Abbey and of people connected with it. Bath Abbey is published by Sutton Publishing at £9.99 (June, 1999). David and Jonathan Falconer have also brought out Bath at War, 1939-1945 (Sutton, June 1999).

Another Millstream Books publication is Maggie Lane’s A City of Palaces: Bath through the Eyes of Fanny Burney, which John Macdonald drew our attention to at the A.G.M. Maggie Lane was the speaker at the Fanny Burney meeting which John and Linda Macdonald, Alison Hannay and Elizabeth attended last year.

The theories in David Keys’ book Catastrophe attracted a great deal of attention in July. Peter Davenport summed them up when he told the Chronicle that the theme was based on guesswork and the jury was still out.

Being rather busy, we have not read Catastrophe yet, but from the publicity, it is a Doomwatch book, of the category “Ragnarok”, following Ignatius Donnelly’s thesis that debris or dust in the air would cause climatic disaster. People are constantly re-inventing this theory, with or without attribution to Donnelly - as in NASA’s “nuclear winter”.

Doomwatch books are committed to hearing the hurrying feet of doom, and do not always stop to check if that is what they really hear. We would like to know how many tree rings, felled or standing, actually survive from the year 535 A.D., the supposed Doom Year of the book, and how many areas do not possess such tree rings. As for the p1ague which supposedly followed the postulated explosion of Krakatoa that year and hastened the Saxon Conquest, as Bath Archaeological Trust remarked to us, “Do fleas bite only Celts?”. Anyway, scholars have long ago decided that the Celts did not die out nor flee in toto, but merged with the Saxons, so that many supposedly Saxon names are Celtic in origin. This was argued over 50 years ago in the standard Roman Britain by Collingwood.

As for the Arthurian material, the Waste Land of the Grail cycle is mythological material added to the apparently historical Arthur. It is paralleled very closely in for instance Ovid’s account of the search for Proserpine, based on ordinary winters. The sun is seen as god and king, or goddess and queen, and as the sun sickens and fades, so the land and the people sicken and fade. The theme is then detached from the cycle of the year, and the sickness of the Fisher King becomes the sickness of the land. Exactly in the period following 535 A.D., David Keys apparently argues, backtracking myth into history.

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ROMAN BATHS – OH YES THEY ARE!

Peter Davenport

There was an awful lot of interest shown in the report in the Independent on 10 August about the Roman baths at Bath being the creation of a Celtic prince, and a great deal of nonsense spouted.

Dr.Henig’s claims will certainly be controversial, and if true will certainly enlighten our understanding of early Romano-British society and culture, but are fully within the mainstream of Roman research. His conclusions, if accepted, make the Baths no less Roman, indeed perhaps more so, than before.

The argument starts with the question: “Who commissioned and paid for the baths?” Conventionally, this has been thought to be the army, as at the early date of foundation, around 60-70 A.D., it was hard to think who else had the money and command of expertise to do such a thing in Britain. Indeed, it has been suggested that each major army command in the Empire had a spa as a kind of rest and relaxation base.

Martin Henig approached this question anew and argued like this. Normally, public buildings in the Empire would be erected by a rich citizen acting in a private capacity for the public good, and his own glory. A rich citizen might be trying to attract votes in an election, curry favour with the authorities, or reinforce his position as a man of influence in his region. Even emperors and governors acted as private citizens when endowing baths, temples, aqueducts, amphitheatres and the like. So we are looking for someone like this in newly conquered Britain.

The Governors of around this time are possible candidates, but politically, such an act of patronage would be wasted from their point of view in a far off province, out of view of their political and social colleagues in Italy. A more intriguing possibility is the Great King, Friend of the Roman People, Atrebatic prince and collaborator, Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus (or Togidubnus). He was Regulus or client king of the Belgae from the time of the Conquest in 43 A.D. until his death in the time of the historian Tacitus (c.55-120 A.D.).

The Belgae was the generic name for a group of tribes, including the Atrebati, originating in Belgium. By just before the Roman conquest they had a kingdom in central southern England which was being hard pressed and possibly conquered by other Celtic tribes to the north. Their King Verica or Berica had fled to Rome to appeal for help, possibly invoking a treaty signed with Julius Caesar a century earlier. We hear no more of Verica after the conquest, but Cogidubnus may have been his son or a relative, and was set up by the Romans in what we presume was more or less the old kingdom, alongside the newly created province.

The huge villa at Fishbourne, unparalleled in grandeur at this date in Britain, is usually considered to be his royal palace. An inscription found in Chichester in the 18th century [shown below] indicates that Cogidubnus was patron of buildings apart from his palace. It records the building of a temple to Neptune and Minerva in the town with the added inscription that it was for the well- being of the Imperial Household. A similar inscription was found on a base for a monument of this date likewise found in Chichester.

Now, Cogidubnus was a Celtic prince, and king, but he was also a Roman citizen and may have been educated in Rome (as was his contemporary and fellow client king Herod Agrippa). He was an enthusiastic Romaniser. His behaviour all round shows that he was enthusiastically following the Roman model. Could he be the patron of the baths and temple at Bath? Well, for a start, the hot springs of Sulis may well have been in his kingdom. Tacitus tells us that Cogidubnus was king of the Belgae. Ptolemy tells us that in the second century Aquae Calidae was in the Civitas Belgarum, the Roman “county” into which the kingdom was turned after the king’s death (client kingdoms were rarely hereditary, as Boudica found out the hard way). There is no proof that one is coterminous with the other, but it seems reasonable.

