Bath - Mar 2025
| Exploring Bath and Antiques Fair | |
| We were excited to join Liz on a trip to Bath Decorative Antiques Fair. It also gave us an opportunity to walk around Bath and have lunch before returning home by train. Our walking took us a few loops around town, and we covered a few main locations, but there is plenty more to see next time we visit. | |
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| Another trip on the train is always fun! | |
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| On approach to Bath we got a good view of Kelston Park along the River Avon. The house/buildings built in 1760 look great - at least from a distance. Online sources say it has been used for many things over the years, but they are not in use these days. Too expensive to renovate and maintain: a normal story for old houses. | |
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| A quick walk from the train station brought us to Bath Pavillion shortly after the antiques fair opened. We took a very strategic approach and made sure we walked through all the stalls. | |
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To make our visit even more interesting, we gave each other a challenge to look for certain
items in the fair. This idea was inspired by Rob and Hild's time spend watching
Bargain Hunt on the TV at lunch time. Liz was instructed to find something with
ballerinas on. Rob was looking for frogs. Hild was looking for sheep - again.
At the end of the day, Rob won with 4 frogs followed by Liz with 3 ballerinas, and Hild only found two sheep. Hild's two sheep were part of Noah's ark but there were no extra points for that. | |
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| During our walk around town we spotted many nice and well-maintained canal boats moored along River Avon. However, some of the boats had been abandoned in poor condition and even sinking. News stories and signs along the road indicated that the city is about to start removing the sunken boats. It will look nicer after they are gone. | |
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| As usual we found several stairs during our round-about route through Bath. | |
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As we crossed North Parade Bridge we saw this beautiful Victorian bandstand.
The railings were decorated with musical notes.
Futher along the river we got a nice view of St John The Evangelist's Church originally built in 1780. Shortly thereafter it was burned during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots. The building we see today was rebuilt in stages and completed by 1863. | |
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| Rob and Liz posing in front of Pulteney Weir and Bridge. We also studied what a Radial Gate is. First, we though it may be a navigable lock gate, but it is a flood gate. When in operation in the early 1970s, the gate automatically allowed flows to pass through Bath when the river was high but retain a water level upstream when the flood flows had reduced. Now it stands there, and no one can agree what to do with it and who gets to pay for it. | |
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| Hild and Rob posing in front of Pulteney Weir and Bridge. It was a beautiful day to walk around Bath. Not too hot and not too cold. | |
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| We enjoyed finding our way through Beazer Garden Maze. There was some discussion on whether you walk on the grass or on the flag stones. Liz set off and made it too the middle in good form. At that stage, Rob was still reading the instructions. | |
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| While walking around browsing stalls in the Bath Guildhall Market we suddenly realised we were lost - or at least confused. We could find our way out, but through which entrance? The distance signs were not very helpful: 1,908 miles to Svalbard! | |
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| In the middle of the market, there is an 18th century Market Pillar - also known as a nail. Possibly the origin of the term "pay on the nail" meaning to pay immediately and in cash. | |
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| We couldn't walk around in Bath without visiting the famous Abbey. It is built on the site of a former Benedictine monastery formed in the 7th century. Since then it has been reorganized and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. Then in 1830-60s major restoration work added the distinctive flying buttresses and changed the towers. | |
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| We didn't visit any of the famous Roman baths but walked past many of the wonderful building housing the baths that date back to the 1st century. There was some discussion on who should have had been standing in these features. Any ideas? | |
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| After visiting the Bath World Heritage Centre, we decided to walk north to The Circus where we found beautiful circle of old houses dating back to 1768. From above, the circle has three entrances and forms a masonic symbol from that time. The townhouses have below-street-level patios that sometimes are empty and sometimes have garden furniture and flowers. | |
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| Next stop was the renowned Royal Crescent. These 30 houses built in 1775 form a crescent. Seen from our photo it is hard to show the crescent. The area is kept looking like the original including the ornate lamp posts with the Bath City crest. | |
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| The modern part of Bath, where all the shops are, still has beautiful sandstone buildings - and so very clean they are too. Clearly tourism is keeping this city alive all year round. There were plenty of benches to sit down and enjoy the day. | |
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For lunch, we had soup and sandwich and baked potato at the "Cafe at
the Centre" at Manvers Street Baptist Church Open House Centre. The
cafe is run by volunteers and the food is delicious and reasonably priced.
For our afternoon break, Liz chose BUBBLE CI-TEA while Rob and Hild chose boring tea from Pret a Manger. A shout-out to JR and Alexis who seem to end up at Pret every time while out and about in London! At least it we were full by the time we walked past the Bath Chocolate Company and their fancy and fun sign. | |
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We walked along River Avon several times. At one point we came
across a group of swans - some of which were clearly juveniles
about to get their white feathers.
What is a group of swans called? Some sources say we can use gaggle, gargle, bevy, and whiteness of swans while they waddle around. And when they are flying, we can call them a wedge or flight of swans. Everything sounds better than gaggle! | |
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| Further along River Avon we saw several old buildings on Bath Quays having been renovated into fancy offices. | |
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| We stopped by the first or last lock on the Kenneth & Avon Canal. The canal is 87 miles long connects Bristol Channel with Thames River at Reading all the way to London. | |
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| Some oddities seen on our walk: Another red telephone box filled with flowers, a yellow version housing a defibrillator, and a very snuggly sheep. Hild tried to have this count towards her goal to find sheep, but this was disallowed by Rob and Liz because we were no longer at the Antiques Fair. | |
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Postscript: A day for comfortable walking shoes. |
March 2025