The Bath Skyline Tour: a sunset walk of ideas

The National Trust Skyline Walk, to give it its official name, is a walk on the urban/rural fringe of Bath. It is, apparently, their most downloaded walk in the country and I was fortunate enough to be able to take it not with a few sheets of A4 printouts, but instead as part of a sunset walk accompanied by a guide from the National Trust and one of the mayor's honorary guides too.

We gathered in a grassy car park above the city. Our guide was suitably attired and gave us a brief introduction that was to the point and not laboured, as can happen. I generally much prefer it when the introduction to a tour consists of the essentials only (e.g. duration, end point, safety, cost) and other things are revealed as and when they need to be. That means a mixing of some further 'practical' information with the tour's ostensive subject matter at different points in the tour. For example, the guide can reveal their sources half-way through or explain how they came to be giving the tour. What I usually prefer, in any case, is to get some momentum, and that's just what happened here.

Our second guide introduced himself at the next stop and his thing was the history of Bath. Up in this area that meant him telling us about the abbey who owned the land, an old racecourse that was here and that this was a site for duelling. I heard similar information on the City Sightseeing bus tour, which passes this way, however, the bus had to condense everything into 20 seconds as it passed at speed whereas he could take as long as he liked so there was no sense of urgency about rounding off the story before we turned the corner. He went on to tell us that his special interest was in Ralph Allen who was instrumental in shaping the city's history and who owned a large tract of the land in this area.

For quite a distance we walked through fields and then woods with no sweeping vistas before us. I was beginning to wonder if this title the skyline tour was so well chosen.  

But then we seemed to turn a corner and were rewarded with a proper view over the city. 

With the view of the city behind him, we then had the Ralph Allen story in earnest. The emphasis here was not upon a psychological approach to tell the man's biography, his private life was largely absent from this story. Instead, we were told how his deeds shaped the city. I was reminded of how history is often told through the format of great men being the instigators of events and of the passage in War and Peace where Tolstoy argues the converse. 

“In historical events so-called great men are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event, and like labels, they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill, is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and predestined from all eternity.”

Both ways have much to be said for them, I perhaps notice this favouring of the great man approach here because pretty much all of the guided tours of Bath seem to focus on three great men to tell the story of how they made the city and then on one great woman for how it was to live inside of it. What was also quite striking, was the difference in the way the two guides used the space. The descriptions of nature were mostly about the areas we were actually standing in whereas the historical material was, more often than not, what we could see some distance in front of us.

There were a couple of dogs on the tour, and this one prompted the following joke. "What did the spaniel say to the parrot? I'm a cockatoo."

We looked at a tree that had allegedly been set on fire by a schoolboy arsonist burning his books. The trust had done quite a lot of work to preserve the tree. I may be embellishing the story with the burning of school books but having physically abused some of my own school books, back in the day, by kicking them around the four walls of my room, I can understand the impulse though I'd never condone the burning of trees.

Rob, the guide, asked more than once whether I could feature the new bench installed along the skyline in the blog, so here it is. Someone said it would make a wonderful place to sit with friends and drink a bottle of wine with the majestic views over the valley below. The cynic in me thought the more likely fate is for it to be a spot to sit on and drink special brew, though now I think about it, it's enough of a walk from the city centre to deter the average  alcoholic. In any case, it's a nice bench and unlike the City Trail, the quotes are more significant and well chosen.

There was not so much spotting of fauna on this walk, it was more about the flora. We did however, spot a deer at the far end of the field. Not having a paparazzi zoom on my camera, this is about the best I could manage. Yes it could be a kangaroo for all I know.

Emerging onto the pavement we walked down a short slope and as we were doing so, I heard a ugly thump behind us. Turning round I saw a cyclist lying in pain on the road. No car seemed to have been involved, except perhaps a parked one on the side of the road. One or two of our group rushed to the scene, those who knew first aid, and people came out of a house opposite to see what was going on. These hills are pretty steep and if on a bike you don't treat them with caution, you can finish this way. What the real cause was, I have no idea. It looked like a more than superficial injury from a distance and when our party returned they confirmed so but also said he was basically OK and had the good fortune to come off his bike in front of the house of a doctor, who was immediately on the scene. 

The next part of the walk was over meadows that were perched overlooking the city centre. What very particular architecture and town planning Bath has. These meadows, we were told, are extremely rich in wildflowers, though we were too late in the year to properly appreciate them. 

