There was still a lot to see of Bath after the Abbey, and I was worried because it was already ten o’clock and we had yet to do our first Jane related event. Our next stop, however, was also non-Jane related. We headed to the Roman Baths next, which were on the same square as the Abbey. The Baths were an attraction in Austen’s time as they are today. There’s a BBC adaptation of Northanger Abbey, which has a scene where the heroine, Catharine and her ditzy chaperone “take the waters” together. This involves walking into the pools at the Roman Baths wearing a bathing costume that is much less revealing than what most people wear on the streets nowadays. The best bit, though, was that the women walked around the spring with plates of food tied around their necks, which they held above the water (that came to about mid-chest level) and elaborate hats! They were wearing bonnets that would put a southern Baptist church to shame. Because I’m pretty pasty, I’m extremely sun conscious, but I don’t think I’ve ever gone swimming in a hat.

The baths themselves, however, were more interested in the Roman period of their history than the Regency. They had a lot of information of Roman bathing practices, and the religious significance of the Baths etc. I didn’t have much patience for the audio tour, so I breezed through the baths, and headed out through the pump room, which has been turned into a high class tea room. In the pump room there was a man dressed in regency clothing selling waters from the bath spa. I bought a glass, and the man was nice enough to let me take his picture. The water was said to have had medicinal properties in Austen’s time, but when I tasted it I nearly gagged. London tap water is pretty awful, but Bath water puts it to shame. Thick tasting and tepid, the water has a slightly sulfuric taste that I assume comes from the hot springs from which it sprung. Yuck.

Allison had decided to skip the Baths, because she had already seen them on a previous trip to Bath, and I caught up with her at a Cadbury Chocolate house on one of the main streets. She was giving herself another infusion of caffeine and chocolate. I was a little non-plussed at her choice of a Cadbury chocolate seller, because Bath is swarming with small chocolate boutiques and ice cream shops. It seemed to be one of those towns who had the high end of everything—organic this, home spun that seemed to be for sale in every shop window.

Not being able to afford anything for sale in the various boutiques, we window-shopped our way up the hill, until we got to the Georgian houses that sat atop the hill. We ducked into One Royal Crescent, a Georgian house that had been preserved with furniture and trappings from the era. Not to be outdone by the Abbey, One Royal Crescent had a little old lady in every room, who handed us a laminated guide with a key to the various furniture and knick knacks in that particular room, and then informed us that they were there to answer any questions. One of the guides informed us that absolutely everything in the house was original; there were no reconstructions of any kind. Not just the furniture, but the pictures on the walls and the knick knacks on the tables were all from the Georgian period. I liked looking at the things on the desks, which included an eighteenth century guidebook to Bath in the study, and a set of curlers in the lady’s bedroom. I asked one of the guides, who had just finished giving us a lecture on nineteenth century beauty products (you know, lead in the make up, early deaths etc. etc.) if each guide could do each room, or if they each had a room of the house that they specialized in. She informed me that every guide worked on a volunteer basis, and that they were experts on every room in the house, which I though was pretty impressive.

We headed out of the house via the kitchen, which had been donated in toto by an enthusiastic kitchen supply collector. I noticed a small wheel suspended above the fireplace that looked a bit like a large wooden hamster wheel. Inside was a cut out of a medium sized dog. I asked the guide about it, and she explained that Bath was renowned for it’s “dog wheels” in their kitchens. The dogs were placed inside the wheels and ran, thus turning the wheel, which would in turn work the bellows in the fireplace where the food cooked. I wasn’t sure what repulsed me the most about the story—the breech of animal rights or the complete lack of human hygiene part. What with the sulfuric tasting water, and the dogs in the kitchen, Austen’s contempt for Bath society was becoming a little more understandable. I suppose she took to watching her neighbors during mealtime and making witty remarks to avoid whatever was on her plate.
We had had a long day of sightseeing, but we had yet to get to the main event—the Jane Austen visitors center in Bath. One Royal Crescent was located at the top of a very steep hill, with a gorgeous view of the city and a bright green manicured lawn. The lawn looked inviting after a day spent walking around, but we were girls on a mission. We tumbled down the hill, almost literally, until we got to the Jane Austen center. I should point out that I am a firm believer in the fact that Austen is an author for everybody. Any body who says that she writes “girly books” in my presence is in for a long haranguing. But the Austen visitor’s center was not doing much to help my case, as it was located on the intersections between (cough) Gay and Queen Streets. The woman inside informed us that Austen had not actually lived in the building that the center was built in, but that she had lived on that block, which explained the location.

Walking inside we were greeted by the requisite little old lady, who sold us our tickets and explained that the tour began with a lecture. The next one was starting in five minutes, and she led us to a waiting area, decorated with various Jane related paraphernalia. Highlights included one of Austen’s samplers, which was mounted on the wall, and a very witty letter from Emma Thompson about Jane Austen’s effect on her life. Next to Austen, Thompson in one of my other great heroes, so I was thrilled to see them on the wall together.

The lecture was interesting, and it is to the tour guide’s credit that she did not obscure how unhappy Bath made Austen. I love Austen’s work, but I feel more and more betrayed by her the more I learn about her life. She was a flaming conservative, and a consummate city hater—preferring the quietness of the country, and the stability that a monarchy without unalienable individual rights could bring. This guide pointed out, however, that one of Austen’s objections to city life was that it allowed her much less freedom than country living, which I suppose is a fair point. Nowadays I consider city life liberating—it gives me the opportunity to do so much, to dress and talk however I want without being the center of attention. Americans in London are no big deal, thanks to the sheer number of people. I think I would have stood out a whole lot more if I was studying in a smaller town, and I’m not sure that would have been a pleasant sensation. For Austen, however, exactly the opposite was true. Bath was a place to be seen as much as to see, and it is no wonder that she found the unending scrutiny exhausting.

After the initial lecture, the rest of the museum consisted mainly of dummies in costumes from the various Austen films that had been shot in the nineties, and long descriptions about how various things were done in Austen’s time—how she may have cultivated her beloved garden, how they made ink, how the postal service worked. (The modern British postal service, by the way, originated in Bath, we saw the plaque for the man who started it in the Bath Abbey. Apparently he was a theatrical manager who hired a bunch of coaches to take his troupe in between London and Bath, and started to carry correspondence with him, for a modest fee.) I found the whole display really interesting, and I felt that much closer to Jane when I walked into the gift shop, and purchased a souvenir card.     

We did other things in Bath—went for afternoon tea, checked out the old guild halls, promenaded in the Bath Assembly rooms where Austen’s ball scenes took place, but really the best part of Bath was just seeing a different British town that wasn’t a city, and that presented a different picture of English living. Just seeing flowers in bloom everywhere I turned was such a marked contrast from day to day life in London. What was a bustling city in Austen’s time, was now a sleepy village, going about its day to day existence, while gracefully deigning to share its rich past with the various literary minded pilgrims who filtered through its squares.
(See next post for pictures)