Bath, World Heritage City

Graham Davies and Penny Bonsall, local academics, have just published a book called ‘A History of Bath : Image and Reality’. Recognising that Bath is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Britain, the authors say its 4M visitors a year absorb a ‘carefully presented image of an ancient spa, an elegant Georgian city and the haunt of the likes of Beau Nash and Jane Austen’. But, they add ‘ the true picture of Bath through its long and varied history is much fuller, more interesting and varied than the façade presented to casual visitors’. And so it is.

Centred from Roman times on the thermal spa, it later had a Saxon convent and then monastery and subsequently became a Norman Cathedral city where the Saxon King -Edgar the Peacable - was crowned, and in the medieval period became a regional market town and a centre for the woollen trade. In the 16th and 17th Centuries people came to the city for the healing properties of the spa, and in the Georgian period its enduring architectural legacy was established – built by the labouring poor for the enjoyment of the privileged rich. In the Victorian period it became an important industrial centre, much of it relating to the navigable River Avon, the canal system and Brunel’s London to Bristol railway. Now it is known for its many cultural festivals and – after a four year delay – its new thermal Spa which at last is to be opened this August. It is also said to have the best collection of good restaurants outside London, though many towns might question that.

Amongst the ten or so museums or galleries the city offers, two are unmissable in my opinion. Certainly the Roman Baths, brilliantly presented and with much detailed information about Roman life. The Pump Room is adjacent for a touch of elegance, with a trio playing as you eat and drink, and spa water available at 50p a cup, drinking it being a nod to tradition rather than an experience to be enjoyed.

And then there is the Industrial Heritage Museum, or ‘Bath at Work’ as it is also called. Here there are exhibits about the mining of Bath stone, cabinet making and a survey of 2,000 years of working history from Roman times to the present day. Just now there is a small exhibition of women at work over the years. But the heart of the museum is an authentic and complete reconstruction of the light engineering firm and fizzy drinks business of J.B. Bowler. He and his descendents ran the firm from 1872 to 1969. The founder never threw anything away and the Museum therefore represents the work and practices of a Victorian entrepreneur, and must be unique of its kind. Well worth a visit, despite the steep hill you have to climb to get there.

Bath: a tourist’s paradise; and presently our home.

Bryan

Wolverhampton

We lived here for nine years in the 1970’s. Situated in the West Midlands and once a steel city on the edge of the ‘Black Country’ (see the posting about Birmingham), it was then a town that had become nationally notorious because of its maverick Tory M.P., Enoch Powell. There had been an influx of new people from the Punjab in India and from a single parish in Jamaica.

Unprepared for this, there were soon immense tensions between the indigenous population with its strong family base, and people of ethnic culture, all of it aggravated by Powell who forecast the destruction of what for him was Britishness. In our time we were aware that some people were sorry for us that we lived in such a place. We became sorry for them, that they were unable to imagine the pleasure and enjoyment we had in living in a vibrant multi-ethnic community, to which, now thirty years old and one of the first of its kind, the Wolverhampton Inter-Faith Group has made an important contribution.

Over the years Wolverhampton has become a diverse and lively city which has learned to live with and celebrate its changed identity. We had very happy years there amongst a naturally friendly, warm and good humoured people.

Like many other cities, it is made up of a collection of neighbourhoods which over the years have coalesced into a single population of a quarter of a million, although each retains its individuality . There are fine parks, a splendid Victorian theatre, a Concert Hall, plain in design but with a perfect acoustic, a famous football club, a University and all the usual amenities and distinction of a large town, to the extent of even having its own Anglican Bishop! Just now there is an Italian food market in the main square. It gained city status in 1985, one of the youngest we shall meet in this series.

To the west of the city there are the beauties of the Shropshire countryside.The Long Mynd, or 'Long Mountain', is a ridge of high ground in South Shropshire, running roughly SW to NE, and extending 15 km in length, between the Stiperstonesto the west, and Wenlock Edge to the east, and there are many fine walks in the area. Most of the Long Mynd was bought by the National Trust in 1965, and it features in the poetry of A.E. Houseman and the novels of Mary Webb, notably 'Gone to Earth'.

Bryan

Helsinki

The capital of Finland and with a population of more than half a million, Helsinki carries the narrative and some of the wounds of its country’s short history. Ruled by Sweden for several hundred years and then dominated by mostly benign Russian control, Finland has somehow maintained its distinctive character and appeal. Tsarist rule came to an end in 1917, and Finland declared its independence on 6 December of that year.

The city has some fine buildings, many of then built comparatively recently with a strong influence of Art Nouveau. There are two cathedrals – the amazing red brick Orthodox with its enormous round pillars and the immense and elegant white Lutheran one, approached by wide steps. The Finlandia Concert Hall was designed by Alvar Aalto. He used Carrara marble on the exterior as well as inside the building. He viewed marble as an important link with Mediterranean culture, which he wanted to bring to Finland (why I wonder?). Finland's climate however caused the marble to warp and break, and the building has had to be resurfaced. Proof of the advantage of using indigenous materials!

Music is very important in Finland where its great composer Sibelius is honoured in all sorts of ways. On a visit earlier this year we visited his memorial which consists of irregular craggy structures like a collection of fir trees, with a bust of the composer to one side. It’s an impressive work of sculpture in steel by Eila Hiltunen, opened in 1967. Apparently at first it aroused criticism for its radical departure from the conventional type of memorial, and by way of compromise the sculptor added the huge bust of the youthful composer. Set in a wooded park on a hill outside the city and - when we saw it was on a clouded day in freezing temperatures – it makes an unforgettable impression. There is a fine modern Opera House (see Euroresidentes Classical Music blog 19.02.06) and splendid museums and art galleries

The city is on the Baltic coast and there is a fascinating fort on a group of small offshore islands which we visited, the ferry crashing through the broken ice. Originally built in 1748, when Finland was part of Sweden, Suomenlinna (‘Castle of Finland’) was used to defend the country from various invaders, including unfortunately the British. It is still a military centre but also the home of several hundred residents. Now a World Heritage site it is presently celebrating its 250th anniversary. We found it a rather forbidding place and were glad to return to the more peaceful broad streets of the city and to the little gem of a hotel, ‘The Linna’, which we would warmly recommend.

Bryan

Rotterdam

Claiming to be the largest port in the world, Rotterdam provides visitors who travel by sea to the Netherlands a dramatic first experience of the country. I travelled from Hull in this way in 1994 when, like journeys from other English ports, the passage was overnight. The boat was full of people doing a quick one-day survey of Amsterdam, before returning later in the evening on the same boat.

It’s a fascinating city, half of its population of over 600,000 consisting of onetime immigrants, many of them from previous Dutch dependencies. The centre of the city was very badly bombed on five devastating nights by the German Luftwaffe in 1940, and over the years there has been extensive rebuilding. When I was there I had the opportunity to see an impressive dockland development being built- the Kop van Zuid. In marked contrast to the appalling cowboy hotch potch of London’s Docklands, here there was a clear strategy with careful planning of social and private and rented housing combining to make a mixed community of great promise.

The superb Erasmus Bridge, linking the southern and northern parts of the city was being built. