Bath, Somerset

“ The two principal rivers of Somerset are the Avon and the Parrett. The Avon, after forming for a short distance the boundary with Wiltshire, crosses the north-eastern corner of the county, encircling Bath, and forms the boundary with Gloucestershire till it reaches the sea 6 m. beyond Bristol. It is navigable for barges as far as Bath. The Parrett from South Perrott in Dorset, on the borders of Somerset, crosses the centre of the county north-westwards by Bridgwater, receiving the Yeo and Cary on the right, and the Isle and Tone on the left. ”

“ Amongst the hills they are firm but arduous, in the plains easy but soft. The main thoroughfares, however, can be recommended both for breadth and surface.
Railways.—The Somerset railway system is extensive. The G.W.R. (the chief service of the county) unites Bath with Bristol, and throwing itself round the N.W. extremity of the Mendips, runs down an almost ideal track to Taunton and Wellington. A loop from Worle to Uphill serves Weston-super-Mare, whilst short branches, one from Bristol and a econd from Yatton, afford communication with Portishead and Clevedon. ”

“ You who are curious as to where the village of Norton stands may take the map of Somerset and presently, scanning the county to the south of Bath, discover it set down about seven miles to the south of that ancient city, in a somewhat sequestered district. The reason of so large and so grand a hostelry being in existence since the Middle Ages in so small a village is not, at the first blush, evident, and it is only when the ancient history of Norton itself is explored that the wherefore of it is found. ”

“ Robert however is frequently styled archdeacon of Wells, and Thomas occurs by himself as archdeacon of Bath in 1165.
We have reached the period in which the king makes promising young men archdeacons in consideration of services rendered or to be rendered in the administration of royal affairs. Somerset will be found to provide conspicuous instances of this practice in the years which follow. Some of the archdeacons will be absentees, who are hardly ever in their archdeaconries and must have done their work by deputy. ”

“ These documents are quite explicit, Jocelin is 'the elect of Bath', not of 'Bath and Glastonbury'. The king is expecting the separation, and he does not claim the city of Bath, as his own, but considerately places both that and the Glastonbury share in the custody of the bishop-elect and his brother the archdeacon of Wells. ”

“ Ina also founded Wells, but as a collegiate church of secular canons, not as the cathedral of a diocese. It was not until 909 that Somerset had a bishop all to itself, who was styled the Bishop of the Somersaetas, with his seat at Wells (the first appointed being Aethelm.) In 1088, in accordance with the policy of removing bishoprics from localities of little importance, the see was transferred from Wells to Bath, the bishop (John de Villula) at the same time becoming the abbot of the monastery. In 1192 Bishop Savaric procured for the see the rich abbey of Glastonbury, and became its abbot ”

“ Somerset was very rich in boroughs at the time of Domesday, which points to a considerable development of trade before the Conquest; Bath, Taunton, Ilchester, Frome, Milborne Port, Bruton, Langport and Axbridge were all boroughs in 1087, and there was the nucleus of a borough at Yeovil. Somerton, Ilchester and Taunton were successively the meeting-places of the shire court. There were joint sheriffs for Somerset and Dorset until 1566 when a separate sheriff for each county was appointed. In the 7th century Somerset, as part of the kingdom of Wessex, was included in the diocese of Winchester. ”

“ AFTERNOONS IN WELLS AND BRISTOL EVEN the local guide-book, which is necessarily optimistic, owns that the railroad service between Bath and Wells leaves something to be desired. The distance is twenty miles, and you can make it by the Great Western in something over two hours, but if you are pressed for time, the Somerset and Dorset line will carry you in two. As we were nationally in a hurry, though personally we had time to spare, we went and came by this line, mostly in a sort of vague rain, which favored the blossoming of the primroses along the railroad bank. ”

“ Its career has been a series of vicissitudes. Though Bath takes precedence of Wells in the official title of the see, it has seldom been the predominant partner. John de Villula, with the intention of making the city the bishop's seat, built here a church so spacious that the nave alone would swallow up the existing building. Of this Norm. church there still survive (1) bases of clustered pillars under a grating in N. aisle of choir, (2) a single pillar in same aisle, (3) round arch and pillar in vestry, S. of choir, (4) bases of pillars at exterior of E. end. ”