So we have a perfectly reasonable hypothesis that the baths and temple were commissioned by Cogidubnus. Is there any thing in the buildings themselves that would support it?

There is, but it is rather esoteric. Martin Henig has re-interpreted the iconography and symbolism of the “Gorgon’s Head” pediment of the temple to show that it is in fact a celebration of the Imperial House, the deified Claudius in particular, as well as a monument to the power of his Roman allies. Cogidubnus would have made much of his participation in the conquest of Britain, and the liberation of his realm from its enemies. The temple pediment, and who knows what else in the decoration of the temple precinct, stood as a monument to the Roman conquest of Britain, which was a major element in the earlier career of the emperor Vespasian in whose reign the temple was erected.

If all this is true, then the baths and temple were indeed built, in the sense of commissioned, by a Celt, but a fully Romanised one with close links to the Imperial House, following Roman precedent, using Roman symbolism, art and architecture, and employing Roman architects, building techniques and artists to extol the Roman conquest, in what sense not a Roman bath?

The original themes can be followed in two articles by Martin Henig:

1) “From Classical Greece to Roman Britain: some Hellenic themes in provincial art and glyptics” in Tsetskhladze G.R. et al: Periplous: to Sir John Boardman from his pupils and friends. London 1999.

2) “A new star shining over Bath”. Oxford Archaeological Journal 18(4) 1999.

Dedication of a temple at Chichester to Neptune and Minerva, by “Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, king and imperial legate in Britain”.

RECOLLECTIONS OF WIDCOMBE

I. Childhood Memories

Miriam Evans

My parents were married in 1939 and rented a first floor flat in Prior Park Buildings. Fifteen months later - August 1940 - I was born and this was the start of eleven happy years of living in the Buildings. Obviously my early years were dominated by the war. I can remember sitting under the stairs in the garden flat with the other tenants of our house during the blitz. On one occasion, when the folk who lived in the top floor flat returned to bed, they found half the ceiling on their pillows!

I've always been attracted to water, maybe because I was brought up with the stream running past the front garden. I was never happier than when I was lying on my side, head through the railings catching tadpoles and tiddlers. Once, my parents tell me, I got my head stuck in the railings and the fire brigade had to be called out. Living in the middle flat meant we had an iron balcony. One day I decided I would like to get out on to it and view the world. I opened the window, stepped out and my leg went straight through the rusty bars! I had quite a nasty sore, grazed leg for some time.

November 5th we would have a big bonfire in the “back lane” with other families from the Buildings all bringing their offerings of fireworks. This community spirit was also evident at the end of the war when all the families had a party in the Widcombe Institute. The forties for me were happy and carefree - I didn’t realise for the first four years of my life that our country was at war. We children were safe to play in Prior Park Road with very few cars and only the occasional bus to disturb our games.

The rent was 16s.a week. In the late 1940s my father was offered No.12 at £600 but my mother didn’t want to own such a large property. At the age of eleven our family moved away and over the years I’ve walked along the Buildings many times. Most have reverted to houses rather than flats and it has become a sought after address in Bath. The stream has changed too, with trout instead of tiddlers. And the railings? I can now see over them, so I’m not tempted to stick my

head through them any more.

II. Widcombe Baptist Church, Widcombe

Ken Evans

1970 saw the centenary of the building of Widcombe Baptist Church. Commenced in 1820, the building was not finished and opened until 1822, due it is believed to serious flooding in the area.

It was named in the 1820 deeds as Widcombe Chapel, but the 1821 Bath Guild called it Ebenezer Chapel, still known by that name by many older folk who live or lived in the area. Ebenezer Terrace still runs alongside. The Church was built by the Independents or Congregationalists to serve the terraces of artisans’ homes in the area. Later the chapel passed to the Methodists and then to the Church of England prior to the opening of St.Matthews.

In 1849 the chapel became the home of Baptists, led by a William Cromwell following a division at Providence Strict Baptist Chapel in the Lower Bristol Road. There has been a continuous Evangelical witness since. Although never being affiliated to the Baptist Union, the Church has been and remains independent but keeps its title “Baptist”, “full immersion” being the practised method of baptism.

Until well into the 19th century the crypt was used for burials and there is still much evidence of

New Look at Nos.14 & 13 Prior Park Buildings, with formal front gardens. No.12, beyond, with the bedding plants, was once the home of Miriam Evans (photo: Elizabeth Holland). that, seen in markings on the walls. Bodies were later exhumed and buried elsewhere in the city. The occasional human bone still surfaces when work is done beneath the Church!

1910 saw the opening of the new Sunday School building, which replaced the “Canal Tavern” on that site. A text embossed in stone on the corner near the bridge “instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree”, is an obvious reference to the old pub!

In 1999 the church sees the 150th year of continuous ministry to the area, and proposes a weekend to celebrate and give thanks to God for that, and looks forward to the New Millennium with great anticipation.