The route we were following was signposted and it would probably have been possible to have taken it without a map or guide, though I'd not recommend it. There were also notice boards scattered along the walk some of which advertised the sunset walk we were taking. That and the generally high level of maintenance of the route gave the impression that it was carefully managed. We were told that a small team of paid staff and larger number of volunteers work year round on the Bath Skyline.

The walk took us along another short section of pavement but even here it was beside a quiet, leafy road. The route seemed to have been made with the intention of weaving us through a variety of natural habitats, of which there were plenty, and at the same time reminding us that all this is right next to and indeed sometimes inside of the Bath urban area.

By now it was getting later in the day and the colours in the sky started a delicate dance.

Our guide explained the principles of succession by which the countryside evolves with different plants, bushes and trees colonising the land one after another with the final result, in this part of the UK, of oak forests. It is an ecological process I had not heard about previously and it got me looking at the areas we passed through in a new way. He also pointed out that there were meadow ants in the area and their anthills could grow large and be over 100 years old, though the ones we saw were younger. It was interesting to see how there is a history to nature if you know how to read it. This also made me think about the difference between the two guides' approaches: one about the man and the other about the process. They were coming at things in very different ways, finally.

He mentioned a book that looks like it should be a great read, The History of The Countryside by Oliver Rackham (1986). I have always sensed something mannered about the countryside in the UK, as if it bears the traces of many people's usage of it. This book, if I understand rightly, is the classic work that sets out and tests a history of our use of the countryside and is the reference point for subsequent research. That's another item to add to the birthday list then.

We arrived at Sham Castle, the folly perched high upon the downs, in the golden light of the setting sun. This was to be the place where we would watch it set. During a sensual moment like this most of the group fell back into the couples they arrived in. This question of how people mix within a group is one I have been asking myself increasingly, having noticed that some tours encourage it more than others. Personally, I quite like it when there is some exchange between people who started the walk as strangers but become acquainted along the way. A good part of it is how and why the people come together to take the walk in the first place and whether they have a strong, shared interest or not. Beyond that I have also noticed that tours which leave space for the people to ask questions and contribute their thoughts are the ones where the conversation more naturally spills over into the spaces between the stops.

There were then a few minutes of looking out over the city. There was talk of how the land was managed with the golf course below but that seemed like a question from another part of the walk.

We got some further history, much of it about Sham Castle itself, a folly constructed by our old friend Ralph Allen. This mix of nature and history was complimentary in the case of Bath as that does accurately reflect the walk and its views. The two guides were not at cross purposes at all, as they were most notably on the now classic reference point of mine the Dalston Conservation Tour where the two guides were pulling the walk in different directions.

With the sun almost down we were treated to a rising moon on the other side of Sham Castle. What immaculate timing. It was now time to cover some distance to get back to the starting point where the cars were parked. This, quite definitely had to be a circular walk.

For a second time on one of these tours we had a view over Solsbury Hill, which was the cue for the Peter Gabriel story all over again. From a distance, it does not look like much of a hill, more like a plateaux. Those who had been up it, however, were very enthusiastic about it and said Solsbury genuinely was a special place.

This brought us to a great last section of the walk through woods in rapidly descending darkness. We had been advised to bring torches, and with good reason. The ground was uneven and slippery in places but basically walkable. I had to really concentrate on the path ahead of me in order to make progress, this was no place for idle chat. We emerged into fields where a dim, late dusk glow aided our way and let the eyes soak in the landscape in this evocative gloom. I realised that it is rare that I have the opportunity to walk in nature in these conditions and it is something I should really try to do more, as it awakens the all the senses. Returning us to the car park, we made our goodbyes and I and two others were lucky enough to be offered a lift back down into the city. With the legs heavy from four hours of walking, the lift was very welcome. There's another sunset walk along the Skyline 28th September, or indeed you can do it anytime you please, though in company like this I'd say it's a richer experience.

The People Behind the Plaques Tours: the famous and the forgotten

These two tours of Bath, one of the centre and one around the Royal Crescent, were based upon the historic plaques on the sides of buildings indicating who lived there. The idea was to understand more about these people, some of whom are well-known and others who have sunk into obscurity. 

