About this time Bath received its first charter as a free borough
from this monarch, and was represented in Parliament in 1297. In 1330
the manufacture of woollen cloth was established by the monks. By reason
of this the shuttle was incorporated in the arms of the monastery. In
1447, and in 1590, Henry VI. and Elizabeth respectively granted
charters, which materially increased the prospects of the city.
This present cruciform Abbey Church dates from 1499. It is dedicated to
St. Peter and St. Paul, and forms one of the best specimens of the later
style of English architecture. It rests upon the site of the conventual
church of the monastery founded by Osric. After a course of eight
hundred years it became dilapidated, and was rebuilt from the old
materials in 1495, by Bishop Oliver King. He is said to have been
admonished in a dream. He did not live to see the completion of the
building.
As the citizens refused to purchase it from the Commissioners of Henry
VIII., the walls were left roofless till Dr. James Montague, Bishop of
the Diocese, with the aid of the local nobility and gentry, procured the
necessary funds, and finished it in 1606.
On the west front is sculptured the founder's dream of angels ascending
and descending on Jacob's ladder. The church is crowned with a
quadrangular tower of 162 feet in height from the point of intersection.
Though the medicinal properties of the springs of Bath attracted from
the earliest times the continuous attention of invalids, it was only
under the guidance of Beau Nash, the gamester, and the enterprise of
John Wood, the architect, that it reached to the highest pinnacle of
fame as a place of fashionable resort in the eighteenth century. The
works of Fielding, Smollett, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, and
others, give us a clear insight into the meteor-like prosperity of the
city, for, after the death of Nash, it gradually relapsed to its normal
state, and, in fact, according to statistics, the number of inhabitants
has decreased even within the last few years.
A brief sketch of Beau Nash and the means adopted will account in some
measure for the marvellous change in Bath in the eighteenth century.
Nash was educated at Carmarthen Grammar School, and Jesus College,
Oxford. He then obtained a commission in the army. This he soon threw up
to become a law-student at the Middle Temple. Whilst there he gained
much attention by his wit and sociability. These qualities induced his
fellow-students to elect him as the president of a pageant that they
prepared for William III. The king was so pleased with Nash that, it is
said, he offered him a knighthood. This Nash refused unless accompanied
by a pension, which was not granted.
He was much addicted to gambling, which, in addition to a restless
spirit and an empty purse, led him in 1704 to try his luck at Bath, a
place which then offered opportunities to a gamester. There he soon
became master of the ceremonies, in succession to Captain Webster. Under
his authority reforms were introduced which speedily accorded to Bath a
leading position as a fashionable watering-place. He formed a strict
code of rules for the regulation of balls and assemblies; allowed no
swords to be worn in places of public amusement; persuaded gentlemen to
discard boots for shoes and stockings when in assemblies and parades,
and introduced a tariff for lodgings.
As insignia of his office he wore an immense white hat, and a richly
embroidered dress. He drove about in a chariot with six greys, and laced
lackeys blew French horns. When Parliament abolished gambling it caused
a serious check to the visits of fashionable people to the city.
However, the Corporation, in recognition of his valuable services,
granted Nash a pension of 120 guineas a year, and at his death in 1761
he was buried with splendour at the expense of the town. A year after
his demise his biography was anonymously published in London by Oliver
Goldsmith.
John Wood, the architect, though hardly as well known to posterity as
Nash, must not be overlooked. Till he appeared in Bath in 1728, the city
had been confined strictly within the Roman limits. The suburbs
consisted merely of a few scattered houses. Wood improved and enlarged
the city by his architectural efforts, which led to the quarrying of
freestone found existing in the neighbourhood. His successors carried on
his enterprise.
The grand Pump-room, erected in 1797, with a portico of Corinthian
columns; the King's Bath, with a Doric colonnade; the Queen's Bath; the
Cross Bath, so called from a cross erected in the centre of it; the Hot
Bath, on account of its superior degree of heat, were once thronged by
fashionable gatherings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The architecture in the eighteenth century at Bath was an adaptation of
the Doric and Ionic orders. Nearly all the principal buildings were
constructed after these classic principles. St. Michael's Church belongs
to the Doric, with a handsome dome, and was erected in 1744. Even the
Greek influence is the prevailing feature of Pulteney Bridge.
In conclusion, amongst eminent men of Bath may be mentioned: John Hales,
Greek Professor at Oxford in 1612; and Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, was a native of, and received his early
education in the Grammar School of this city. Benjamin Robins was born
here in 1707; he was a celebrated mathematician, and wrote the account
of the voyage of Commodore Anson round the world.
Amongst the tombs in the Abbey are those to the memory of Quin, Nash,
Broome, Malthus, and Melmothe.
The hot springs of Bath still continue to alleviate the aches and pains
of invalid visitors. The interesting history, the curious mingling of
Roman and Later English architecture with the revival of the Ionic and
Doric orders in the eighteenth-century buildings, can never fail to be
of interest alike to the student and the casual visitor in Bath.