The Widcombe Baptist Chapel (right) and Sunday School (photo supplied by Ken Evans from the archives).

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF OLDFIELD PARK

Angela Marks

Every city has a district such as Oldfield Park, many have several, those areas of Victorian infill which spread out from an ancient walled town connecting it with its original satellite villages and transforming the whole into a late 19th century conurbation. These are the true suburbs, the sub- urban building development on the land adjacent to a town, which fed the townspeople and gave them pasture for their animals, while the areas now referred to as “suburbs” are sufficiently far away to have been originally villages

The Victorian suburb tends to be overlooked by the local historian, or dismissed as being of no interest. Perceived as monotonous rows of by-law houses in endless streets, bastions of the lower middle and respectable working classes, it apparently presents little challenge. No architecture, no great events, but no industry and no poor either, barren ground for either cultural or social comment. These areas lack both a precise geographical and historical definition, even their name is a relatively recent acquisition that has no immediately discernible root. Above all, they have no history. Little more than a century old, before they mushroomed into life to house the growing army of late Victorian clerks and artisans, they were just fields and market gardens.

Modern Oldfield Park is typical of the genre. Defining its limits is difficult and open to interpretation, but it is generally regarded as the area between Englishcombe Lane, The Hollow, the Lower Bristol Road and the Wells Road. Establishing an historical base also presents a

24 problem, for the area straddles two ancient parishes, but only part of each, the western end of Lyncombe and Widcombe and the eastern outreaches of Twerton. Furthermore, these parishes were incorporated into Bath at different times, Lyncombe in 1836 and Twerton in 1911, and are in different Hundreds, respectively Bathforum and Wellow.

Within Oldfield Park, there are a number of districts: South Twerton, part of East Twerton, Durley Park, Moorlands, Moorfields and the core area of Oldfield Park. The last three were within the environs of an eponymous house.

These names, apart from East Twerton, date from the 19th century, although some have earlier roots in local usage, so there is also a problem of how to refer to the area prior to its becoming Oldfield Park. Thorpe called it The Fields, but, certainly in the 18th century, if not before, it seems to have been known as The Hayes. This is derived from the name of several fields: Upper, Middle, Lower and Crabtree Hayes, and Hays Corner which together formed a broad crescent stretching from Holloway to the Twerton boundary and down to the Bristol Road, with Oldfield Road as its southern limit. In the 18th century, these pastures (except Crabtree Hayes) formed an outcrop on the western border of Ralph Allen’s estate.

In Twerton parish there was also the Great Hayes, East Hayes, Sheephayes (later the Great Shophouse), Withy Hays and The Hayes and Nod. To the south and west of Oldfield Road, mainly on the higher ground, were several fields known as The Moors. These fields formed part of the estate of The Moorlands in Englishcombe Lane and also surrounded Moorfields House (called Moors Farm by Cotterell) which stood at the eastern end of Moorland Road until about 1900. There was also a Moorlands Farm, the site of the Moorlands Brick and Tile Works from 1898-1913 and now the Sandpits play area.1

The Moorlands, now the Victory School, much altered by the addition of a tower in 1881, was the home of Anna Sewell, author of the famous children’s classic Black Beauty, and her parents from 1864-67. It first appears by that name in 1828 when the occupier, Captain Bateman R.N. (who was still living there in 1841, but had left by 1849) sold some farm equipment and livestock.2 A house appears on the site on the Charlton map3 prepared in 1799 for the Feoffees of Bruton Hospital who still nominally held the Manor of Lyncombe.

The Oldfield Park area in the 1880s, showing the start of the building infill between the railways. Note the variations in housing density.

(below) A 1930s post card view of Coronation Avenue - built along the parish boundary towards Englishcombe Lane.

At the core of what was to become known as Oldfield Park was the road now called Oldfield Road, and in it the house now known as The Old Cottages. The road ran along the northern boundary of two fields, Old Field and Home Ground (called Homefield on the Tithe Map), which lay immediately to the west of the Bear Inn. Thorpe simply marks it as to the Fields. The Old Cottages appear to be the same building as that marked by Thorpe as “Mr.Mullins’s Summer House”. Subjected to neo-Tudor embellishments in the 19th century, the Old Cottages were once one house and still show traces of the original, now blocked, front doorway. The small casement windows indicate an early date, the original house could well be 17th or early 18th century.

As the Old Cottages appear within a garden on the Lyncombe Tithe Map, one may presume that the house in a garden on the Charlton map is the same one. The house to the east could well be Oldfield Lodge, the building to the west is, as yet, unidentified. While the Old Cottages and Oldfield Lodge appear on the Tithe map, the unidentified building seems to have disappeared, to be replaced by identifiable houses: Park View Lodge (now Oldfields), Rock Hall Villa (home of Thomas Jolly), St.George’s Lodge (now demolished and replaced by a hideous modem building which still bears the original name), Oldfield Villa and Stowe Villa. Although probably much altered, the surviving houses show architectural features typical of the early 1840s, but their appearance on the a map which, judging from the partial state of completion of the Great Western Railway, was surveyed in 1839, indicates a slightly earlier date.

