June 9: Bath
After breakfast we took the Tube to Paddington Station to catch a National Rail train to the town of Bath. We bought train tickets but then, after we boarded, our train was cancelled due to a security alert at Swindon Station, one of the stations along the way. We were able to get on another train that left about an hour later and after riding for an hour and a half we arrived in Bath at around 1 pm. We got some baguettes for lunch at the food place in the train station, Upper Crust, and ate near the bath fountain. Every building was made of the yellowish limestone the locals called “Bath stone” and all the buildings looked historic. We followed the hand-drawn map from the borrowed Rick Steves guidebook and found our way to the Pump Room. The Pump Room is a restaurant/tea room where you can get a cup of the mineral water from Bath. The warm spring water in Bath has been used for both bathing and drinking, though I hear it doesn’t taste very good. We didn’t go in the Pump Room’s main room but we did see the Roman bath they have inside.
We walked outside the Pump Room near the Medieval church of Bath Abbey to meet up with our walking tour. Community volunteers in Bath put on free 2-hour walking tours at 10:30 am and 2:00 pm daily in the summer. We read about these tours in the Rick Steves guidebook. She asked everyone in the group where they were from and we said we were from Canada to be safe. Others in the group were from England, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. Our guide first showed us the writing on the north side of the Pump Room building that roughly translated to “Our Water is Best” and this message wasn’t viewed favorable by one of the Pubs that used to be its neighbor. We walked by the new Thermae Bath Spa building that is still under construction. Currently none of Bath’s water is used for bathing but that will change when the spa opens. It’s opening has been delayed, though, due to technical problems, something to do with the painting I heard. Most of Bath’s building as we saw them were built in the 18th century when Bath was a spa and resort for the wealthy. We went to the St. John’s Hospital courtyard and noticed the marker on the outside walls put there by to 18th-19th century fire insurance companies. These companies ran the fire departments and would only take care of fires on buildings with markers for their company. Bath was originally a Roman city and then was a Medieval city and finally an 18th century city. We walked to where the only remaining portion of the Medieval Wall that surrounded the city still stood. Nearby was the Royal Mineral Water Hospital where a 19th century doctor determined a recipe for medicinal biscuits. Our guide passed around one of these biscuits that are sold at Bath gift shops. On an otherwise nondescript building they had written the Magna Carta in English on one of the walls. There’s an interesting line about widows not being required to marry again by their families and therefore allowed to keep their inheritances. We passed a window in which you could see an authentic 18th Century powder room where men would leave their wigs and powder them to keep them white. We walked by the small houses where the carriage haulers lived and walked a gravel walk mentioned in one of Jane Austen’s books.
We walked through an intersection with three interesting street names. The story is that John Wood (either Jr. or Sr. I’m not sure) was making a lot of noise and the people shouted back, “Quiet, John Wood!” The streets are named Quiet Street, John Street, and Wood Street.
A highlight of the walking tour was viewing the buildings designed by John Wood Jr. and John Wood Sr. in the 18th century. We first went to the Royal Crescent designed by Jr. that’s shaped like the outline of half an ellipse. Within the half-ellipse outline are the drive and the lawn that are bordered in front by a “ha-ha”, a wall that tapers into the ground. The center apartment is clearly marked with the double columns and the arch window. Most of the Crescent consists of a luxury hotel and some very expensive flats. The painter Thomas Gainsborough once had an apartment there. Gainsborough is a connection to my hometown, L.A., because his famous paintings Blue Boy and Pinkie are kept at the Huntington Library in San Marino near Pasadena. The Three Tenors had a concert on the grounds of the Royal Crescent last year to celebrate the opening of Thermae Bath Spa even though the spa didn’t open then and still hasn’t opened.
Next we viewed the building designed by John Wood Sr.: a circular building called The Circus. It’s not a continuous circle as it’s driveway runs through the inside. Wood Sr. put Doric columns on the bottom level, Ionic columns on the next level, and Corinthian columns on the top level. There are also statues of acorns on the roof. They have something to do with the original founding of Bath by the Romans. The Roman farmers fed the acorns to pigs. Both pigs and humans suffered from this skin disease but the pigs got over it. One of the farmers tried rolling around in the mud with the pigs and he was also cured. It turned out the mud contained the mineral water from the springs and baths were created from them. My recall of the story might not be completely correct. After learning this we walked to the outside of the Circus and saw the front door to the flat formerly belonging to the inventor of plastiscene.
Near the Circus we visited the Assembly Rooms used since the 18th century for various forms of public entertainment. Inside the rooms are some very impressive glass chandeliers and paintings by Gainsborough of important people from Bath’s history. We observed on the inside where there were fireplaces and chimneys but on the outside they put window on the outside of the chimneys just to preserve the architectural symmetry. The same building as the assembly rooms also houses the Museum of Costume that we didn’t get to see, unfortunately.
