Bath 1 October

Today our focus was primarily on an in-depth tour of the abbey's "conservation" project, Bertinet's Cookery School and continuing our exploration of Bath.

Our tour began at 11am and of the five in our group three were locals!

We had a wonderful guide, John, a local historian and for the next hour and a quarter were treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the £20 million plus project currently underway to stabilize the abbey floor.

Because it had no churchyard for burial, most of the local well-to-do were buried inside the church, beneath the floor. During the Victorian era, however, a major effort was undertaken to cover the ledger stone floor and then add pews to the new floor. And during this process many stones were removed, some were broken up to be used as filler while the memorial stones originally located on the pillars were removed and placed, often randomly, on the walls around the interior of the church.

As it turned out, this process resulted in a growing instability in the floor, which eventually resulted in the decision taken in recent years to remove the old Victorian floor and the pews, document the memorial plaques and ledger stones as well as repair the broken stones, then stabilize the floor and return it to its former glory. The process is about one-third complete and should be finished in 2023.

Along the way we discovered more wonderful memorial stones, including the oldest stone found so far as well as one to American William Bingham (1752-1804). He served in the Continental Congress and subsequently as senator from Pennsylvania.

a pair of local Bath residents

John, our guide

ongoing construction walled off to the left

and behind that wall 

notice the base of this original pillar - as it turns out, no one knows how far down these foundations actually go

a piece of flooring from the previous abbey structure, c. 12th century, uncovered during excavation

repairing the broken ledger stones and stacking the good ones, outside, until time to re-lay them

Dr. John Marten Butt, 1738-1769

the oldest ledger stone, James Chapman, died January 6, 1663

memorial to Thomas Everard-Hutton who fell during the charge of the Light Brigade, at Balaclava during the Crimean War; lovely reference to Tennyson's poem

actor James Quin, 1693-1766, epitaph by David Garrick

We had an hour or so before our scheduled visit to Bertinet's school so we popped across the square from the abbey to the Cornish Bakery to try a so-so bacon and leek pasty. As it turned out, I also tried an apricot croissant -- just OK-- and Susan opted for one of their scones.

bacon and leek

Leaving the bakery we walked past the abbey and headed uphill in the direction of our hotel but stopping a couple of blocks short where we found the cooking school.

Richard Bertinet (chef, owner, author, instructor) had split the class of twelve into three groups. When we arrived, each group of four had already prepped the doughs -- it was a bread class -- and were just getting ready to shape and prepare the projects for the day: bread sticks with rosemary and Kalamata olives, focaccia, dinner rolls, and fougasse; at the end the chef demonstrated the assembly of flammiche. Susan will have more to say about this on her blog.

Afterwards Susie and I were invited to join everyone for a late lunch, with wine, tomatoes and mozzarella and charcuterie in addition to the wonderful bread laid out on the table and the freshly baked flammiche to top it all off.

The class was relaxed, Bertinet's style engaging, personable and fun yet always informative and often challenging the students to do better -- and kept at it!

the cookery school

After we left the school we made our way to the Royal Crescent, an architectural wonder that is certainly one of the highlights of Bath. We then opted to hop back on the bus to cruise around the city.

Getting off back at the abbey we walked a couple of short blocks to the River Avon and the Pultney Bridge, often referred to locally as Bath's answer to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. I must say though that while the Ponte Vecchio is dominated by shops catering to the tourist, the shops on the Pultney Bridge are for the locals and the everyday passersby.

Pultney Bridge

on the bridge

shops on the bridge

From the bridge we made our way back uphill to our hotel. After an aperitif we walked around to the vicinity of the Circus and ate at the aptly named restaurant, The Circus -- we had the sense to make reservations earlier in the day. The food was wonderful: we both had Dover sole each with a portion of half potatoes, half vegetables, washed down with a delicious Greek wine and followed by a Greek muscat from the island of Samos.

Tomorrow it's back to London and our meetup with niece Mallory!