While Oldfield Lodge is numbered and named in the Apportionment, together with its garden, which then ran alongside that of the Bear Inn and brewery, the other houses are not referred to at all, which might indicate that they were newly built. Furthermore, while this is not an infallible guide, only Old Field Lodge, spelt thus, appears in the 1837 street directory, with its address given as Wells Road.

Oldfield Nursery, which covered the original Old Field, was in existence in 1856, and two years later, Oldfield Road acquires an entry as a road, instead of simply as an address as it did in 1850. By this time the whole south side had been built as far as the junction with Oldfield Lane.

The use of “Oldfield” as a generic term for the area seems to have developed by 1874 when the Bath branch of the Somerset and Dorset railway cut a swathe through the local landscape, and a description of the line when it first opened records it as passing through the Oldfield valley.

So it is hardly surprising that when another large house was built to the north of Oldfield Road in the mid 1870s it should be given the name Oldfield Park. The house, certainly in existence in 1878, and built in a charming neo-Jacobean style, was for many years the home of the Duck family (of Duck, Son & Pinker). Almost submerged under the additions which converted it into the City of Bath Girl’s School in 1923, its original name is still to be found carved into the lower gate pillars. It is now part of Hayesfield Upper School.

The gardens of the house, which survive as the school grounds, were surrounded within a decade by the houses of Oldfield Park Road, now Upper and the eastern end of Lower Oldfield Park. Most of these houses appear on the 1886 O.S. map, although some seem to have been unfinished when the area was surveyed in 1885. An Abstract of Title relating to a house in Lower Oldfield Park states that the Lower Hayes was divided into building plots in 1882 and the house sold in 1885.4

These houses, together with those in Oldfield Road were the homes of successful Bath businessmen, professional men and retired service officers and clergymen. Among the names of residents are many familiar ones which also graced the larger Bath emporia. As well as the Ducks at Oldfield Park, there were several members of the Jolly family, the Colmers, the Fox Andrews, the Silcocks and the Fortts.

By 1889, Oldfield Park had become known as a district, with South Twerton being often referred to as Oldfield Park West. The development of Moorland Road in 1889-1890 (originally residential, although being rapidly converted into shops in the late 1890s) linked the Moorfields district with East Twerton. This area had grown up in scattered small developments of short terraces and groups of cottages from about 1830, with an explosion of building in the 1870s and 1880s.

A post card view of The Oval, newly built in the 1930s.

South Twerton developed mainly between 1885-1895, spreading up the hill towards Englishcombe Lane around the turn of the century. Although there had been some building in Shaftesbury Road, on the site of the Moorfields Brick and Tile Works in 1889 and in Winchester Road and Canterbury Road on Garlick Ground in the late 1890s, it was the sale of Moorfields House in 1898 which allowed the final connection to be made between Oldfield Park and East Twerton, with the construction of Beckhampton Road and later First, Second and Third Avenues and King Edwards Road in the first decade of the 20th century. By 1912, Oldfield Park had virtually achieved its present form, to be completed with the building of Local Authority housing on the Englishcombe Park Estate in the 1920s, private developments off Bear Flat in the 1930s and the Moorlands Estate immediately after the War.

1 The conjunction of the Hayes and the Moors is interesting, and may indicate a much older usage. Hayes, hays or heys usually applies to a field enclosed by a hedge, but is also used where such fields have been enclosed from moorland, and they are thus often found on the periphery of moors, as is the case here. The terrain of the Moors or Moorlands, fits the criteria for both interpretations of the name: upland waste ground or, from the Saxon mar, a marsh. The Moors is on the higher reaches of the district, and, although there is some evidence of ridge and furrow ploughing in the grounds of Moorlands School, the fact that, although part of the Lyncombe lands belonging to Bath Priory, these fields are apparently not mentioned in the Priory's Chartulary might indicate that it was indeed waste ground (although possibly used as sheep pasture). There is one reference which might apply to the area: to Dudelmor, described as five acres of arable granted to Henry de Bathonia and Matilda, his wife in 1331*. I have yet to discover the exact location of this land, but I have a suspicion that the name might have evolved into Durley Moor and thence into Durley Park, although this area actually lies within The Hayes. Alternatively, the area was certainly marshy, the profusion of local springs would have resulted in large patches of mire. A local resident recalls that as late as the 1930s there was a patch of boggy ground in what was known as “Daddy Ashford’s Woods” i.e. the grounds of The Moorlands, owned by the Ashford family from 1877-1944. She recalls that as a child she lost a shoe in the bog while trying to pick marsh marigolds. 2 1828 Notice of auction quoted by Rosalind Hall in a letter to the Bath Chronicle date unknown. 3 SRO, The Feoffees of Bruton Hospital Map of Lyncombe & Widcombe 1799, and Mike Chapman, John Hawkes and Elizabeth Holland The J.Charlton Map of Lyncombe and Widcombe 1799. 4 Deeds to Derby Villa, 90 Lower Oldfield Park.

 Bath Museums Service Sites and Monuments Register No.B245. * Somerset Record Society, Two Chartularies of Bath Priory, Lincoln’s Inn MS No.697.