The last major sight on our tour before returning to the Pump Room was the Pulteney bridge and the river Avon. The Pulteney bridge was designed in the same style as the Ponte Vecchio in Italy: lined with shops on both sides. Its south side is more picturesque and the bridge was used as a set for filming the upcoming movie Vanity Fair. The river Avon is not the same as the river in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown. Avon means “river” in the ancient local language and there are several rivers in England with that name. We observed the Medieval arch and entrance to the river bank which lies below the street level.
We returned to the square between the Pump Room and Bath Abbey and observed the Abbey, one of the oldest churches in England as it dates back to Medieval times. It has relief sculptures of ladders on its tower with angels climbing them. On the right and left sides of the front door are St. Peter and St. Paul respectively. St. Peter has a much smaller head because his original head was hacked off by Oliver Cromwell’s men in the 17th century. Later, the people carved a new head out of what was left of his beard but their difference in head size is clearly apparent. Another relief sculpture on the side of the Abbey consists of images to remind people the name of the bishop who built the latest version of the Abbey in the 15th century. There’s a bishop’s hat for “Bishop”, an olive tree for “Oliver”, and a crown for “King” all equaling Bishop Oliver King. I guess some of our clergy never had humility. The Abbey was our last stop on the tour that we fully enjoyed and I believe was one of the best parts of our trip.
After the tour we went to the Roman Baths museum right next to the Pump Room. We picked up audio tours and looked at many artifacts from the Roman bath and temple complex that once stood in the very spot. There were some ancient sculptures, altars, pieces of old buildings, and rooms and baths used by the Romans. We joined up with a museum employee giving a tour and saw the remains of ancient dressing rooms, hot and cool pools, and remains of the roof that once covered the bath. The bath water is still warm and its colored green due to algae in it. In Roman times, the bath had a roof covering it preventing the algae from growing. We went to the museum shop to buy some gifts (called pasalubong by Filipinos) and postcards for family and friends.
For dinner in Bath we wanted to have fish and chips. We tried to find a fish and chips place mentioned in the Rick Steves guidebook as being near the train station but we couldn’t find it. In its place we went to a fish and chips place farther away which happened to be in the same chain as the first place. I had plaice and my wife had skinless cod. It tasted great and they had the malt vinegar for our chips (fries). After dinner we caught the National Rail train back to Paddington station in London and took the Tube back to our apartment.
After breakfast we took the Tube to Paddington Station to catch a National Rail train to the town of Bath. We bought train tickets but then, after we boarded, our train was cancelled due to a security alert at Swindon Station, one of the stations along the way. We were able to get on another train that left about an hour later and after riding for an hour and a half we arrived in Bath at around 1 pm. We got some baguettes for lunch at the food place in the train station, Upper Crust, and ate near the bath fountain. Every building was made of the yellowish limestone the locals called “Bath stone” and all the buildings looked historic. We followed the hand-drawn map from the borrowed Rick Steves guidebook and found our way to the Pump Room. The Pump Room is a restaurant/tea room where you can get a cup of the mineral water from Bath. The warm spring water in Bath has been used for both bathing and drinking, though I hear it doesn’t taste very good. We didn’t go in the Pump Room’s main room but we did see the Roman bath they have inside.
We walked outside the Pump Room near the Medieval church of Bath Abbey to meet up with our walking tour. Community volunteers in Bath put on free 2-hour walking tours at 10:30 am and 2:00 pm daily in the summer. We read about these tours in the Rick Steves guidebook. She asked everyone in the group where they were from and we said we were from Canada to be safe. Others in the group were from England, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. Our guide first showed us the writing on the north side of the Pump Room building that roughly translated to “Our Water is Best” and this message wasn’t viewed favorable by one of the Pubs that used to be its neighbor. We walked by the new Thermae Bath Spa building that is still under construction. Currently none of Bath’s water is used for bathing but that will change when the spa opens. It’s opening has been delayed, though, due to technical problems, something to do with the painting I heard. Most of Bath’s building as we saw them were built in the 18th century when Bath was a spa and resort for the wealthy. We went to the St. John’s Hospital courtyard and noticed the marker on the outside walls put there by to 18th-19th century fire insurance companies. These companies ran the fire departments and would only take care of fires on buildings with markers for their company. Bath was originally a Roman city and then was a Medieval city and finally an 18th century city. We walked to where the only remaining portion of the Medieval Wall that surrounded the city still stood. Nearby was the Royal Mineral Water Hospital where a 19th century doctor determined a recipe for medicinal biscuits. Our guide passed around one of these biscuits that are sold at Bath gift shops. On an otherwise nondescript building they had written the Magna Carta in English on one of the walls. There’s an interesting line about widows not being required to marry again by their families and therefore allowed to keep their inheritances. We passed a window in which you could see an authentic 18th Century powder room where men would leave their wigs and powder them to keep them white. We walked by the small houses where the carriage haulers lived and walked a gravel walk mentioned in one of Jane Austen’s books.
