“JACOB’S LADDER”
Bath Abbey is remarkable in one respect far above all the minsters and cathedrals of England. As you stand facing the great West Front, which looks so grim and grey upon the stony courtyard that stretches before it, you see, flanking the immense west window, two heavy piers, terminating in turrets. On these piers are carved the singular representations of “Jacob’s Ladder” that have given the Abbey a fameeven beyond the merit of its architecture. From near the ground-level, almost to the turrets, this curious carving stretches, battered long years ago by the fury of an age which prided itself on its enmity to “superstitious images,” and reduced by the further neglect of more than two hundred years to an almost shapeless mass. The origin of this curious decoration is found in the vision of Bishop Oliver King, who restored the then ruined Abbey in 1499. In this vision, by which he was induced to undertake the great work, he saw angels ascending and descending a ladder, and heard a voice say, “Let an Olive establish a Crown, and let a King restore the Church.” He interpreted this as a Divine injunction to himself to repair the Abbey, and accordingly commenced the work; dying, however, before it was completed. The “ladders” have sculptured angels on them, while on the wall above the arch of the great window is represented a great concourse of adoring angels, with a figure of God in glory in their midst. Many of the figures have their heads knocked off; but the whole of this sculpture is shortly to be restored.
Bath entered upon a dead period about 1820. For a long while the newer and more easily reached glories of Brighton had taken the mere fashionables away, and even the waters were less favoured. Continental wars had ceased, and unpatriotic Britons flocked toforeign spas instead; Bath looking idly on and letting its customers go.
THE ROMAN BATH, RESTORED.
It was some ten years later that Dickens visited Bath. From what he saw there he drew his portraits of place and persons in the “Pickwick Papers;” and the impression after reading them is undoubtedly one of faded gentility.
So it remained until after the visit of the British Association in 1864, when the advice of the scientific men to the Corporation—to bring back business by providing more up-to-date accommodation—was laid to heart, and improvements begun. Since then the City has steadily climbed back again to the favour of invalids and the medical profession, and new Baths and all manner of modern appliances, a new railway station, and an air of an enlightened modernity, bid fair to keep Bath successful against all foreign competition for a long time to come.
MODERN BATH
Since this Renaissance of thirty-five years ago was begun, many things have happened at Bath. Roman remains, more extensive than ever the bygone generations suspected, have been discovered, and excavations have lain bare baths long covered up by shabby and altogether undistinguished buildings. Judicious restoration has preserved the great Roman Bath, long a scene of wreck and shattered stones, and has brought it into use again. This restored Bath affords perhaps the most picturesque view in the City, for from its margin one may gaze upwards and see to great advantage the beautiful tower of the Abbey soaring aloft; its late Gothic architecture contrasting piquantly with the classic elegance of that restoredbathing-place, while the reflections of the columns deep down in the quiet pool give a singularly complete sense of restfulness.
All this modern prosperity is, no doubt, very gratifying, but prosperity means much building, and Bath has now its suburbs; uncharted stretches of new villas, isolated, or in streets, that climb the hillsides of Combe Down, Beechen Cliff, and Lansdowne, and help to destroy Macaulay’s well-known, if something too overdrawn, architectural picture of Bath, as “that beautiful City which charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio, and which” (horrible literary solecism!) “the genius of Anstey and of Smollett, of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made classic ground.”
Bath, indeed, was a jewel set in midst of her picturesque amphitheatre of rocky and wooded hills; but now that those hills and those woods are being covered with houses whose architecture is less calculated to “charm the eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio” than were the buildings of a century and a half ago, the setting of the jewel is by way of becoming tarnished. Now, also, it has been reserved to these times of cheap railway carriage of goods for brick houses to be seen at Bath; the one place in the world where brick never had an opportunity until these latter days of the “combine” of the allied “Bath Stone Firms,” which has raised the price of Bath stone, so that in certain cases it has been found cheaper to bring bricks from the Midlands to build houses in Baththan to use the stone quarried on the spot. So, in the wilderness of new suburbs, the traveller who is whisked away by rail to Bristol may see, to his astonishment, amid the stone houses, rows of the most undeniable red-brick villas. And thus has come the spirit of what the late Professor Freeman was pleased to call “modernity” over Bath, once the peculiar preserve of stone and Classicism.
