Bath - UNESCO World Heritage City

We have just had our third born granddaughter staying for a few days. School days are firmly behind her as she anticipates her next journey which takes her to Edinburgh University in the Autumn.

One of the places we took her to was the city of Bath, which makes an interesting juxtaposition with our recent visit to Lecce in Italy. Both cities were built of honey coloured limestone - Bath's architecture being a glorious Georgian masterpiece as opposed to Lecce's bountiful feast of Baroque.

The Circus was designed in 1754 by architect John Wood shortly before he died, but his work continued and was carried on by his son, John Wood jnr.

As the name implies the buildings form a perfect circle with a grassy central island filled with large 300 year old trees

13 years later John Wood jnr designed The impressive Royal Crescent which enjoys an open aspect to the front taking in far reaching views across the city

Leaving the Royal Crescent behind there are many other impressive streets still to explore  

It pays to look carefully at the original ironwork - above can be seen a boot scrapper, and a torch extinquisher. 

There was no street lighting in Georgian Britain, but the rich would have their dark nights lit by flaming torches. These were carried by a 'link boy' running besides them as they were conveyed home in a sedan chair following a night out at the opera or theatre

Cross over Pulteney Bridge, built in 1774 - designed by Neoclassic/Palladian Architect, Robert Adams. 
There you can catch a boat or walk along the Avon's riverbank

  On the bridge you may enjoy sampling a delicious homemade cake in the tiny river view cafe, or visiting some of the little shops filled with interesting curios.

Jane Austen knew Bath as a thriving spa resort which in her day was extremely popular with fashionable society. Afternoon high tea would be taken in the elegant Pump Room with its glass chandeliers, perhaps followed by a musical soiree in the evening. There they would also imbibe a glass of spa water, which contains 43 different minerals, supposedly thought of as a cure-all for many ailments.

Take an extensive tour of the Roman Baths - one of the most historic sites from antiquity in northern Europe - the young people in this photo are not using mobile phones but they are listening to the included audioguides about the Romans, their life and their history.

Finally end your visit to the Roman baths with a glass of health giving Spa Water, which is free, and tastes unbelievable.

 Bath Abbey - the last of the great cathedrals built during the medieval period

The West Front is a 'tour de force' of carved stonework showing Jacob's Dream with a statue of an omnipresent God in a central position watching overall

The Abbey is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul - each saint oversees the top of a ladder 

Worldwide there are countless artworks depicting Jacob's Dream - paintings, frescoes, prints, stained glass windows, but this is by far the largest    

"Jacob had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, its top reaching to heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descending on it".             

To see and admire this impressive stone sculpture carved over 500 years ago, I feel immense gratitude to those of our ancestors who left behind so many fine legacies for us all to appreciate and enjoy today.

Laodicea, Turkey

Laodicea, in Asia Minor, was the seventh and final church to receive a letter from the Apostle John. At that time the Christian community in Laodicea was considered to be 'rather luke warm' and this was reflected in the message received 'Behold I stand at the door and knock'. I am reminded that when my granddaughter was at Oxford University, her college, Keble, owns a painting done by Pre-raphaelite artist, William Holman Hunt - The Light of the World. This painting is based on that message sent to Laodicea in Revelations 3:20 

William Holman Hunt - The Light of the World
Excavation work at Laodicea began about 10 years ago, and it is anticipated that when completed its importance and interest could equal that of  Ephesus. 

Being a significant Christian center there was great excitement when archaeologists discovered a church structure built during the reign of Constantine (306-337) using ground penetrating radar. The church is in the process of being unearthed and the cross shaped marble baptistery appears to be one of the oldest and best preserved ever discovered.

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Stained glass window painted by C15th glazier and painter - John Thornton

The Seven Churches mentioned in the Book of  Revelations are shown in this medieval East Window at York Minster - St. John in the lefthand corner is being instructed by an angel to write to the seven about his vision. The seven churches were in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, the seventh and final one being Laodicea

We arrived in Laodicea during 'golden hour' just before sunset and had it almost to ourselves

The city was laid out on a grid system, and rather topically this is 'Syria Street'

Eventually the great temple that stood here - a Prostyle Temple of Corinthian order surrounded with porticoes, will be rebuilt 

The excavated remains lie scattered across the site, all are numbered and logged - I imagine that it will take years to both reassemble and reinstate the missing parts

These pillars are in the process of being reassembled with inserts of new marble. The new marble is a different colour which has been done purposefully in order to show an honest reconstruction

 So far over 3,000 ancient artifacts have been excavated in the city, amongst them the sculptured heads of Augustus, Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Zeus

As we left the site in fading light one of the cranes was still busily lifting pieces of stone ready for reassembly. In years to come a Museum will be built here, and filled with the many valuable sculptures and artifacts discovered todate. This raises the prospect of an exciting and fascinating archaelogical experience for visitors in the future .

