G & J away from home

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Off to visit Bath today and we managed to time everything perfectly so we had time to walk from the car park, through the Circus, and around the corner to the Fashion Museum just minutes before it opened.

Gary in the Circus

The Fashion Museum is in the basement of the Assembly Rooms - both of interest to me.  I didn't take any photos during our tour of the Fashion Museum as it was quite low lighting (for the sake of the fabric) but 'The Georgians' exhibitions was super.  The audio guide was good, too.  The only thing that might have made it better would have been a larger selection of postcards showing the best of the collection.  There were a few Georgian ones, but none of the dresses I particularly liked.

I did take photos of the Assembly Rooms (the New Assembly Rooms or the Upper Assembly Rooms).  This one was the original tea room:

Assembly rooms - the original tea room

 The ball room was decorated in blue and white and was beautiful, though I did keep thinking I was wandering around under something designed by Wedgwood!

Ceiling decoration in the ball room

During the Georgian era Bath became fashionable. The architects John Wood, the Elder and his son John Wood, the Younger laid out new areas of housing for residents and visitors. Assembly rooms had been built early in the 18th century, but a new venue for balls, concerts and gambling was envisaged in the area between Queen Square, The Circus and the Royal Crescent.... John Wood, the Younger raised funding through a Tontine and construction started in 1769. The New or Upper Assembly Rooms opened with a grand ball in 1771 and became the hub of fashionable society, being frequented by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, along with the nobility of the time.

-- Wikipedia

All the rooms boasted lovely chandeliers - not as crazily big as some we've seen on this trip, but quite lovely and way too bright for my camera to deal well with.

(As an aside, my camera broke while we were in the US and I've been taking photos with Gary's 'spare' camera ever since.)

Ball room chandeliers

As we were walking around town I noticed a couple of great examples of these courtyards for the basements (goodness knows what they're really called!)  The photo I've included had the stairs to the main door on little bridges with a gap between them and the courtyards' side walls.  Very quirky.

Stair 'bridges' over the lower courtyards

And then we passed Jolly's tea rooms on John Street.  Took a photo for Sue.  We were lost, but that's beside the point!

Jolly's tea rooms

Also on John Street, Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights - what a super name for a bookshop.

The bookshop

Finally on the right track we spied the Abbey and the Guild Hall which put us on the right road to get to the bridge.  We were a bit concious of time by then, knowing when out pay-and-display ran out.

Guild Hall

We stopped at Pulteney Bridge to take some photos (and admire the seagulls standing in the shallow water of the weir) and Gary peeked into the antique maps shop while I admired the mosaic shop, both on the bridge itself:

Pulteney Bridge crosses the River Avon in Bath, England. It was completed by 1774, and connected the city with the newly built Georgian town of Bathwick. Designed by Robert Adam in a Palladian style, it is exceptional in having shops built across its full span on both sides.

-- Wikipedia

Pulteney Bridge

The weirs

Once back in the sun-warmed car we headed out of town and onto the M4 and M25 to get back to Hertford and Bengeo where we'll be spending the last two nights in the UK.  I was asleep before we left the city centre!

In Bengeo I took great delight in watering the plants I planted when we were here last month and Gary mowed the grass.  Despite my cross-country sleep I think it'll be an early night tonight.

Gary and the electric mower

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