Home to both Bridgerton and Jane Austen’s more decorous novels, Bath has something for everyone
Bath is a must-see if, like most of us, you’re taking short breaks in the British Isles this year.
MICHAEL HODGES - 4 September 2021
Stand on the second floor of Bath’s Number 1 Royal Crescent – now a museum of upper-class life in the Georgian era – and you’ll hear an eerie wailing. It’s not the unhappy spirit of a long-dead Regency rake, but an uncanny aural phenomenon: the southwesterly wind caught, then amplified, by the sweep of England’s grandest architectural curve. The Royal Crescent is just one reason why Bath, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 1987, is a must-see if, like most of us, you’re taking short breaks in the British Isles this year.
There is a very good chance you will have seen the crescent and much of the city in costume dramas both staid and racy. Built and designed in the 18th century by Bath’s native genius, architect John Wood the Elder, Royal Crescent became the centrepiece of the Georgian city chronicled in the novels of Jane Austen. Film and TV costume dramas have followed: versions of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion have been shot here, along with Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and, since 2020, Netflix’s Bridgerton, where the exterior of No 1 doubles as the home of the Featherington family, possibly the most garishly dressed of the global hit show’s over-the-top ensemble. The interior, where the museum is housed, is laid out over five floors, as it would have been in Austen’s time, from the cavernous kitchen to the servants’ quarters in the attic, along with the formal dining and drawing rooms that were the stage for Austen’s world (https://no1royalcrescent.org.uk). The park beyond, with views across the city and out to Somerset, is a near-perfect picnic spot (a pastime popularised by the Georgians). Austen recommended pigeon pie followed by strawberries – though, famously, the picnic in Austen’s novel Emma isn’t a great success, as Mr Knightley ticks off Emma at the end.
In Bridgerton, Bath stands in for London, but Austen’s novels celebrate the city for itself and the intricate social mores that governed life in society’s summer capital. You can celebrate again this month at the annual Jane Austen Festival, from 10 to 19 September (janeaustenfestivalbath.co.uk), which features a ball, guided walks, performances and workshops. During the festival, No 1 Royal Crescent will be running an immersive Jane Austen visitor experience, and Bath fills with ladies in empire-line dresses and gentlemen in breeches (join them at the Grand Regency Costumed Promenade, leaving the Holburne Museum at 11am on 11 September).
But what would Austen have made of Bridgerton, where, from episode one of series one, the characters are as likely to have sex against a tree as take tea? It’s hard to say. But Home to both sexy Bridgerton and Jane Austen’s more decorous novels, Bath has something for everyone perhaps – having signalled her dislike of slavery in Mansfield Park and Emma – she would have welcomed the show’s colour-blind casting that opens the period to Britons of any background. Certainly Bath abounds with Bridgerton locations. The Assembly Rooms were used for ball scenes (they appear in Austen’s Persuasion as well) and Bath Street stands in for a grand Mayfair thoroughfare. But the most imposing bit of Bridgerton’s Bath is the grand town house Austen knew as the Sydney Hotel and is now the Holburne Museum (holburne.org). The half-hour walk between 1 Royal Crescent and the Holburne is easy and takes you via the city’s stand-out public spaces. The Circus, a Palladian roundel of imposing townhouses, was supposedly modelled on the dimensions of Stonehenge by Wood the Elder (helped this time by his son Wood the Younger).
From there, wander along Gay Street where you can visit the Jane Austen Centre, and then into the grand quadrangle of Queen Square (again by John Wood the Elder), where Austen once lodged at number 13. Cross the River Avon on Robert Adam’s 1774 Pulteney Bridge, said to have been influenced by an early design for the Rialto in Venice (and, occasionally, almost as busy) and then promenade along Great Pulteney Street. One of Bath’s finest, it serves as a carriage drive for the Holburne, which stands grandly at the far end. You might recognise the front of the building: it’s used for the London home of Lady Danbury in Bridgerton. Go inside however and you won’t find Lady D’s boudoir – the interiors are filmed elsewhere – but one of the most interesting art galleries in the country.
Austen lived across the road from the Sydney Hotel, at 4 Sydney Place, from 1801 to 1804 and visited the gardens often. She is here again, in one sense, in the form of the famous sketch of the novelist drawn by her sister Cassandra – it is normally held in the National Portrait Gallery but will be on show at the Holburne until 27 September. If you would rather take it easy the grade-one-listed Holburne was cleverly extended at the rear in 2011 in glass, ceramic and steel, to provide more gallery spaces and, if you’re ready to take tea, a knock-out café in shaded Sydney Gardens. However, as Bridgerton has been confirmed for two more series and they might be filming, take care around the trees, just in case.
