DAY 165 - Jane Austen in Bath

Aug 31 - Spending a day with Jane (and Andrew)

Bath is a city in the county of Somerset about 100 miles west of London.  The city was first established as a spa with the Latin name, Aquae Sulis by the Romans sometime in the AD 60s about 20 years after they had arrived in Britain (AD43), although oral tradition suggests that Bath was known before then.

 We met Andrew through the couch surfing website.  He met us as we came in to town and he took us on a wonderful tour, but we actually stayed two nights with someone else.

Our amazing tour guide, Andrew, who knew everything about Bath.

He told us of a legend how Bath was discovered.  Bladud was a legendary king of the Britons.  He is said to have founded the city because while he was in Athens he contracted leprosy, and when he returned home he was imprisoned as a result.  Andrew said he went into hiding to what is now called Solsbury Hill,  a small flat-topped hill and the site of an Iron Age hill fort.

Solsbury Hill where lepers lived

  He found employment as a swineherd at Swainswick, about two miles from the later site of Bath, and noticed that his pigs would go into an alder-moor in cold weather and return covered in black mud. He found that the mud was warm, and that they did it to enjoy the heat. He also noticed that the pigs which did this did not suffer from skin diseases as others did, and on trying the mud bath himself found that he was cured of his leprosy. He was then restored to his position as heir-apparent to his father, and founded Bath so that others might also benefit as he had done.

One of my reasons for visiting Bath was Jane Austen (1775-1817).  Jane was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature.  She wrote such works as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma.  


Andrew took us on a walk where Jane used to walk while she lived in Bath.

The village of Charlcombe is mentioned in letters by Jane Austen as being "sweetly situated in a little green valley, as a village with such a name ought to be."

All the homes along the way had cute little names and signs.

Such a beautiful walk through the woods and over the hills.

We came across a sweet little cemetery next to a very old church.

A lady happened to be there who took us through the Charlecombe Parish Church.

They had recently had the church pipe organ fixed.  It is 100 years old.

The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a very ancient stone edifice, dating from the 12th century. It is said to have been at one period the parish church of the city of Bath.

This was the oldest piece in the church.  The font was from the year 1050.

A plaque on the wall in the church said:  "Whatsoever are true, whatsoever are honorable, just, and pure, whatsoever things are of lovely and good report, we thought of these things."  The plaque was hundreds of years old - do these words sound familiar?  :)

We walked around in the garden by the churchyard - so beautiful.

Jane Austen most likely went to church here as she would have roamed these gardens.

This is said to be a holy well.

He who drinks from this well will surely have eternal life.

Andrew told so many stories.  He really loves Bath and all the history.

All the trees made natural tunnels - we're really having a GREAT day.

                            

I felt so bad for these horsies who were blindfolded.  Why?

Beautiful old trees all along the way.

Jane Austen Museum -I had a nice tour of it.

One of the rare portraits of Jane Austen.

Typical dress and dishware of the time period.

I loved watching "Pride and Prejudice" with my daughter-in-law, Becky.  She LOVES the show.

Jane never married, but did have a couple of young "loves."

The "Laws of Bath."

 

Another portrait of what Jane may have looked like.

Not sure I could have lived during this time as Jane did.  She had many heartbreaks.

One of the homes she lived in when they were well-off.

After her father died, however, they were so poor that they ended up living in the poorest street in Bath.

Tomorrow, I'll take you to the other parts of historic Bath, England that we visited.  AND...we go to Stonehenge.