BATH FAIRS

Mike Chapman

Whilst compiling our book on the Bath Guildhall and its markets it became necessary also to identify the various fairs in and around the city which had been established by charter from earliest times and only disappeared within the last hundred years. A “fair” was a relatively ephemeral event, held only once or twice a year for the sale of both animals and goods, usually during the fair “season” between Lammas (1 August) up to Martinmas in October. It differed from a “market” which would be held weekly for at least a certain part of the year and came to include groups of settled stallholders - similar to traders renting permanent shop premises. Charters were frequently acquired which allowed “extra” days for a particular fair, but this seems merely to have been a way of confirming its right to be held. Fairs attracted entertainers as well as farmers and traders - strolling players, jesters, musicians, fortune-tellers, astrologers, and the like - originators of the present-day funfair. Although detailed descriptions of these events are rare, records exist for those held in Bath which allow them to be traced under the following headings:

The Bishop’s Fair (Feast of St.Peter [& St.Paul] - 29 June)

As early as 1102 King Henry I granted to John of Tours, Bishop of Bath as well as overlord of the city, the right to hold “..fairs on the feast-days of St.Peter, so that he may have his pontifical see there with the greatest honour” (.. ferias in festivitatibus S.Petri, cum maximo honore ibi pontificalem suam sedem habeat. Bath Chartulary, i:45.). This right was also included in the protection given by Pope Adrian to Bishop Robert, John of Tour’s successor, in 1156 (Bath Chart. i:74.), and by Pope Adrian in 1178 (Wells MSS, pp.438-439). The fair itself was apparently situated in the High Street and adjoining streets, on the north side of the then Cathedral (i.e. Abbey) Church.

Confirmation of the fair was also granted by King Edward I in 1284. In this instance the right to hold the fair was stated to run for ten days, i.e. on the vigil, feast, and morrow of St.Peter & Paul, and the 7 days following. It was granted all traditional liberties and customs, but not in such a manner as to injure neighbouring fairs. This charter was confirmed again in 1313, 1331, and 1340, each confirmation of course giving the king the right to receive a further payment. All these charters are still held in the Bath City Archives. There is occasional reference to this fair later in the Bath Chamberlain’s Accounts when payments were sometimes made for standings, as in 1584, “Casuall receiptes; ...of a pewterer for his standinge on Saint Peters daye - 2s.6d.” and in 1585 “.. receyved on Saynct Peters daye for two standynges - 2s.8d”. By this time the rights of the fair had passed from the bishop to the City Corporation and their bailiff, as suggested by Letters Patent in 1574 granting to William Swayne the offices of bailiff, coroner, escheator, and clerk of the market of the City of Bath “...with all rights formerly belonging to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells”. The appointment of a bailiff by writ (rather than by election) was presumably a way of effecting a smoother transfer of these ancient rights.

In the 1760s John Wood, in his Essay (p.418) states that “..still remaining.. is a Fair held in the Heart of the City, upon the 29th Day of June, or the feast of Saint Peter and Paul...” (described in the Travellers Pocket Book of 1785 as a cattle fair), but by 1791 the date had been changed to the New Style equivalent of July 10 (Collinson, p.28). By the mid 19th century this fair had also acquired the title Cherry Fair.

The Citizen’s Fair (Candlemas - 2 February)

Another fair, granted to the Mayor and citizens of Bath by Henry VIII in 1544 also appears to have been held in the High Street. Known as Candlemas Fair, it was to be held yearly within the city on the vigil, feast, and morrow of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (2 February) and the four days following, together with “..a Court of Piepoudre, and all purprestures, tolls, etc., belonging to such fairs” (Bath City Archives). The border of this charter contains some quaint and well-executed devices in pen and ink. In 1590 the Candlemass fair was confirmed in the Charter of Queen Elizabeth.

This fair, also under the control of the city bailiff, appears prominently in the earliest surviving Chamberlain’s Accounts, starting from 1569. Entries for “..casuall recayttes...receved of the profyttes of Candellmas fayer” appear regularly up to 1593 when they cease. Profits varied from 14s.6d. (in 1593) up to 55s.4d.(in 1590), bringing an average annual income of 34s. There is only one entry after this date, when 4d. was paid to the crier or bellman in 1596 for “..crieinge of Lamas faire”. There is no further mention of a Lammas Fair (1 August), and this may have been an isolated event.

In the 18th century John Wood reports “..still remaining... is a Fair formerly held in the Heart of the City, on the 2nd of February, or the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but now changed to the day after” (Wood, p.418), but by 1791 the date of the fair had again been changed to the New Style equivalent of 14 February (Collinson, p.28). By the mid 19th century this fair had also acquired the title Orange Fair.

To some extent the two fairs held in the city were undermined well before 1700 by the rise of permanent markets and shops, and by 1800 were further overshadowed by the success of the new city market. In 1776 it was decided to lease the Fairs and Markets to the bailiffs for an annual tax 30 free rent of £360 “due to the enlargement of the market”. In the 1830s the Report on Municipal Corporations mentions that the gaoler of the city prison in Grove Street, who was paid £120 per annum by the bailiffs, received an extra £30 p.a. from the profits of the two fairs. But by this time they were doing so little business (as well as being a traffic obstacle) that provision was made in the City of Bath Act of 1851 for their removal from the High Street. The Corporation was authorised to;

..maintain and regulate, or discontinue or remove all such markets, or any of them, and also the fairs now hereafter to be held in Bath, or any of them, in such a manner as they from time to time think proper, and may appoint such places in Bath, and times for the holding of such markets and fairs respectively, as they from time to time think proper.