Stand on the second floor of Bath’s Number 1 Royal Crescent – now a museum of upper-class life in the Georgian era – and you’ll hear an eerie wailing. It’s not the unhappy spirit of a long-dead Regency rake, but an uncanny aural phenomenon: the southwesterly wind caught, then amplified, by the sweep of England’s grandest architectural curve. The Royal Crescent is just one reason why Bath, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 1987, is a must-see if, like most of us, you’re taking short breaks in the British Isles this year.
There is a very good chance you will have seen the crescent and much of the city in costume dramas both staid and racy. Built and designed in the 18th century by Bath’s native genius, architect John Wood the Elder, Royal Crescent became the centrepiece of the Georgian city chronicled in the novels of Jane Austen. Film and TV costume dramas have followed: versions of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion have been shot here, along with Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and, since 2020, Netflix’s Bridgerton, where the exterior of No 1 doubles as the home of the Featherington family, possibly the most garishly dressed of the global hit show’s over-the-top ensemble. The interior, where the museum is housed, is laid out over five floors, as it would have been in Austen’s time, from the cavernous kitchen to the servants’ quarters in the attic, along with the formal dining and drawing rooms that were the stage for Austen’s world (https://no1royalcrescent.org.uk). The park beyond, with views across the city and out to Somerset, is a near-perfect picnic spot (a pastime popularised by the Georgians). Austen recommended pigeon pie followed by strawberries – though, famously, the picnic in Austen’s novel Emma isn’t a great success, as Mr Knightley ticks off Emma at the end.
In Bridgerton, Bath stands in for London, but Austen’s novels celebrate the city for itself and the intricate social mores that governed life in society’s summer capital. You can celebrate again this month at the annual Jane Austen Festival, from 10 to 19 September (janeaustenfestivalbath.co.uk), which features a ball, guided walks, performances and workshops. During the festival, No 1 Royal Crescent will be running an immersive Jane Austen visitor experience, and Bath fills with ladies in empire-line dresses and gentlemen in breeches (join them at the Grand Regency Costumed Promenade, leaving the Holburne Museum at 11am on 11 September).
But what would Austen have made of Bridgerton, where, from episode one of series one, the characters are as likely to have sex against a tree as take tea? It’s hard to say. But Home to both sexy Bridgerton and Jane Austen’s more decorous novels, Bath has something for everyone perhaps – having signalled her dislike of slavery in Mansfield Park and Emma – she would have welcomed the show’s colour-blind casting that opens the period to Britons of any background. Certainly Bath abounds with Bridgerton locations. The Assembly Rooms were used for ball scenes (they appear in Austen’s Persuasion as well) and Bath Street stands in for a grand Mayfair thoroughfare. But the most imposing bit of Bridgerton’s Bath is the grand town house Austen knew as the Sydney Hotel and is now the Holburne Museum (holburne.org). The half-hour walk between 1 Royal Crescent and the Holburne is easy and takes you via the city’s stand-out public spaces. The Circus, a Palladian roundel of imposing townhouses, was supposedly modelled on the dimensions of Stonehenge by Wood the Elder (helped this time by his son Wood the Younger).
From there, wander along Gay Street where you can visit the Jane Austen Centre, and then into the grand quadrangle of Queen Square (again by John Wood the Elder), where Austen once lodged at number 13. Cross the River Avon on Robert Adam’s 1774 Pulteney Bridge, said to have been influenced by an early design for the Rialto in Venice (and, occasionally, almost as busy) and then promenade along Great Pulteney Street. One of Bath’s finest, it serves as a carriage drive for the Holburne, which stands grandly at the far end. You might recognise the front of the building: it’s used for the London home of Lady Danbury in Bridgerton. Go inside however and you won’t find Lady D’s boudoir – the interiors are filmed elsewhere – but one of the most interesting art galleries in the country.
Austen lived across the road from the Sydney Hotel, at 4 Sydney Place, from 1801 to 1804 and visited the gardens often. She is here again, in one sense, in the form of the famous sketch of the novelist drawn by her sister Cassandra – it is normally held in the National Portrait Gallery but will be on show at the Holburne until 27 September. If you would rather take it easy the grade-one-listed Holburne was cleverly extended at the rear in 2011 in glass, ceramic and steel, to provide more gallery spaces and, if you’re ready to take tea, a knock-out café in shaded Sydney Gardens. However, as Bridgerton has been confirmed for two more series and they might be filming, take care around the trees, just in case.
MICHAEL HODGES