The End
Ailesbury, Marquis of,183-185Allen, Ralph,242-250“Allen’s stall,”34-38Anne, Queen,6,237,238Apsley House,34-38Arlington, Earl of,90Avebury,198-203Banks, Sir Joseph,93Bath,2-15,228-270Batheaston,227,242—— Vase,241Bathford,227Bathampton,228Bath stone,223-227,268Bathwick,246Beckhampton,203-205Berkeley, Earls of,82-84,87,89“Berkshire Lady,” the,141-145,158Bladud, Prince,231,243Box,203,223-227—— Hill,224,227—— Tunnel,223Brentford,70Calcot,141-145Calne,203,206,209Cherhill,205-207Chippenham,17,203,210-215,253Chiswick High Road,58,65Church Speen,153,165,166Coaches:—“Beaufort Hunt,”26,204“Flying Machines,”5,69,260“Light Post” coach,30Mail coaches,10,11,17-19,27“Regulator,”16“York House,”26Coaching era,4-33,204—— fares,5,28—— miseries,9,15-19Coaching notabilities:—Chaplin, Edward,21,90—— and Horne,90Cooper, Thomas,21Everett, Jack,204Colnbrook,97-103Colne, River,96-98,103Corsham Regis,218,221-223,224Cranford,82,85,86-89—— Bridge,29,84,97Cross Keys,218Cycling records,215-218Darell, William,173-182Froxfield,182Fyfield,192Great Western Railway,27,74,108-110,124,134,149,221,227Gunnersbury,63,68Hammersmith,58,63Hare Hatch,134Harlington,89-91—— Corner,89Harmondsworth,94-96Henry VIII.,13-138Highwaymen,40-45,56,67-69,71,74-84,87,91-94,111-116,118,129Hock-tide,167-173Hounslow,19,71-74,92—— Heath,69,71,74-84,86,92,111Hungerford,146,166-173Hyde Park Corner,33-40,74,94,166Inns (mentioned at length):—“Bear,” Maidenhead,25,129“Bell and Bottle,” Knowl Hill,133“Black Bull,” Holborn,31“Castle,” Marlborough,17,21,187,192——, Salt Hill,92,107“Greyhound,” Maidenhead,127“Halfway House,” Kensington,40,43,45“Hercules’ Pillars,” Hyde Park Corner,34“King’s Head,” Longford,97“Magpies,”90“Old Bell,” Holborn,31-33“Old Magpies,”91“Old Pack Horse,” Turnham Green,66-68“Old Windmill,” Turnham Green,65“Ostrich,” Colnbrook,99-103“Pack Horse and Talbot,” Turnham Green,59,66“Peggy Bedford,” Longford,97“Pelican,” Speenhamland,15,150,253“Red Cow,” Brook Green,56-58“Robin Hood,” Turnham Green,63-65“Waggon and Horses,” Beckhampton,203-205“White Bear,” Piccadilly,26“White Bear,” Fickles Hole,26“White Hart,” Bath,260“White Horse,” Fetter Lane,16,30“White Lion,” Bath,22,26,260“York House,” Bath,26Jack of Newbury,150-154,157-161Kennet, River,146,152,166,186,193Kensington,34,40,44,46-55Kew Bridge,68Kiln Green,133Knightsbridge,34,40,44Knowl Hill,133Langley Broom,104—— Marish,104Littlecote,173-182Longford,94,96Maidenhead,33,122,124-130—— Thicket,111,129-133Mail coaches established,10Manton,194Marlborough,22,26,182,186-193,204—— College,188,192—— Downs,17,197-201,205,253Maud Heath’s Causeway,213-215Nash, Beau,238-240,243,250Newbury,18,138,146,150-166,253——, battles of,161-165Old-time travellers:—Campbell, Rev. Thomas,252-255Moritz, Pastor,116-123Palmer, George,135——, John,10,242,243Pickwick,218-221Postage of letters,10-15,167Prior Park,243,246Quemerford,206Reading,18,29,130,134-138Salt Hill,92,106-111,122Savernake Forest,182-185,194Sham Castle,249Silbury Hill,198-203Sipson Green,91Speen,153,165,166Speenhamland,150,253Stackhouse, Rev. Thomas,153Taplow,108,124Tetsworth water,105Thatcham,21,146,149,153Theale,145,162Turnham Green,58-68Turnpike gates,11,34,45,73,166Twyford,130,134Wainewright, Thomas Griffiths,59Walcot,228West Kennet,197—— Overton,197“Wild Darell,”173-182Woolhampton,146-149Wyatt’s Rebellion,38“Young’s Corner,”58
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Footnotes:
[1]Stranger still, the chief informer was named Porter.
[2]Tawell had poisoned his sweetheart, who, before dying, had time to denounce him to her friends. They pursued him to the station, but when they arrived there the train had gone. The telegram sent was in these words:—
“A murder has just been committed at Salt Hill, and the suspected murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket for London by the train which left Slough at 7.42 p.m. He is in the garb of a Quaker, with a brown great-coat on, which reaches nearly to his feet. He is in the last compartment of the second-class carriage.”
At Paddington he took a City omnibus, but the conductor was a policeman in disguise, and dogged his footsteps from one coffee-house to another, which he is supposed to have entered for the purpose of setting up analibi. At length, as he was stepping into a lodging-house in the City, the police tapped him on the shoulder, with the question, “Haven’t you just come from Slough?” Tawell confusedly denied the fact, but he was arrested, with the result already recounted.
[3]Lord Iveagh’s name is Guinness. Unfortunately for the thoroughness of the jest, there are but thirteen chapters in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
[4]It was about 1630 that the town of Marlborough obtained a new grant of arms in place of its old shield of a “Castleargent, on a fieldsable.” The new shield, still in use, is heraldically described as—“Per Saltire, gules and azure. In chief, a Bull passant, argent, armed or. In fess, two Capons, argent. In base, three greyhounds courant in pale, argent. On a chief, or, a pale charged with a Tower triple-towered, or, between two Roses, gules. Crest—On a wreath, a Mount, vert, culminated by a Tower triple-towered, argent. Supporters: two Greyhounds, argent.” These arms are intended to perpetuate the memory of the ancient custom in Marlborough of the aldermen and burgesses presenting the mayor for the time being with a leash of white greyhounds, a white bull, and two white capons.
[5]“There are many pleasanter places, even in this dreary world, than Marlborough Downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside a gloomy winter’s evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full force of this observation.”
The traveller’s horse stopped before “a road-side inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs.... It was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gabled-topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to it.”
[6]That the Romans knew the city we call Bath asAquæ Solis—the “Waters of the Sun”—we learn from the ancient history of Britain. A highly interesting light upon this is furnished by the sculptured stone discovered some years since, and now in the local museum, which shows a decorative representation of the head of the Sun God from whose face radiate sun-rays, alternately with serpents.
[7]Once the recognized pronunciation of the word. The great Duke of Wellington was probably the last who spoke it thus.
[8]He meant Chippenham.