“ The village surrounds a large, three-cornered green, which was once the scene of a considerable fair. The church stands about a stone's-throw away on rising ground. It is a Perp. building of irregular design and rough workmanship. It has a good pillared stoup in the porch, a Jacobean screen, and fragments of a stone pulpit. In the neighbourhood are two groups of barrows.
Priston, a village in a secluded dale 51⁄4 m. S.W. from Bath (nearest stat. Camerton, 3 m.) . The church is something of a deception, for a good Norm. doorway and an exterior corbel table prepares the visitor for the Norm. ”

“ Crossing over the hills to the north-west of Salisbury Plain, we descend to the attractive valley of another river Avon, and come to the "Queen of all the Spas in the World," the city of Bath. It is the chief town of Somersetshire, and is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. The abbey and principal [Pg 395] streets are in the valley, while above, on its northern slope, rise terraces and crescents, tier upon tier, to a height of nearly eight hundred feet, the most conspicuous being the Royal and the Lansdowne Crescents. ”

“ Early in the reign of Edward VI Barlow commended himself to the Duke of Somerset by preaching against images. Accordingly, in 1548, he was translated to the bishopric of Bath and Wells. On 20 May of the same year he sold to the duke seven manors, together with the palace at Wells, and certain other estates and profits of jurisdiction belonging to the see, for, it is said, 2,000l. ”

“ We had only an unsatisfactory glimpse of the interior, as services happened to be in progress. The town of Wells is a mere adjunct to the cathedral. It has no history of its own; no great familyPg 110 has ever lived there; and it can claim no glory as the birthplace of distinguished sons. Still it has a distinct charm as a quiet little Somersetshire town which has preserved its antiquity and fascination. Its name is taken from the natural wells still found in the garden of the Bishop's palace.
Bath, though it has the most remarkable Roman relics in the Kingdom, is largely modern. ”

“ Ionic columns rise from a rustic basement, and support the superior cornice. These houses are most elegantly finished. All the city is seen from the crescent, and no other spot affords so grand a prospect. Camden Place is an elliptical range of edifices, commanding an extensive view of the valley, with the winding stream of the Avon, and the villages upon its banks. One of the principal features of Bath is its hills and downs, which shelter it on every side. The sides on these downs are very fine, extending for miles, and you see thousands of sheep enjoying the finest possible pasturage. ”

“ They stand the wear and tear of time as well as its mellowing, and, like language, if they are here and there vulgarized by the usage of every day, without it they would be a dead language.
Queen Anne's Walk, overlooking the river, and close to the town station, is a small colonnade of the Renaissance style, which is most familiar to us in the architecture of Bath; it has an outlandish look, with its classical lines seen against the background of the smooth river and green Devonshire country, and has not the homely charm of Elizabethan or Stuart building. ”

“ The village itself is not particularly picturesque. In its centre is an ancient hexagonal cross (cp. Shepton) of no great merit, and much doctored. The cheeses for which Cheddar is also famous are not the exclusive product of the locality but are extensively made throughout Somerset. The church is worth inspection. It is a fine Perp. building, with a lofty W. tower of four stages. It has triple belfry windows, and a spired stair turret, but the shallowness of the buttresses detracts from its impressiveness. Within there is a good coloured roof, some Perp. screens, a good 15th-cent. ”

“ To Sir WATKIN PHILLIPS, of Jesus college, Oxon. DEAR KNIGHT,
I think those people are unreasonable, who complain that Bath is a contracted circle, in which the same dull scenes perpetually revolve, without variation—I am, on the contrary, amazed to find so small a place so crowded with entertainment and variety. London itself can hardly exhibit one species of diversion, to which we have not something analogous at Bath, over and above those singular advantages that are peculiar to the place. ”

“ CONSERVATIVES
‘I hear the nobility and gentry of Somersetshire have exerted a laudable spirit, and are now actually erecting turnpikes, which will give that fruitful county a better intercourse with its neighbours, and bring an accession of wealth into it; for every wise traveller who goes from London to Exeter, etc. will surely take Bath in his way (as the digression is a mere nothing) . At least, all the expensive people with coaches certainly will—and then the supine inhabitants of Wilts and Dorset may repine in vain ”

“ The sky is clearing; the low sun flashes along the hill-crests and floods the Somerset landscape with ethereal beauty, which we drink in as we skim swiftly along the smooth, wet road. We catch a final gleam of the ocean at Weston-super-Mare and pass a long row of imposing hotels. ”

“ S. from Wells. It has a station on the S. & D. line from Evercreech to Bridgwater. The site of Glastonbury is almost as conspicuous in a Somerset landscape as its name is in Somerset history. Its huge conical tor, crowned by a tower, rises like a gigantic sugar-loaf from the surrounding plain, and is visible to half the county. The neighbourhood is a happy hunting-ground for the antiquary, and one of the "regulation" sights for the casual tourist. No one can be said to have "done" Somerset who has not seen Glastonbury. ”

“ There seemed to be a good many of these gardened spaces in the town, as well as in the outskirts where more new houses were going up, in something of the long leisure of the vegetation. The famous Bath building-stone is in fact so much employed elsewhere that there may not be enough of it for home use, and that may account for the slow growth of the place; but if I lived there I should not wish it to grow, and if I were King of Bath, in due succession from Beau Nash, I would not suffer one Bath-stone to be set upon the other within its limits. ”

“ Lucy sat gazing at the banks of the river, where the mighty city on either hand has declined into sordid meanness, skeleton exposure; where the struggles of manufacture and commerce are content to abjure their own decencies for the sake of the greater gain. Save where the long line of Somerset House, and the garden of the Temple asserted the ancient dignity of order and cleanliness, the whole looked like a mean, tattered, draggled fringe upon a rich garment. ”

“ He had thus become a man of such importance in the city that he was known as ‘The Man of Bath;’ and, although only once mayor (in 1742) , his influence in the town council was so great that it gave rise to a good-humoured caricature portrait of him, long popular in Bath, entitled ‘The one-headed Corporation.’ He now left his old residence, between York Street and Liliput Alley, and built out of his own quarries a solid and magnificent mansion on the Prior Park Estate, Widcombe, some three or four miles from Bath, and near the site of his famous quarries. ”

“ We have made it our chief purpose to help our readers to see for themselves what is best worth seeing. If, in carrying out our design, we appear to have treated inadequately many interesting country seats, our excuse must be that such are naturally not very accessible to the ordinary tourist, whose needs we have sought to supply. And if churches and church architecture seem to receive undue attention, it may be pleaded that Somerset is particularly rich in ecclesiastical buildings, and affords excellent opportunities for the pursuit of a fascinating study. ”

“ The Mendips in the N., Street in the centre, and Ham Hill in the S., all afford plenty of material for the stone mason. There are large breweries at Shepton, Oakhill, Frome, and Wiveliscombe. Paper is made at Wookey, furniture is manufactured at Yatton, and there is a large bacon factory at Highbridge. Extensive orchards in the neighbourhood of Glastonbury and Taunton feed a large number of cider presses. In the agricultural world Somerset is chiefly known as a grazing ground. ”

“ In the fine days when Bath was the resort of the greatness to which such greatness as the Woods’ has always bowed, every person of fashion thought he must have some sort of lodgment of his own, and, if he were a greater person than the common run of great persons, he must have a house. He might have it in some such select avenues as Milsom Street and Great Pulteney Street, or in St. James’s Square or Queen’s Square, or in Lansdowne Crescent or the Royal Crescent, but I fancy that the ambition of the very greatest could not have soared beyond a house in the Circus. ”

“ Exeter itself did not impress me so strongly, in spite of its cathedral. The village of Exford printed itself thus sharply on my mind because I had there been filled with wonder and delight at the sight of a face exceeding in loveliness all the faces seen in that West Country—a rarest human gem, which had the power of imparting to its setting something of its own wonderful lustre. The type was a common Somerset one, but with marked differences in some respects, else it could not have been so perfect. ”