Bath

After my visit to Bath and Bristol I have so many things I want to blog about that I’ve decided to make a quick round-up post with some pictures from Bath and only to write about the places I liked best. Even so, there are quite a few places I liked a lot. As I took these pictures in different days and at different times, some are a bit sunnier than others. We did have a great weather though, not a drop of rain and good temperatures.

I had to start with a picture of the Circus. It’s just as easily recognized when it comes to Bath as the Roman Baths or Assembly Rooms, isn’t it? As I plan to have stand alone posts for Fashion Museum and The Royal Crescent, in this post I’m going to talk and share pictures with the Pulteney Bridge and Bath Abbey.

There is only one place I didn’t enjoy in Bath and that was The Museum of Bath Architecture. It is a small and unloved museum, looking more like a storage facility. I think is quite sad because the information, despite being scarce, is interesting and Bath has a lot of unique features. Furthermore, there is an entry fee for the museum, of £6.50 per adult, and that is a lot. I might have visited the museum at a bad moment, who knows.

Pulteney Bridge is one of the main attractions in Bath. I was so eager to see it. There is a nice garden near the bridge, that should be lovely in the summer. I’d like to visit Bath again, maybe next time we are going at a warmer time of the year.

This wonderful bridge crosses the River Avon. It was built in the 1770s and its role was to connect the city with the land of the Pulteney family, hence the name of the bridge. It was designed by Robert Adam, in a Palladian style. One of its more striking features is that the bridge has shops built across its full span on both sides.

The bridge had an estimated cost of £1,000. But it ended up costing £10,000 which, would be several million pounds today. It was a toll bridge. It had another interesting feature, it was built with the condition that fresh water could be piped across it from the hills to the town houses.

These are the shops mentioned a bit earlier. Now it seems strange, but at that time, shops and even houses were on top of bridges all over UK and Europe.

This is the less known part, the back of the bridge. It just shows how houses looked like on bridges a couple of hundred years ago.

Quite a difference if you compare it with the front of the bridge.

Sally Lunn’s was on my list. We’ve been there, we’ve seen the small museum, had some amazing desserts, and bought a famous Sally Lunn’s bun for the following day. I’m going to talk more about the history of the place in the post dedicated to it.

Bath Abbey is in the city center, a gorgeous building with a long history, dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. It was a monastery, demolished by the Normans. The Normans built a new cathedral in the 1090s, but by the 16th century it was in ruins, after the dissolution. The Abbey proudly mentions on their website that the first King of all England, King Edgar was crowned there in 973. Although, according to other historians, his uncle Æthelstan is the first King of all England. Funnily enough, I’ve been to Malmesbury Abbey and saw the tomb of Æthelstan, but that is for another post.

The Abbey is free to visit (they do accept donations) and it looks wonderful. The present day building was repaired in 1616 and used as a church. More additions were made to the building in the 1830s.

The Gothic architecture is, obviously, Victorian. Sir George Gilbert Scott replaced the old ceiling with this stunning stone fan vaulting, from 186s to 1874. Want to know more, check their website.

Just a minute or two from the Abbey are the Roman Baths.

I don’t think someone can visit Bath without visiting the Roman Baths as well. It was amazing. We’ve also took one of the free tours they offer (there is an entry fee for the Roman Baths though) and it was worth it, as I did learn a lot about the history of the place.

Besides these places, I’ve also been to the No1 the Royal Crescent, the Postal Museum, and the Herschel Museum of Astronomy. More about them in future posts.

Have you ever been to Bath?