Bath, the Royal Crescent, an abbey that has influenced every coronation since, and why you need more than a day
I stood in the Royal Crescent and felt like I had stepped back in time. I kind of wish I could travel through time like Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser! (Here's an out-of-towner reference for those who have never experienced Drylanders.)
That's the only way I know how to describe it. When you turn a corner in Bath, you suddenly notice: a huge arc formed by honey-colored Bath stone, thirty houses unified behind a neoclassical facade, 114 Ionic columns, cobblestones that curve in two directions. The wonder, which has appeared in numerous films and British television series, was designed and completed in 1774 by unabashed Anglophile John Wood the Younger. It is truly one of the most beautiful streets in England. Possibly in the world.
I've seen it on screen many times before. But photos don’t give you an idea of its scale. Nothing.
This is Jane Austen's bathroom
Jane Austen lived in Bath from 1801 to 1806, first as a visitor and later as her biographer cleverly called a “reluctant resident”. When her parents announced the family's move to Bath, she is said to have fainted. She doesn't like it here.
She doesn't live in the Crescent. The Austens were elegant, but not grand. Gay Street and Trim Street are more suitable for them. But everyone in Bath society knows the Royal Crescent. You can't help but. It is the pinnacle of social architecture, a place where the most fashionable people roam, and being seen is the point in itself. Austin walked through it, observed the people inside, and filed everything away.
Northanger Abbey and persuade It's all set in these streets and these meeting rooms. She moves among people, demonstrating their status and performing “wellness,” centuries before our time's obsession with both.
However, Austin is more than just a resident. She is the observer. If you know Austen, that's exactly where her power lies. Oh, where are the ironic Austens of our time?
persuade is my favorite Austen novel. The 2007 ITV adaptation starring Rupert Penry-Jones is one of my favorite films, period. I've seen it more times than I care to admit here. So standing on the cobbles of the Royal Crescent, looking down at the incredible honey-coloured Bath Stone, is one of those moments when a place you love on screen suddenly becomes real beneath your feet. The scale of it. its curves. The light fell flat, gray, beautifully on the whole thing, just like in the movies, because Bath in April is obviously Bath in April, no matter the century.
I stood there longer than planned. I don't mind at all.
It's worth noting, for those who love Austen as much as I do, that she is not buried in Bath. She was buried in the nave of Winchester Cathedral, under a plain black table stone, which contained no mention of any of her novels, only of her personal virtues. Her family later added a brass plaque honoring her writing. As it happens, Winchester Cathedral was also the place where Anglo-Saxon kings were crowned, before the Norman Conquest moved this ceremony elsewhere. Even in death, Austen occupied a place steeped in history, and she knew what to do with it.
The Jane Austen Center is located in Guy Street, Bath, close to where she actually lived. I didn't make it there this time, but I hope I can next time!
Refreshments at the Royal Crescent Hotel
After visiting the Roman Baths I went to the Royal Crescent Hotel for tea and I want to clarify that this is not just a recommendation. It's an experience in a category of its own. Quietly magnificent. Take your time. An afternoon like this will make you understand why people come to Bath not just for the water, but for the special quality of time this city has to offer. The food is delicious. The same goes for tea. So just there.
It was in my hotel bathroom because, of course, I found the image that put everything in order.
On the wall hangs a framed Hedlov fashion plate from 1794: three Georgian women in high-waisted gowns and towering feather hats conversing in the garden. Characters straight out of an Austen novel, in a world where what you wear when you hit the water is a statement about who you are and who you want to be.
On another wall hangs a satirical engraving from 1796, Modern beauty walks into Bath's room. A lady of high society was carried through these streets in an enclosed glass carriage carried by two liveried bearers, with parasols held aloft and steam rising from the carriage. Published by H. Humphrey, New Bond Street. Pure Georgian social comedy.
It was so perfect to encounter these images there, in the bathhouse, in the Royal Crescent, in the building where those women once walked. Humphrey's joke in 1796 is still legible today. The distance between then and now shrinks in the most delightful way.
That's what Buzz does to you. It folds time.
A hot drink and a cobbled square
Before tea we stopped at The Huntsman, a cask ale and fine wine pub set in a cobbled square in Bath, with flower boxes spilling out of the facade, a barrel out front and despite the gray April skies the outdoor tables were packed. That kind of place has clearly always existed and is intended to remain. marvelous. We ate something warm and watched the city go by. Sometimes it just feels right to do it in such an ancient place. Stop it. observe. Let it settle around you.