On 6 January 1852 the City Council ordered that;

..in pursuance of the Provisions of the City of Bath Act 1851...the Fairs as now held in this City and Borough be discontinued. It is also ordered that a Cattle Fair be held in future in the Cattle Market and Ladymead on the 14th day of February in each Year and on such other days as the Council may hereafter appoint, and that Public Notice be given of the same.

A view of the “Cattle” Fair (the pens actually contain sheep) in Ladymead in the 1890s (BRL).

It was further resolved on 3 March that

..the two Fairs for the Sale and Purchase of Cattle be held in the Cattle Market yearly on the 14th day of February and on the First Tuesday after the Ninth day of December, and that a Monthly Market for the Sale and Purchase of Cattle be held in the same place on the First Wednesday in every month except the Months of February and December. (Council Minutes, BRO).

However, the Provision, Coal & Cattle Market Committee also met on 18 March 1852, “..to Consider certain suggestions for the establishment of a monthly market for Cattle in Walcot Street which were not favourably received”, and it was not until 16 February 1854 that the Bath Chronicle reported that;

..the Bath Orange Fair, which under the powers of the City Act has been curtailed to a cattle fair, took place on Monday last in Walcot St.”

The King’s Fair (Feast of the Beheading of St.John the Baptist - 29 August)

In 1275, during the enquiry by Edward I into feudal privileges, the jurors for Bath testified that;

..the king was accustomed to have certain fairs in the city of Bath on the day of the Beheading of St.John the Baptist. Afterwards the Prior of Hinton [Charterhouse] obtained a charter from the lord King Henry [III], father of the lord Edward who is now king, for a having a fair the same day at Hinton, which he has at the expense of the fair of the city of Bath of 10s.per annum, some three leagues [5 miles] from the city aforesaid. (Rotuli Hundredorum, p.138.)

There is no charter for this fair, as the king would not need to issue one to himself, and nothing further is heard of it. It was presumably supervised by the king’s bailiff, but its site is not known - possibly it was held outside the west gate, near the site of St.John’s Hospital just within the walls. Outside the gate lay the king’s manor of Barton which is mentioned in Wood’s story about Bishop John de Harewell who made benefactions to his church during the reign of Edward III:

..Bristol rivaling Bath in the Woolen Trade, the Bristonians not only set up a Fair on the Feast Day of St.Calixte, i.e. the 24th of October, the very Day on which the Bathonians held their Fair of Berton; but forbid all their Townsmen, upon certain Pains, to bring any Wares to the Fair of Bath; for which the Inhabitants, in the 50th Year of Edward the 3d, A.D.1377, complained to Parliament, and prayed for Remedy against such an Invasion of their Rights and Privileges. (Wood, p.194.)

This evidently refers to the charter granted by the king in 1371 to bishop John de Harewell which states that since he and his predecessors had, “from time immemorial”, held two markets a week in Bath, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, from the feast of St.Calixtus the pope to Palm Sunday, in the spring, he should have the same market from Palm Sunday to the feast of St.Calixtus “..as well for woollen cloth as for other merchandise and saleable goods of whatever kind” (Bath City Archives).

However there is no indication that the city markets (which continue to this day) were ever held anywhere else than the High Street, nor is this a reference to another fair known to have been held in the Barton (mentioned below) which, as Wood himself states (Wood, p.418) was held on the feast of St.Lawrence. Perhaps there is a confusion here with an earlier Barton fair which had lapsed.

As a postscript to the fair of the Prior and Convent of Hinton Charterhouse (thought to have been granted about 1254) which was held on the vigil, day, and morrow of the ‘Decollation’ of St.John the Baptist (to whom the church there was dedicated), another charter was granted to them by Edward III in 1345 which stated that, “whereas by the clamour, noise, and violence of men frequenting the fair, which is held in a place near the church, the holy offices and devotion of the Convent are in various ways disturbed, the said Prior and Convent have returned their charter to be cancelled in the chancery”. In compensation the king granted the monks leave to hold a fair on the same date in their neighbouring manor of Norton St.Philip where a fair had already been granted in 1255 on the vigil, feast [1 May] and morrow of SS.Philip and James, patron saints of the church. Both fairs dealt in cattle and cloth, and did not die out until about 1902. (Hulbert, p.91-93.)

The Prior’s Fairs

The two Prior’s Fairs were held outside the city and later became well-known. They were granted to the Prior of the monastery at Bath by King Edward I in 1304;

“.. a yearly fair in his manor of Lyncombe for 2 days on the vigil and feast of the Invention of the Cross, and another in his manor of la Berton next to Bath for 2 days on the vigil and the feast of St.Laurence the Martyr (Egerton MS 3316, f.26R).