We walked through an intersection with three interesting street names. The story is that John Wood (either Jr. or Sr. I’m not sure) was making a lot of noise and the people shouted back, “Quiet, John Wood!” The streets are named Quiet Street, John Street, and Wood Street.
A highlight of the walking tour was viewing the buildings designed by John Wood Jr. and John Wood Sr. in the 18th century. We first went to the Royal Crescent designed by Jr. that’s shaped like the outline of half an ellipse. Within the half-ellipse outline are the drive and the lawn that are bordered in front by a “ha-ha”, a wall that tapers into the ground. The center apartment is clearly marked with the double columns and the arch window. Most of the Crescent consists of a luxury hotel and some very expensive flats. The painter Thomas Gainsborough once had an apartment there. Gainsborough is a connection to my hometown, L.A., because his famous paintings Blue Boy and Pinkie are kept at the Huntington Library in San Marino near Pasadena. The Three Tenors had a concert on the grounds of the Royal Crescent last year to celebrate the opening of Thermae Bath Spa even though the spa didn’t open then and still hasn’t opened.
Next we viewed the building designed by John Wood Sr.: a circular building called The Circus. It’s not a continuous circle as it’s driveway runs through the inside. Wood Sr. put Doric columns on the bottom level, Ionic columns on the next level, and Corinthian columns on the top level. There are also statues of acorns on the roof. They have something to do with the original founding of Bath by the Romans. The Roman farmers fed the acorns to pigs. Both pigs and humans suffered from this skin disease but the pigs got over it. One of the farmers tried rolling around in the mud with the pigs and he was also cured. It turned out the mud contained the mineral water from the springs and baths were created from them. My recall of the story might not be completely correct. After learning this we walked to the outside of the Circus and saw the front door to the flat formerly belonging to the inventor of plastiscene.
Near the Circus we visited the Assembly Rooms used since the 18th century for various forms of public entertainment. Inside the rooms are some very impressive glass chandeliers and paintings by Gainsborough of important people from Bath’s history. We observed on the inside where there were fireplaces and chimneys but on the outside they put window on the outside of the chimneys just to preserve the architectural symmetry. The same building as the assembly rooms also houses the Museum of Costume that we didn’t get to see, unfortunately.
The last major sight on our tour before returning to the Pump Room was the Pulteney bridge and the river Avon. The Pulteney bridge was designed in the same style as the Ponte Vecchio in Italy: lined with shops on both sides. Its south side is more picturesque and the bridge was used as a set for filming the upcoming movie Vanity Fair. The river Avon is not the same as the river in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown. Avon means “river” in the ancient local language and there are several rivers in England with that name. We observed the Medieval arch and entrance to the river bank which lies below the street level.
We returned to the square between the Pump Room and Bath Abbey and observed the Abbey, one of the oldest churches in England as it dates back to Medieval times. It has relief sculptures of ladders on its tower with angels climbing them. On the right and left sides of the front door are St. Peter and St. Paul respectively. St. Peter has a much smaller head because his original head was hacked off by Oliver Cromwell’s men in the 17th century. Later, the people carved a new head out of what was left of his beard but their difference in head size is clearly apparent. Another relief sculpture on the side of the Abbey consists of images to remind people the name of the bishop who built the latest version of the Abbey in the 15th century. There’s a bishop’s hat for “Bishop”, an olive tree for “Oliver”, and a crown for “King” all equaling Bishop Oliver King. I guess some of our clergy never had humility. The Abbey was our last stop on the tour that we fully enjoyed and I believe was one of the best parts of our trip.
After the tour we went to the Roman Baths museum right next to the Pump Room. We picked up audio tours and looked at many artifacts from the Roman bath and temple complex that once stood in the very spot. There were some ancient sculptures, altars, pieces of old buildings, and rooms and baths used by the Romans. We joined up with a museum employee giving a tour and saw the remains of ancient dressing rooms, hot and cool pools, and remains of the roof that once covered the bath. The bath water is still warm and its colored green due to algae in it. In Roman times, the bath had a roof covering it preventing the algae from growing. We went to the museum shop to buy some gifts (called pasalubong by Filipinos) and postcards for family and friends.
For dinner in Bath we wanted to have fish and chips. We tried to find a fish and chips place mentioned in the Rick Steves guidebook as being near the train station but we couldn’t find it. In its place we went to a fish and chips place farther away which happened to be in the same chain as the first place. I had plaice and my wife had skinless cod. It tasted great and they had the malt vinegar for our chips (fries). After dinner we caught the National Rail train back to Paddington station in London and took the Tube back to our apartment.
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