These tours were organised by the Mayor's Honorary Guides who have been in existence for 80 years so they themselves are a bit of the city's history too. The two complimentary tours I went on were part of a week of one-off tours given to mark the guide's 80th anniversary. The guides do this for pleasure and neither ask for nor receive payment for showing visitors around the city. They are self-organising and seem to be mostly made up of older people who know their city and have the time to perform this role. 

The tour began with a map of plaques drawn up by the honorary guide's founder. It turns out that some of the plaques are not in the correct locations and some notables have more than one plaque, as they stayed in multiple properties. The group was led by no less than three guides who managed to share the work remarkably well. When I compare this with the Dalston Conservation Tour which was given by two guides speaking at cross purposes, this tour was wholly harmonious. Indeed, because this was a one-off tour and a significant number of the audience were themselves honorary guides, the spirit was more that of assisting and chipping in with information as and when it seemed relevant. It was also an opportunity for the guides to meet one another on a social level so it fulfilled this role and at the end I discovered it had a greater significance again. A well-respected honorary guide had planned this 'people behind the plaques walk' and he had passed away last year. These walks were a way to honour his memory by realising his proposed series of walking tours. In this way, there was a much deeper motivation behind giving these tours than most typical city tours, though this remained understated and the focus was very much on the plaques, people and their stories. 

A nice moment at the beginning was gaining access to the usually locked courtyard of Ralph Allen's city house. It was clearly a lost courtyard from the abundant weeds that were growing between the cracks in the paving slabs. While the story of the man was quite familiar to most, the location offered a new twist.

In general the plaques are made of bronze and were put up in the first half of the 20th Century. This one is an exception and is a more recent one. There are some complications around putting up new ones and some property owners do not want such plaques on their walls. This means that this record of the great and good is more or less fixed in time with history ending in the Victorian era. To compensate for this the guides did stop in front of some properties without plaques and talk about who had lived inside, which made for a balanced story but I should admit I was curious about the plaques themselves and what they connoted. Seeing as they reflect a historical idea of fame, which today equals celebrity, there may be some interest in testing these boundaries and sticking to the bronze plaques would do just that.

And there was a further type of modern plaque we came across, this blue circular affair for local legend Sally Lunn. I like the fact that most cities have one or two characters like this: they are a part of the story of the city and may indeed reach iconic status yet are completely unknown elsewhere. When you arrive you are told about them as if they are common knowledge and you have to take it all in faith. When you leave, you leave these personalities at the city gate, their significance lying solely in the city. As such, these figures offer quite some potential for invention and myth making.

 

Nelson's plaque was an interesting stop. I am familiar with him as the great naval commander who secured victory at Trafalgar at the cost of his life. This is the story that has been drummed into me since my childhood visits to HMS Victory. Indeed I'm still hearing it through my current research in South Dorset, which lies on The Trafalgar Way and was home to Hardy of “kiss me Hardy”. How refreshing it was then to hear another side of him, namely, Nelson the shameless rogue. In this way the tour managed to retain some interest in an overly famous person and it did so through taking the point of view of his wife who, it was said, he abandoned in Bath. 

The current life of the buildings on the Royal Crescent was not gone into at all as it is not yet plaque-worthy and that was a big question hanging over the tour for me, given my focus on the contemporary. The hotel behind was going about its highly-priced business and I heard on the bus tour yesterday that John Cleese was now living on the Royal Crescent. We occasionally saw someone enter or exit a door but they were like ghosts from the future who had no part to play in the tour. I had been interested a couple of years ago in making a performance about the usage of history in the present and on the basis of my observations in Bath so far I may be able to draw upon quite a number of that work's threads here. I like it when stalled ideas turn out to not be stalled at all but merely dormant, waiting for the occasion.   

The next plaques were located on the square at the end of the short road in the background. We didn't bother crossing the road and walking over there, however, and this indicated to me that the relationship between the stories and the precise locations was not that strong, it was more or less enough that these people lived in Bath but the exact building and how it looks today were for the most part irrelevant. This got me wondering whether it was necessary to make this walk at all if we weren't going to visit the precise locations referenced. I came the conclusion that it was necessary, not because the sites were significant to the storytelling but because this tour was a vehicle to bring people together in a series of attractive public spaces. It would be a very different event if it took place in a meeting room.

A final plaque and a short history of the postal service. I had never realised that Bath played an instrumental role in the setting up of the country's postal service and the city remains a stamp collector's paradise. It is definitely a niche interest but I suspect there must be a tour connected to the post service. That is a tour I will have to search out and report back on next.