Both sites can be identified;

(Lansdown) (Feast of St.Laurence, 10 August)

From the title of this charter (De feriis de Lyncombe et Lantesdon), it is evident that the second fair mentioned here was held on Lansdown on the northern part of what was once the King’s manor of Barton (i.e. not immediately outside the city). In 1334 the Prior was granted an extension by Edward III “..of his fair at the manor of la Barton; of an extra 5 days preceding the vigil of the feast of St.Laurence, and an extra 1 day following the same feast-day”, a total of 8 days, from 4 to 11 August (ibid. f.48.).

St Laurence was the patron saint of the medieval chapel (already in existence by the 13th century) which still stands on the Down opposite the Blathwayt Arms, and the fair was held in front of the chapel on the open common alongside the road there. “Fair Field” is shown on an estate map of 1766 as being the field beyond the kissing gate opposite the chapel (pers.comm.Allan Keevil), which suggests that enclosures lying nearby were also used for penning some of the livestock.

By the 1530s “Launtesdon” was being farmed out as an independent manor at an annual rent of £8.9s.10d, including “..the demesne land there...with 6s.8d. from issues of the fair” (Valor Eccl.), and in 1535, a “Tolsey House” belonging to the fair is mentioned in a grant of the manor by Prior Holloway (pers.comm., Allan Keevil). This seems to have occupied one of the group of buildings, like the Star Inn, which adjoined the chapel.

In 1576, after the Dissolution of the priory, Lansdown Manor was granted to Thomas Kerry, a clerk of the Privy Seal, on which he was allowed two fairs; the traditional St.Laurence’s Fair, and another to be held on the feast of St.John before the Lateran Gate, 6 May (Keevil, p.45). Nothing further is heard of the second fair, but in 1708, soon after Lansdown came into the possession of the Blathwayts, the Lansdown fair was granted an extension by Queen Anne for two extra days for 95 years. (Shickle, p.167)

From hereon Lansdown becomes more widely known, and descriptions of it begin to appear towards the end of the 18th century. The date was never converted to the New Style, as Collinson (p.159) reports,

“..On the top of the down a large fair is held three successive days, beginning the tenth of August, for horses, sheep, horned cattle, cheese and pedlary ware. William Blathwayte, esq; has the royalty of the down.”

It would seem that the more open site of Lansdown (already being used as a racecourse) was much better suited than the city for receiving a large influx of countryfolk and livestock, to say nothing of the accompanying bands of entertainers.

In fine weather the fair drew huge crowds onto the Down, even in harvest-time. Hurdles were supplied from the Star Inn (later from the Blathwayt Arms) which also provided boards, trestles and poles for the numerous drinking booths. There were the usual gingerbread stalls and chapmen selling cheap trinkets or “toys”, and rides on swings and roundabouts were already making an 33 appearance. Entertainments included Punch and Judy shows, dancing booths, tumblers, itinerant mummers, “raree shows” (peep-shows), conjurers and “sleight-of-hand operators”, with music being provided by fiddlers, singing girls and organ grinders. Tall ladies, wild beastesses, monkeys, wild animals, and dancing bears are also mentioned.

“Lansdown Fair”, 1813, by Thomas Barker (1767-1847). Victoria & Albert Picture Library.

The oil painting “Lansdown Fair” by Thomas Barker (1767-1847), now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, gives some idea of the fair in 1813. It depicts a group of men playing bowls, a popular activity at the fair, but one of the main attractions was the holding of prizefights between pugilists from Bath and Bristol. Indeed, violence seems to have become an underlying feature of the fair. Similar entertainments could also be found at various local parish revels, events which frequently degenerated into public disorder and were increasing suppressed. The first serious incident was recorded by Mainwaring in 1808 at what he called the Lansdown “Revels”, when a man was shot dead by a constable attempting to break up a drunken brawl.

A lurid description (perhaps to be taken with a ‘pinch of salt’) is given by the later circus showman “Lord” George Sanger in his autobiography Seventy Years a Showman. George Sanger visited Lansdown fair at the age of 12 in 1839 with his father’s travelling peepshow and roundabout. The fair is described as a big cattle, sheep and pleasure fair for one day on the 10th August and:

..occupied a great space on a broad hill-side...with booths, shows and refreshment tents of all descriptions...erected to form an enormous ring, in the centre of which were the droves of sheep, cattle and horses that formed the staple of the fair...

As dusk fell, the business people left and the fair remained to those seeking entertainment. The drinking booths, gingerbread stalls etc. began to twinkle with candles, dips and rushlights on the inside, whilst outside they were illuminated by flares (before the days of naphtha) consisting of metal dishes filled with rags and tallow hung on chains from the booth poles. Unfortunately, the occupants of the Bath slums (presumably from the then notorious Avon Street and Broad Quay area) whom Sanger describes as “the most brutish and criminal mob in England”, regarded the fair, in their words, as “their night out”, and in a drunken riot began wrecking the booths and stalls. The rest of Sanger’s narrative deals with the aftermath of the pitched battles between the showmen and the roughs (and eventually the Bath police) before it moves on to the even larger Horsefair on the first of September at the Haymarket in Bristol.