A Chapter Closes

The dissertation is in, the last exam paper written, where have three years disappeared to?

We have just returned our lovely granddaughter back to Oxford having collected her to spend a couple of days with us now her finals are over. 

Travelling to our home from Oxford we stopped at our favourite restaurant for lunch.

a brisk walk before supper

The following day we headed off to see the Peregrine Falcons nesting at Symons Yat. The journey took us passed the 17th century Dutch Water Gardens at Westbury Court, a rare and beautiful survival.

Dutch water gardens feature enclosed areas, lines of planting, clipped evergreens, topiary, long water canals and the occasional statue. In the late 18th century formal gardens such as this went out of fashion and were replaced by the natural landscape gardens introduced by Capability Brown. 

Next stop the mixed woodlands of the Forest of Dean - one of the surviving ancient English wild forests. A large area of the forest was reserved for royal hunting prior to 1066.

The bluebells have given way to newly unfurling bracken

Take care beautiful granddaughter! - the forest is full of wild boar

Looking down on the Wye Valley towards Wales from Symonds Yat - the River Wye contains brown sediment following a heavy storm which swept across the Welsh mountains a few days ago

In the other direction the River Wye heads off to join the River Severn before entering the Bristol Channel

The cliff face where the Peregrine Falcons are nesting. They have two big fluffy grey chicks. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have two wardens on watch and powerful telescopes that you can look through to see the birds. We saw the chicks and the male Peregrine, so mission accomplished. My little point and shoot camera is not good enough to zoom in on them.

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The River Wye flows in a number of huge meandering loops. In the 18th century a boat tour down the Wye was a fashionable alternative to the European Grand Tour. Tourists alighted from their boats below the cliff face where the Peregrines now nest and made their way up the steep climb. Both men and women wore large straw panama hats, the women long skirts, the men waistcoats and stiff collared white shirts. On reaching the top of Yat Rock they would admire the grandeur of the scenery.

On Yat Rock it is possible to see an example of a limestone pavement very rarely found this far south in England. Formed around 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous period, it is hard to conceive that this was once part of the seabed.

On our return journey home we passed Tintern Abbey sitting alongside the River Wye 

A romantic ruin, its pointed arches thrusting heavenwards - the subject of countless artists brushes, and poets pens - amongst them Turner, Wordsworth and Tennyson

Tintern Abbey was founded in 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, a Cistercain Abbey where the monks wore white. They followed an austere way of life, their basic principles being obedience, poverty, chastity, silence, prayer and work.

On 3rd September 1536 Abbot Wyche surrendered Tintern Abbey and all it's estates to King Henry Vlll ending a way of life that had lasted for 400 years. Valuables from the abbey were sent to the Royal Treasury, the lead was stripped from the roof and sold, and the decay of the building began. 

A final wander around the quad and chapel of Keble College designed by William Butterfield, a man with a proven track record as an exponent of the Gothic style. Butterfield claimed that he 'had a mission to give dignity to brick'

On its construction in 1870, Keble was not widely admired because of its brickwork - it also broke the Oxbridge tradition by arranging rooms along corridors rather than around staircases. Today, however, it is renowned for being visually striking, the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described the design as 'manly'. It was a completely new High Victorian version of Gothic and could not be accused of copying mediaeval examples.

Keble chapel

The chapel shows Butterfield's ability to rework the Gothic into his own formula, especially in the treatment of wall surfaces. The interior is decorated with colourful tiles, mosaics, and stained glass. 

The Light of the World by Holman Hunt

This famous painting hangs in the small Side Chapel - it was exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1854. Holman Hunt began the painting when he was 21 years old, but it was not until he was 29 that it was finished. One of the reasons for this length of time was his desire to perfect the dawn light. He took the picture with him to the Middle East, and there found the perfect dawn just outside Bethlehem. When he was 70 he painted a larger replica which now hangs in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

All our love and best wishes go with you on the next chapter of your life♡