Like the draft of my new novel, this is not an inspiring start.
Stan sends his regards, he's up the Danube with very little internet
and has recovered from Crimefest.
One of the pieces of garden furniture on the parkland.
One of the iconic images of British architecture is the Royal Crescent in Bath, Somerset, England. We
sloped off there for 48 hours after Bristol as we had no home to go to, as the
builders were taking over for a final push to get the floors level. (Long
Story!)
The Royal Crescent was built in 1774, it’s now a Georgian
Grade 1 listed building and was designed by architect John Wood the younger.
Bits of parkland!
There are thirty terraced houses in the 500 feet long
building with 114 columns. Number One is now owned by the trust that looks after
the historic buildings in Bath, while the
middle two are a Spa and Resort Hotel, the rest are in private ownership and
have been divided up or knocked through. The listed status means that there’s
not much that can be permitted to change the outside of the building. There was
a court battle when one resident painted her front door yellow. A successful
ban was put on the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus from going close to the crescent as
the commentary on the open topped version disturbed the residents.
You can just about see the Ha -ha.
Suggestions of floodlighting and planning permission for a swimming
pool were both rejected.
It's supposed to overlook park land – some grass with a few
trees but given that Bath is on a hill, and the terrace sits at the top, the
view must be pretty something. Especially from the rooms in the attic with
their own wee terrace. They reminded me of that scene in The Omen.
I'd call Ha ha a retaining wall.....
There’s also a collection
of buildings known as The Circus. They were designed by John Wood, the Elder
and are linked to the Crescent by a small road known as Brock Street, brock
being an old English word for badger. Maybe because the street had a white
stripe down the middle.
It's bigger than my house but I have more scaffolding!
More parkland art
I found this on Wikipeadia as I had heard of the Royal
Crescent Ha-ha but had no idea what it was;
“In front of the Royal Crescent is a ha-ha, a ditch on which
the inner side is vertical and faced with stone, with the outer face sloped and
turfed, making an effective but invisible partition between the lower and upper
lawns. The ha-ha is designed so as not to interrupt the view from Royal
Victoria Park, and to be invisible until seen from close by.”
So now you know.
Loads of famous persons had lived here but the only one I
had heard of was Issac Pitman, the shorthand guy.
The crescent has appeared in many TV programmes and films.
Most recently a hot air balloon crashes there in an episode of MacDonald and
Dodds.
The Wrong Box, Catch
Us If You Can and The Duchess are a few of the films while the 2007 TV adaptation
of Persuasion had many scenes shot on location at the crescent, and in 2014, the
hotel was used in Our Girl.
We looked in a few estate agents windows. Bath is an eye wateringly
expensive place to live.
The most recent property we could find for sale was one of
the four story original townhouses. Price tag? Offers in the region off £7.5
million.
I thought about it. For 7.5 milli seconds.
C
Posts
If you lived in Bath, you wouldn't be the same crime writer. For one thing, your fingertips would be too crinkly to type.
ReplyDeleteHow has Agnes been getting on with the builders? A story for another blog perhaps.
Agnes had a go at them while we were away - they heard somebody walking around upstairs, the door opened and closed. There was nobody there. The builder was so spooked he phoned us!
Delete7.5 Million--and no swimming pool? Now that's a true Ha-Ha!!!
ReplyDeleteI thought ha ha was something to do with Lord Haw Haw but that was quite different....
Delete