[ G'day | Books | Bio | Contest | Home | Site Map | Links | Freebies ]

I had visited Bath once before I wrote Touched By Time and in June 2004, I was given the opportunity for another brief visit, while in the midst of a minor rewrite request from my editor. So I thought what better way to translate the extra oomph the book needed than by soaking up the atmosphere? Here are some of the pictures that I took (and one that my husband took) during our brief second visit to Bath. I thought it might help those who haven't been lucky enough to visit this beautiful city (or seen the movies Persuasion or the recent Vanity Fair, both of which were partly filmed here).

In the center of Bath, are the Parade Gardens. The heroine, Jane Leighton, goes here to think about all that is happening to her. In the first picture, you can see how the park is sunken from the main street. In the second, you've got a shot of the River Avon. Parts of the Gardens flood when the river is high.

This is situated right by the Abbey (if you squint you can see part of the Abbey in the top right corner--with the stone all the same color, it's tough to tell one building apart from the other). It's the Bath Corporation's headquarters, aka the Guildhall. They have a corporation instead of a council, thanks to some ancient royal charter that's been renewed over the years. The building is not as it was in the Regency, having had an extra wing or two plus some Victorian stone cladding additions. Still a striking building.

Fortunately, inside, the town has retained and restored the original interiors. I found a delicious council meeting room downstairs, but woe, it was Victorian. The big finds were upstairs. Luckily, photographs were permitted. The green room is the Corporation's ballroom, bedecked with life-sized portraits of royalty. Here you see the musicians gallery. I don't know if these are the original colors of the room, but it certainly fits in with the Adam-style of the Georgian/Regency period. These were used as assembly rooms by the councillors, who didn't have blue enough blood to gain entry into the Upper Assembly Rooms (now a museum of costume, which doesn't permit interior photographs). I haven't been able to determine if these were actually the Lower Assembly Rooms, or they were at another location. At any rate, I didn't get to write a scene set here, but perhaps in some future book?

The picture on the right is the interior of a room where the Corporation originally met. There are busts of prominent citizens in here, such as Ralph Allen who built the beautiful Prior Park just outside the city and the local hospital too. It looks like a Wedgewood plate, doesn't it? As our hero, Ramsay Chadwick is a councillor, this is the setting of one of the scenes in the book.

Oh wow, what an amazing building Bath Abbey is. I can easily spend half a day in its interior. The walls are packed to the gills with various monuments to the dead. I haven't managed to read all of them yet. My husband keeps dragging me out after two hours. It has a most beautiful organ and gorgeous windows to boot. Worth the cost of a pound or two to enter. Both Jane and Ramsay visit this place, in their respective time periods. I spent some time sitting in a pew, soaking in the surroundings and pretending to be Jane and then scribbling like mad. I think that helped add the extra emotion in that my editor wanted! Those of you who have read the book will know the scene I mean.

This is a bookseller/bookbinder in Bath, south of the Abbey and not far from the bus station (can you tell?). I remembered it from my first visit to Bath and used it for inspiration as the office for the historian who helps out Jane. No idea if there are offices in there, but it was in a neat location.

While in modern day Bath, Jane Leighton gets to do some serious shopping, and this picture is just one of the many shopping streets in Bath. This isn't the famous Milton Street, but the shops that line the Pulteney Bridge over which both Jane and Ramsay travel to the Sydney Gardens. Can't tell it's a bridge, can you? The Bath Public Library (another place Jane visits) is in a shopping center right near here.

Once over the Pulteney Bridge, you are going along Great Pulteney Street, heading straight for Sydney Gardens. It's a beautiful street, and Jane admires it greatly. Of course, she's not so fond of it on the way back. (For reasons, I dare not reveal!) At the far end of the road in the photo, you can see Holbourne Museum, an art museum and altered from Chadwick's day. At various times (when it was open) it was a hotel and a restaurant. It was closed the day I visited. There are traces of the wings that extended out from either side of the building, that diners used like modern day dining booths. They are greatly shortened.

Sydney Gardens today is not much like it was during Ramsay Chadwick's time. Aside from the altered main entrance, the many attractions have been removed and replaced by other, more modern interests. On my stroll around the park, I saw this wall of leaves, and was at once reminded of the maze the Gardens originally had. According to the original map of the Gardens, I was even close to the original location of the maze! That was very cool. The goal was to get into the center of the maze to ride the Merlin's swing (the subject of much debate between Regency authors!). Jane Austen loved to visit the park and she walked the maze frequently. In another part of the maze there was a lit grotto.

Behind this shrubby wall? A house and a private tennis court, so far as I could tell.

The Gardens didn't stay complete for long. This canal was completed in the 1820's. (It's the Kennet and Avon, I think.) I am sparing you all the pics I tried to snap of a duck and her ducklings *smile*

It got worse. During the Victorian era, they cut a railroad right through the middle of the park. The Gardens were in serious decline by now and were eventually eclipsed by the Victoria Botanic Gardens, which has so much green space and play areas for kids that it's a great spot for families. Sydney Gardens is now a quiet, residential park.

So what about the inn where Ramsay held his magistrate's court? You'll have to use your imagination for that one.

And what about the Royal Crescent where Ramsay lived? For a picture of the Crescent, head over to the contest page. You can win a print of this gorgeous picture my hubby took. I'll bring it over here eventually.

Is there really a bed and breakfast on the Crescent? No, but there is a hotel, and expensive it looked too. (I stuck my head in.) There's also a museum on the Crescent at Number 1, which helped a lot with the layout of Ramsay's home.

What about the restaurants on the Circus and Brock Street? I don't remember a restaurant being on the Circus (call it creative license), but Brock Street, which connects the Circus to the Crescent has a couple of them and a really nice bed and breakfast too. There are a number of nice and cheap cafes in the streets near the Parade Gardens too. I ate at a number of them.