Bath

Jane Austen lived in Bath – how could I stay away?

I remember the day and the library in North Carolina, looking for my next Grisham or Ludlum audiobook to listen to on my commute, when my eyes fell on Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. “Aw, heck. Try something new” young me thought, and I mostly-reluctantly took it to the circulation desk, trading John for Jane. A much shorter time later than I would have thought possible – having sat to no purpose in my driveway for the better part of an hour other than to let the complex and beautiful phrases that flow from Austen’s pen, and which were so new to my ear, conveyed thereto by a clever and perspicacious narrator – I came to the end of the book, and knew that I would forever look on Grisham and Ludlum, even Asimov and Pohl, as delightful diversions good for an evening, but that now only Austen would provide reading, that activity which, by virtue of good ideas presented beautifully, lifts the mind and heart to true pleasure; Tolkein and Rowling sitting nearby on her bookshelf.

Jane lived at 25 Gay Street (first picture) for a few months in the early 1800s, and for four years at 4 Sydney Place (second picture), which is across the street from the beautiful and extensive Sydney Gardens where she is said to have spent many hours walking (remaining pictures). Katy (friend from London) is also a Jane Austen fan, and joined me for touring the Austen highlights in Bath. The 4th picture is notable not so much for the train tracks, but for the mysterious bird(s?). I have no explanation better than Tom’s – that it was an alien caught mid-transformation from natural form to bird upon being observed.

On one hand, Bath is older than Oxford, as evidenced by the Roman Baths that give the city its name.

Natural hot springs have been flowing here for over 2000 years, with construction of a formal bath complex going back to Roman times. This picture shows the largest “bath” in the complex, but there are many other rooms including saunas, frigidarium (cold pool), workout rooms, changing rooms, and a large pool where a goddess (Minerva) hung out, by her statue. It is not used any longer except as a museum – but you can still stand near the fresh-flowing hot water and get a sense of how hot it is!

On the other hand, Bath is much younger than Oxford. St. Frideswide helped establish the first of Oxford’s colleges back in the 1100s; and when you walk around Oxford today you stride along streets and beside buildings that go back to just a century or two after her time. Most of the buildings you’ll see in Bath date to the Georgian period, 1700s-1800s. Here are some typical “street” pictures:

The first two pictures are from the “City Centre,” while the other three are more toward Sydney Gardens. Together they give a good overview of Bath architecture. Just east of City Center is St. John the Evangelist church, which was my parish-for-a-week.

If you try to walk to St. John’s via the parking lot shown, you come to an uncrossable ravine, and have to retrace your steps out of the parking lot, and go around to the left. It is an urban ha-ha. (See below.) I included the 3rd picture to give a close-up view of that impressive iron screen.

North of City Center you can find The Circus – a beautiful and large traffic circle (roundabout) surrounded by three rows of houses. The architect designed it to have the same size as Stonehenge since he thought Bath and Stonehenge shared druidic history and energies.

To the west of this lies The Royal Crescent – a row of 30 houses built at the north end of a beautiful greenspace:

In Austen’s Mansfield Park you come across these lines: “[…] standing back, well shaded and sheltered, and looking over a ha-ha into the park, was a comfortable-sized bench, on which they all sat down.” I learned that a “ha-ha” was a wall, hidden in a ditch, so that it would form a barrier without being visible from the houses. You can see one in the 3rd picture. The 4th picture shows the entry to the Royal Victoria Park, just east of the Royal Crescent. Bath is great for its parks.

Check out this bridge:

Bridge? I asked Google Maps to plan me a route back to City Center one day, perhaps a half mile, and what I like to do is study the map, then put it away and make the journey from memory. One part of my trip had me cross a river, which I did, but I didn’t know it; and it completely threw me off. It’s because the Pulteney Bridge does cross the River Avon, but it also has shops along both sides of the bridge! Thus one crossing the bridge feels that they are simply walking along another city street and never sees the river. The (shops of) Pulteney Bridge can be seen along the left side in the first picture. If you cross the street in that picture, lean over the railing and take a picture looking right, you see those beautiful waterfalls looking south along the Avon. (I regret not getting a picture looking north, toward the arches of the bridge. You can see them here.)

Somewhere in Switzerland in 1816, Mary Godwin and her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley were challenged by the miserable Lord Byron to write ghost stories, the best of the three (for the horrible Byron included himself in this challenge) to win a prize. Thus the origin story for the story of Frankenstein’s Monster, most of which Mary Shelley wrote while living in Bath. There is a museum celebrating this, right in City Center, next to the Jane Austen Center.

That’s Mary Shelley in all of her Pop Art loveliness. The second picture shows a musician, a monster, and a mathematician, in some order. The “Mary Shelley Museum and House of Frankenstein” is definitely worth a visit, not least of all for the very creepy basement which you are invited to walk, climb, crawl through – with various scares at each turn!

I’ll close with a summary I made of some of my favorite things in the Bath / Cotswolds region. I simply love the House of Radiators!

1. Puzzlewood, 2. Bath, 3. Stonehenge, 4. Chippenham, 5. Mary Shelley Museum in Bath, 6. Real street sign in Bristol.