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City of Bath. Beautiful, Elegant and one of the best places in England. There are around 450,000 others though!.
Milestone. Early C19. Stone. Square with rounded corners and top. Incised Roman
letters read:
On east face To Reading 9 Miles Bath 78
On west face To Hyde Park Corner 30 ? Miles
Maidenhead 4 Colnbrook 13
From www.milestonesociety.co.uk/aboutmilestones.html
Turnpike Trusts were set up, by Acts of Parliament, from 1706 to the 1840s. Groups of local worthies raised money to build stretches of road and then charged the users tolls to pay for it.
From 1767, mileposts were compulsory on all turnpikes, not only to inform travellers of direction and distances, but to help coaches keep to schedule and for charging for changes of horses at the coaching inns. The distances were also used to calculate postal charges before the uniform postal rate was introduced in 1840. At the height of the turnpike era, there were 20,000 miles of roads with milestones.
From the 1840s, rail travel overtook road for longer journeys and many turnpike trusts were wound up. In 1888, the new County Councils were given responsibility for main roads and rural district councils for minor routes. As faster motorised transport developed so the importance of the milestones waned.
Such waymarkers are fast disappearing; around 9000 are thought to survive in the UK. Most were removed or defaced in World War II to baffle potential German invaders and not all were replaced afterwards. Many have been demolished as roads have been widened, or have been victims of collision damage, or have been smashed by hedge-cutters or flails. Nowadays, roadside milestones generally fall within the remit of the local Highways Authority or the Highways Agency and their contractors.
The Guildhall in Bath, Somerset, England was built between 1775 and 1778 by Thomas Baldwin to designs by Thomas Warr Attwood. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
The current Bath stone building replaced a Stuart Guildhall, built in 1625, which itself replaced an earlier Tudor structure.
The facade has 4 Ionic columns and the building is surmounted by the figure of Justice. The central dome was added in 1893. It forms a continuous building with the Victoria Art Gallery and the covered market.
The interior includes a banqueting hall with engaged Corinthian columns. It contains 18th century chandeliers and original royal portraits. The room is used on royal visits to the city including Queen Elizabeth II who had lunch in the banqueting room in May 2002.
It now houses the Council Chamber and Register office for Bath and North East Somerset and is used as a wedding venue, and for filming period dramas. The Guildhall also serves as one of the venues for the Bath International Music Festival.
The Guildhall was originally built as a town hall: it has never served as the meeting place of any specific guild. A suggested etymology is from the Anglo Saxon "gild", or "payment"; the guildhall being where citizens came to pay their rates.
In 2008 I spent some time in Bath. For various reasons these photos later disappeared from my profile. I am stuck at home at the moment so I have chosen to re-instate them.
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When is a cathedral not a cathedral? Well, in this case, when it is Bath Abbey in Somerset. The abbey church of St Peter in Bath was once a Norman cathedral but later bishops preferred nearby Wells and the title slipped back to Wells by order of the Pope.
Bath can also lay claim to being one of the last monastic churches to be built in Britain, its reconstruction ending just a few years before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. As a late example of English Perpendicular it is also unusual in its proportions, its low aisles and nave arcades and high clerestory levels being the reverse of usual practice.
www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemmings/sets/72157628768507145/ to see the full set.
The site dates back to the pagan Romans and was part of the huge Roman bath complex which grew up around Britain's only active geo-thermal spring. In 675AD King Osric granted land to Abbess Berta to establish a convent here but this was later altered to a monastery. King Offa rebuilt the church in grand style but that is now lost.
Following the 1066 Norman Conquest of England John of Tours was made Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath in 1090. He preferred Bath and the cathedral switched there with the monastery becoming a priory. John of Tours planned a grand rebuild but died before it was completed. The half-finished cathedral was devastated by fire in 1137. Joint cathedral status was granted to Bath AND Wells in 1245 but later bishops preferred Wells and its handsome bishop's palace so Bath eventually lost its cathedral status.
