by Emily Smith
“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people,
who have a great deal of conversation.” – Persuasion
DAY TWO – Friday, September 14, 2018
The pre-festival activities were scheduled to start in the afternoon, so I took advantage of the free morning to make my way back to some of the sites I visited the day prior and do some more in-depth exploration. I began my day by visiting the Roman Baths. These baths, which are fed by a natural hot spring, and the temple that surrounds them were constructed by the Romans in 60-70 AD. These baths eventually fell into disrepair and were later rediscovered and restored in the 1860s, after Jane Austen’s time. She would have been unaware of their existence as she attended gatherings at the Pump Room next door. While touring the Roman Baths, I had the opportunity to “take the waters” which was fashionable during the Regency period. While not my drink of choice in Bath (that would be a berry cider with pink gin at The Apple Tree cider bar), the sulfurous waters were not as unpleasant as I expected them to be.
Afterward I headed over to Bath Abbey to tour the inside. It was absolutely stunning! The present abbey was constructed in the 16th century but is oddly never referred to by Jane Austen in her novels or letters even though she would have walked past it on a regular basis while visiting and living in Bath.
After the abbey, I walked across town to The Royal Crescent and toured No. 1 Royal Crescent museum which has been furnished as it might have been during the Georgian era. The withdrawing room was my favorite; this was the room the ladies “withdrew” to after dinner while the men smoked, drank and talked politics. And it had the most beautiful harpsicord; my fingers itched to play it!
After visiting No. 1, I headed over to the Theatre Royal for the kick-off event of the Jane Austen pre-festival, a talk entitled “Jane Austen and Marriage” given by Hazel Jones which was followed by a lunch at the Vaults Restaurant. After lunch, I received a behind-the-scenes tour of the Theatre Royal, led by Jane Tapley.
And then it was onto St. Swithin’s, the medieval church where Jane Austen’s parents the Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen were married, for the pre-festival social get-together. Here I met a lot of new faces that were going to become very familiar to me over the next nine days. And one of them, David, a volunteer at No. 1 Royal Crescent, invited me and a fellow American, Christine to join him for Georgian dance lessons that evening with his local dance group. It was my first experience doing this style of dancing and all the members were so kind and gracious as I learned the steps. So, I danced the night away (what a workout!) and fell into my bed exhausted, trying to catch some zzz’s for the following day’s activities: the grand promenade and country dance ball!
The Roman Baths, one of the greatest religious spas of the ancient world
The Abbey is cruciform in plan, and able to seat 1,200. There is a heritage museum in the vaults.
The withdrawing room at No. 1 Royal Crescent