Austin would agree.
The monastery I did not enter
I stood at the west front of Bath Abbey and looked up.
I didn't go in. I admit that this is the second time I have been to Bath without entering a monastery, and I have promised myself that this will not happen a third time. Because even from the outside, even just standing in front of those doors, the building gives you some kind of command.
The views on the western front are extraordinary. The stone angel climbing the ladder between heaven and earth was built in the early 16th century and is carved on the facade. The story behind them is this: Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, had a dream or vision in which he saw angels, an olive tree, and a crown, and heard a voice saying, “Let the olive tree establish the crown, and the king restore the church.” The angel in front of the abbey is said to refer to that dream. To the west there is a crown, an olive tree and a bishop's miter in his honor. This building literally started with a vision.
Bath Abbey was founded in the seventh century AD. It was reorganized in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th century, and the current building dates mainly from 1499. Its fan-shaped vaults were completed in the early 1500s by the Vertue brothers, Henry VII's master architects, and are considered one of the finest examples in England.
But the moment in its history that made me pause the most was this.
Every coronation since has been affected
On Whit Sunday, May 11, 973 AD, King Edgar was crowned King of All England at Bath Abbey. He had actually been king for 14 years, starting in 959. This delay is intentional. Archbishop Dunstan, who performed the coronation himself, would not agree to crown Edgar until he changed his ways. A 12th-century forerunner wrote simply that Edgar waited until he no longer had the passion of his youth.
When the ceremony finally takes place, it is the pinnacle of a reign. A statement. Edgar was more than just the King of England. He is the overlord of Britain. Shortly after his coronation, he traveled north to Chester, where eight sub-kings, including the King of Scotland and the King of Strathclyde, swore fealty to him. Legend has it that they rowed him up the River Dee in his state barge.
The service designed by Dunstan for the ceremony at Bath Abbey has been used in its basic form at every English coronation ever since. Everyone. Including the coronation of Charles III.
In 1973, Queen Elizabeth II visited Bath Abbey to attend a ceremony marking the 1000th anniversary of Edgar's coronation. There is a stone on the floor of the monastery commemorating that visit.
And then there’s Alfiji.
Alphege was an Anglo-Saxon monk who served as abbot in 980 and later became Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury. When Canterbury was invaded by the Danes in 1011, they imprisoned him and demanded a ransom of 3,000 pounds. Alphege refused to pay. He also refused to let his friends pay for him. The Danes were so angry that they beat him to death with cow bones.
He was later canonized. His feast day is April 19th.
Bath Abbey has nearly 1,500 monuments, one of the largest collections of monuments in the UK, with 617 memorial walls and 847 ground stones. The building has been described as a lantern of the west because of its windows that allow in lots of light. I will see this firsthand next time.
Cotswold Way
There is a circular cairn on the footpath near the monastery. It is the start or end point of the Cotswold Way National Trail: 102 miles from Bath to Chipping Campden, passing through some of England's most beautiful scenery, passing Sodbury Camp, Prospect Steele, Lansdowne Field, Dereham, Coopers Hill, Painswick Church and the River Severn.
Bath is more than just a destination. This is a threshold. Where things started. And where things end. The Cotswold Way National Trail is hugely popular at the moment, and so are the Cotswolds. I enjoyed visiting the Battle of Evesham site with my parents in 1999. The Battle of Evesham (1265) took place on the northern edge of the Cotswolds between Simon de Montfort and King Edward I. Simon de Montfort was trapped in a bend in the River Avon, where he died. (I’m a big fan of Simon de Montfort)
what i want to tell you
When I design an itinerary for clients to visit Bath, I recommend at least two days. One morning at the Roman Baths. Spend an afternoon at the Royal Crescent, have tea in the hotel if you can, then have a hot drink in the cobbled and flower box area and people watch. During this time at the Abbey, look up at the fan vaults and angels on the west side, and at the stone mark on the floor where a queen once stood to pay homage to a king who had been crowned before her.
In Bath, you can wander the same streets that Austin walked. Although she is not buried here, she is definitely here. In the architecture, in the light, in the ancient stone and ancient architecture. She saw it all and wrote it all down.
The water has always been here. The same goes for stones. The same goes for the angel on the wall, climbing up the ladder to nowhere and yet everywhere.
Bath doesn't reward a hasty visit. It rewards those who slow down, look up, and let two thousand years of accumulated meaning do what it has been doing.
It gets inside you. Just like water. Just like usual.