Bath fell into disrepair and was ruinous by the time Oliver King was joint bishop in 1495-1503. He carried out much of the existing work including the east front, with its angels climbing up ladders to get to heaven, and the interior fan vaulting by Robert and William Vertue who had also designed similar work for the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey.
The building was stripped and left a ruin during the Dissolution but in 1574 Queen Elizabeth I set up a national fund to pay for the restoration of St Peter's as the parish church of Bath. James Montague joint Bishop form 1608-1616 added £1000 worth of roofing work, His coat of arms appear on the handsome carved east doors.
Sir George Gilbert Scott added the fan vaulting to the nave in the 1860s but this merely completed the original work of Bishop King which had apparently been halted by lack of money.
As Bath was a fashionable health cure in the 18th century it contains an extraordinary number of 18th century memorials, often from non-residents who died in town while visiting. These include Untited States senator William Bingham who died here in 1804. Bingham was once the wealthiest man in the America; he had personally funded the Louisiana purchase by the US government in gold.
Bath allocated Bristol Omnibus Bristol RELL 1302, HHW 915L, leaves Bath for Trowbridge, on September 23rd 1979.
Copyright Robert Tarling.
"Three Sisters", a row of three houses built to showcase different builder's work, built in the 1890s; this is Jones House #2
The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath mainly known as Bath Abbey is an anglican parish church and former Benedictine Monastery in Bath.
To the right it the Roman Baths (The Grand Pump Room)
It was a former cathedral from the 10th or 11th centurys. It was a cathedral at least until the 16th century (the Reformation)
Grade I Listed Building
Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul
Description
ABBEY CHURCH YARD
Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul
12/06/50
(Formerly Listed as: Abbey Church)
GV I
Abbey church, now City church. Largely of 1499-1533 with substantial Victorian restorations. Robert and William Vertue, Master Masons.
MATERIALS: Bath limestone ashlar; repairs of c1900 carried out in Clipsham stone. Lead roofs.
PLAN: Cruciform, with five-bay nave with aisles, three-bay choir with aisle chapels, narrow two-bay transepts, crossing tower, C20 cloistral range, undercroft (opened as museum in 1994). The Abbey is now completely freestanding, but in medieval period was surrounded by monastic buildings. After the Reformation various houses and shops attached themselves to the church until the last were cleared away during the Manners restoration of 1833.
EXTERIOR: Very consistent Perpendicular, remarkable for the extent of glazing. Three-bay chancel, two-bay transepts, five-bay nave with crossing tower. Nave and chancel with single-height aisles with five-light traceried windows, pierced parapet with pinnacles. Upper register of five-light traceried windows, with flying buttresses between. Clasping buttresses terminating with pinnacles to angles. Two-stage tower with octagonal corner turrets terminating in pinnacles. Seven-light east window with four main registers, within straight-headed opening between four-stage piers with pinnacles.
West front has central doorway with four centred arch, and spandrels carved with emblems of Passion. Carved oak doors (conserved 2003) were presented by Sir Henry Montague, Bishop Montague's brother, in 1617. Flanked by statues of saints with canopies over, and topped one of Henry VII carved by Sir George Frampton in c1902, battlemented parapet. Frame very large west window with seven lights and three transoms, centre mullions continue to apex. Whole supported by aisles, each with doorway with three centred head, and four light window over. Turrets decorated by ladders with angels climbing to heaven (reference to Bishop King's inspirational dream), and topped by two-panelled stages. Wall above west window has much weathered carving of more angels, and statue of seated Christ at apex (also by Sir George Frampton), pierced parapet with battlements, this last was added by Jackson in 1906.
South aisle partly screened by low nine-bay range, War Memorial Cloister (Choir Vestry, and Abbey shop) added by Jackson, 1923-1927, and in form of monastic cloister (on part of site of Norman cloister which was much larger), four centred arches house four light windows with central king mullion, panelled aprons, battlemented parapet.