(Holloway) (Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, 3 May) The other of the Prior’s fairs was held on the Bear Flat in Lyncombe on the south side of the city. In 1539, when it was still in the hands of the Crown after the Dissolution of the Monastery, it brought an annual income of 9s.4d. - somewhat more than the Lansdown Fair at that time. Later on in 1678, whilst describing the old Leper Hospital in Holloway, the antiquarian Anthony Wood noted that “..This hospitall and chappell is called St.Marie Magdalen’s hospitall and chappell: and hath belonging thereunto as I conceive an yearlie fair which is kept on the hill above it.”(Clark, p.409). Presumably this was an endowment made in the middle ages, but no confirmation of this has yet come to light.

Like Lansdown, this was also a popular event in the 18th century and drew customers out of Bath. In 1754 a horse fair was added to its attractions, “there being great Encouragement for it given”. Wood mentions that it was still held on the third of May, (Wood, p.418.) but Collinson’s apparently contradictory statements that, “..fairs have from ancient time been held in this city, viz... on the invention of the Holy Cross (now discontinued)...” (Collinson p.28), and, “..A fair is held annually in this parish [Widcombe and Lyncombe], on the 14th of May, and is called Holloway Fair, from its being kept at the top of that street.” (ibid. p.174), may merely refer to the change of date to the New Style equivalent.

By George Sanger’s time, however, Holloway Fair was already dying out, as witnessed by the Rev.Tyte;

..the annual fair at Lyncombe...in the latter part of the last century was a noted horse fair, the wide space in front of the Bear Inn, and beyond, being devoted to its use. The expiring throes of the old fair were witnessed by me. Two other boys and myself obtained permission to leave the school one afternoon, our objective point, though not disclosed to the schoolmaster, being the fair, where we thought we would see all the galore of the Bath Fairs. Bitter was our disappointment when we found it comprised two ginger-bread stalls and one swing-boat, with no more people about than usual. This was in 1839. (Tyte, p.18.)

By the end of the 19th century the trading element of fairs was being undermined by wider economic changes. Lansdown Fair survived until the end of the century, but according to Shickle writing in 1895 on the history of the Down, “..That fair is now fast dwindling away and it is to be regretted Barker’s picture in the National Collection gives us so little idea of it and its surroundings.” (Shickle, p.167.). There are also photographs of one of the Ladymead “Cattle” Fairs in Walcot Street dating from the mid 1890s, but this appears to have been one of the last.

Another view of the fair in Walcot Street, near the Ladymead fountain, in the 1890s.

A view from the G.W.R. viaduct of the Christmas funfair on Broad Quay in the 1920s (BRO). The photograph was apparently taken by the City Engineer’s Department - to illustrate flood levels along the river!

However, as implied in the statement of King and Watts that the Orange Fair, “..was suppressed ..to the great indignation of the juvenile members of the community...” (not to mention the disappointment of the young Rev.Tyte), there was still a demand for the entertainment element of the fairs. Although the great days of the steam funfairs from the 1880s onward are less obvious in Bath than elsewhere, possibly because of the parallel rise of the large travelling menageries and circuses, these attractions were certainly present, as appears on a photograph of Broad Quay in the 1920s. This fair, which visited the city at Christmas as well as at other times of the year, was appropriately sited in the “rough” area of Bath where respectable people did not go. Prizefights were still held at this fair which evidently continued to entertain the sort of clientele familiar to George Sanger. However, by the outbreak of WWII it had moved to the Cricket Ground in North 36

Parade Road and, in accordance with the edict of Winston Churchill, kept going throughout the war (whilst observing the necessary blackout regulations) to maintain civilian morale. In 1963 it made a further move to the Victoria Park as part of the festival week, where (as Rogers’ Funfair) it continues to entertain large numbers of the “juvenile members of the community”.

Sources:

P.K.Carpenter “St.Mary Magdalen Hospital, Bath.” Somerset & Dorset Notes & Queries, vol.XXXIV, 1998, 50. A.Clark, ed., The Life and Times of Anthony Wood... vol.II, 1664-1681, Oxford Hist.Soc.(1892), vol.XXI. John Collinson, The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset, Vol.1, 1791 Trevor Fawcett, Bath Entertain’d, 1998. N.F.Hulbert, “A Survey of the Somerset Fairs”, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society (SANHS) Vol.82 (1936), and I.Fitzroy H.Jones, SANHS Vol.91 (1944-5) W.Illingworth ed., Rotuli Hundredorum.., Vol.I, HMSO, 1818 (Rot.Hund.) Allan Keevil, “The Barton of Bath”, Bath History VI, 1996 A.J.King & B.H.Watts, The Municipal Records of Bath, 1189 to 1604, 1885 R.Mainwaring, Annals of Bath, 1800-1834, 1838 “Lord” George Sanger, Seventy Years a Showman, 1935 C.W.Shickle, “Lansdown and St.Lawrence’s Chapel”, Bath Field Club Proceedings, 1895 W.Tyte, History of Lyncombe and Widcombe, 1917 John Wood, An Essay Towards a Description of Bath, 1765 edn. British Library, “Cartularium Prioratus de Bath”, Egerton MS (photocopy in Bath Library) Calendar of Wells MSS, vol.I, Hist.MSS Comm. (Wells MSS.) Two Chartularies of Bath Priory, Somerset Record Society, Vol.7 (Bath Chart.) Valor Ecclesiasticus, Henry VIII [1535], Record Commissioners, I (Val.Eccl.)

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