England's Fair and Pleasant Land -- Day Six

From Bath to Baaaaaa

Bath is all about the baths. According to the legend, some eighth century BC pigs and their swineherd (who was actually a prince ...) were cured of leprosy (or whatever the porcine version might have been ...) by wallowing in the hot water and mud flowing from the only thermal spring in England. The Romans followed suit, and a thousand years later, so did fashionable Englishmen (and Englishwomen) of the Georgian Age.

Best blessing of all is water -- Pindar

There is a modern spa in Bath drawing its heated water from the original hot spring, but the Roman Baths today are strictly for looking at, particularly since a young tourist in the 1970's contracted some dreadful infection it is said, by dipping her hand into these hot and murky waters.

You have to pay to go in, so many tourists (including us) sneak peeks from outside.

The Roman Baths are ringed by statues that were installed by the Georgian English so it would look more Roman !

Alongside the River Avon (apparently a generic word for "river" in old Anglo-Saxon; there are at least five different Rivers Avon in England!) is this maze. Louise was able to sort it out pretty quickly.

This particular River Avon runs through Bath. These "weirs" were originally put in place to adjust the height of the water for use by the mills and for flood control.

The river runs underneath the Pulteney Bridge (1774) which is one of only two bridges in Europe (Florence's Ponte Vecchio -- completed some four hundred years earlier -- being the other) that serve as shopping malls as well as river crossings.

Louise outside one of the stores on the Pulteney Bridge

The bridge originally connected the ancient city of Bath with the newly developed "suburb" of Bathwick.

                                                              Typical Georgian residential development in then-Bathwick,                                                                            including two full floors below street level,  the lowest floor at the level of the river.

We took a free walking tour sponsored by the city of Bath -- the guides don't even accept tips!

Our tour guide

These inscriptions on the old wall denoted the boundaries of the parishes, in this case St. Mary and Sts. Peter and Paul 

                               Sts. Peter and Paul Parish boundary. The Church needed to know in which parish to bury people,                                 and the taxing authorities were also keen to know where people lived.

Being famously able to cure leprosy and the skin diseases of pigs, the waters   of Bath led to an early example of medical tourism.

The health benefits of the baths drew the wealthy and fashionable -- and the would-be wealthy and fashionable -- to Bath and prompted a frenzy of speculative building.

The first "spec" building at Queen's Square. The developer netted the equivalent of  almost $500,000 per year.

The Circus -- the curved buildings completely surround the park

The most famous of these speculative developments and the highlight of any tour of Bath is the Royal Crescent.

The Royal Crescent is simply too large to fit into a single photograph

Another generally overlooked monument (as was its subject) is the obelisk erected in 1738 in honor of the generally unpopular Frederick, Prince of Wales, sometimes described as "a great womanizer and spendthrift." Upon Frederick's death at age 41, he was succeeded as heir-to-the throne by his son, who a few years later succeeded to the throne as King George the Third, in violent opposition to whom the United States of America came into being.

The monument to the generally unlamented Prince Frederick.

The monument to Prince Frederick was erected by Beau Nash, who somehow parlayed his position as maitre d' of the Assembly Rooms into a more encompassing role as "the King of Bath" and arbiter of social standing. 

One of the Assembly rooms, where the fashionable took tea, held dances, and gambled immense sums.

Beau Nash

The tour takes you by his former dwelling

The bar and restaurant next door celebrates Beau Nash and his loyal mistress, Juliana Popjoy.

We left Bath and headed toward the Cotswolds, reputed to be one of the most beautiful parts of England. In fact, Bibury was deemed by William Morris, father of the Arts and Crafts movement, to be the most beautiful village in England.

Unfortunately, Japanese Emperor Hirohito once stayed overnight in the village, so it's overrun by busloads of Japanese tourists.

Here's Arlington Row, the famous set of weavers' cottages that's the central feature of the village.

Only a slight hint of the tourist activity in this tiny town

Picturesque but not undiscovered enough ....

As we headed further into the Cotswolds, toward our destination, near Stow-on-the-Wold, our navigation system for some reason routed us down this tiny road.

We soon realized that the entire way ahead was blocked by a mass of sheep.

The shepherd slowly moved ahead in his truck, while the dog ran back and forth chasing the sheep back into formation

Listen to this link to get a sense of what these hundreds of sheep sounded like:

http://www.soundsnap.com/nature_countryside_animals_large_flock_of_sheep_lambs_bleeting_in_field_hutchsfx

These dogs are indefatigable. No stray sheep escapes their attention or gets to wander off for long.

The partnership between the men and the dogs is remarkable

                                In the end, the dogs get a well-deserved rest and a ride in the truck,                                   as the last of the sheep are herded into their new meadow.

This fantastic interruption took almost half an hour. We finally got back on the trail to our B&B for the next two nights, Little Broom, just a short walk from Stow-on-the-Wold, in the tiny hamlet of Maugersbury.

A most welcome amenity!

And these lovely amenities as well!