INTERIOR: Interior also very uniform Perpendicular character despite being work of many years and hands. Low arcade with four-shafted piers carrying tall clerestory above four-centred arches. Uninterrupted view to east end. Fan-vaulted ceilings throughout, dating from various periods (see history below). Chantry chapel of Prior Bird to south of Chancel dates from 1515, with intricate fan vaulting. Crypt converted in 1990s to form Abbey Vaults visitor centre. Rere-arch of east window of south Choir aisle incorporates the sole surviving Norman arch.
FITTINGS: Reredos of 1875; stained glass mainly by Clayton & Bell, east window of 1873; font of 1710 with 1604 font cover. Numerous monuments (many, until 1833, formerly affixed to piers). Organ and organ loft were designed by T.G. Jackson in 1912
HISTORY: A church existed here by the C8; King Edgar was crowned here in 973 by Dunstan of Canterbury as the first king of all England (see plaque on east end). In 1088 the Bishop of Wells removed his see to Bath, and commenced a new church, which extended considerably further to the east than the present building. The present church occupies the nine-bay nave of its Norman predecessor, which had stretched almost all way to Grand Parade balustrade to east (see tablet affixed at east end). Next to nothing remains of pre-1499 fabric. Bishop Oliver King (d.1504), Chief Secretary to Henry VII, commenced a wholesale rebuilding, resulting in one of the last great Gothic churches. It is also among the most consistently uniform in design. King¿s vision or rebuilding, showing angels ascending to heaven on a ladder, is depicted on the west front along with his rebus of an olive tree and crown. King¿s masons were Robert and William Vertue, Master Masons to the crown. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, the Abbey Church was offered to citizens of Bath for 500 marks, but refused; the unfinished church was left gutted and roofless. Given to the citizens of Bath in 1560, it became the parish church in 1572, when repair and reconstruction began. Queen Elizabeth I visited Bath in 1574 and authorized a national collection for seven years, in 1574-1581, for the rebuilding of the Abbey. The east end was repaired first and the north aisle re-roofed; the transepts were completed in 1603, the nave was not roofed (in timber) until the early C17: the west doors of 1617 date from this phase, and sport the arms of Bishop Montague (d.1618). The whole was ready by 1616 when Bishop Montague was translated to Winchester. The exceptionally high concentration of memorial tablets (some 640 in all) from the C17 onwards attests to the church¿s central place in Bath society. Services were held in the east end only, and the nave became a place for promenades and a short-cut, until Wade¿s passage was formed in 1723. Restoration work commenced in 1824-1833 under GP Manners; his interventions have largely disappeared. The major restoration of 1864-1874 was undertaken by Sir George Gilbert Scott: the most important aspects comprised the re-roofing of the nave in stone, the removal of Blore¿s screen of 1835, the removal of the galleries and the removal of the organ to the north transept. The next major restoration campaign was directed in 1895-1901 by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, who restored the west front and installed a new organ; sculpture by Sir George Frampton. Jackson added in 1923-1927 the War Memorial Cloister (Choir Vestry) along the south side of the nave. Further restoration of external fabric was carried out in c1970; the west front was consolidated and cleaned in 1992-1993. In spite of its protracted construction, the Abbey is of huge importance as a major late Medieval great church. The monument-crammed interior is of very considerable note for its historical interest too.
SOURCES: John Carter, `Some Account of the Abbey Church of Bath¿ (Society of Antiquaries, 1798); James Storer, `History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church and See of Bath, Somersetshire¿ (1814); John Britton, `History and Antiquities of Bath Abbey Church¿ (1824, rev. ed. By R.E.M. Peach 1878); R.E.M. Peach, `Bath Old and New¿ (1891), 80-96; Nikolaus Pevsner, `The Buildings of England. North Somerset and Bristol¿ (1958), 99-105; Neil Jackson, `Nineteenth Century Bath. Architects and Architecture¿ (1991), 170-181; B. Stace, `Bath Abbey¿ (1991); Robert Bell, `Bath Abbey. Some New Perspectives¿ Bath History VI (1996), 7 ff; David Falconer, `Britain in Old Photographs. Bath Abbey¿ (Stroud 1999).
Listing NGR: ST7512764769
This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 21 August 2017.