Postcards from Bath #7: Royal Crescent
As soon as Bath's Circus (see yesterday) was completed, John Wood the Younger started on the great Royal Crescent, thirty terraced houses set in a sweeping curve, fronted by huge Ionic columns and looking out across gardens to the hills beyond. (It's so long that it was almost impossible to get a photo!) Most of the houses have now been divided into apartments but a handful remain as whole houses - eight bedrooms, for sale for upwards of £4.5m if you fancy one! See HERE for an article about one of them. It's rather gorgeous.
Nowadays the large house on the right hand side, No 1 Royal Crescent, completed in 1769, is a museum. It is furnished as it might have been in the period 1776-1796, when it was rented by Mr Henry Sandford. There are audio-visual effects suggesting a family talking about their lives. It seems many of Bath's residents may have had land and houses in the countryside but would 'come up' to Bath for 'the Season', from October to early June, to see and be seen, enjoy the grand balls, concerts and social visits to their neighbours. Many young men spent their time drinking, playing cards and gambling. Young ladies hoped to find a handsome and wealthy husband! All very 'Jane Austen'! Bath was effectively built on wealth amassed through the British Slave Trade and modern narratives are careful to acknowledge that shameful part of our collective history.
In the entrance hall, a sedan chair is an example of how the wealthy were transported from one place to another in Bath, carried by servants! The disastrous lack of parking in the city in modern times leads, of course, right back to the way it was designed in the 18th century!
The Withdrawing Room (below) was where the ladies took tea after dinner, leaving the menfolk to drink and smoke cigars. Tea was an expensive commodity and the tea caddy would be locked and the key kept by the lady of the house to prevent the servants from helping themselves! There might be music played and, no doubt, much gossip exchanged.
The Lady's Bedroom was not only where the mistress of the house slept but where she undertook her toilette, with the help of her maids - an elaborate ritual of dressing, styling hair and applying make up. She might also receive visitors here.
What history to be found here.
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps by accident, in your second photo of the window and a sedan chair, your own name in your watermark seems to designate that as your sedan chair. Big smile here!
ReplyDeleteLove that first shot of the street.
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