Before leaving Bath, we took the opportunity of promenading around the landscaped gardens of Prior Park. The gardens are attached to what was once the second largest house in England (the largest at time in 1720 was Blenheim Palace), however rather than being owned by aristocracy it was built by a quarry owner – Ralph Allen. He came to Bath in the early 1700s as a 15 year old assistant to the local postmistress, was postmaster by the age of 19, and realised that he could create a national postal system that meant that mail could go direct rather than via London, which had been the case for ALL mail up until that point. He made a lot of money as a result, bought some quarries outside of Bath, and set about selling the creamy-yellow limestone to all the local builders. It is that stone which so clearly characterises Bath architecturally.
Bath Royal Crescent – apparently each townhouse is worth now around £4m !
In the gardens is a Palladian bridge across a lake in the gardens, one of only four in the world.
The Palladian bridge
Today we’re moored at Avoncliffe, where the canal crosses the River Avon valley over an impressive aqueduct.
Brutus’ Avoncliffe mooring
Avoncliffe aqueduct
The river was providing water power here driving fulling mills for the wool industry for at least 300 years before the canal came, and a large house was built for the local handloom weavers. By 1830, it had become the local workhouse.
The history of workhouses is interesting, originally conceived in 1388 in order to restrict the movement of itinerant agricultural labourers after a third of the population died in the Black Death. Over the next few centuries they evolved into institutions where the ‘inmates’ were the paupers of society. Laws were passed to ensure that the wealthier residents of a parish contributed to the running of the workhouses – an early form of social welfare. Two things are interesting; firstly that a distinction was made early on between those who ‘couldn’t’ work, and those who ‘wouldn’t work – the former received considerably more help, the latter ‘idlers’ encouraged to find work; secondly, that being in a workhouse meant access to rudimentary medical care (on the state), which wasn’t available to the general population ! Hence there was many attempts to feign ill health. The end of the ‘workhouse’ laws came in around 1930.
Brutus Maximus on Tour 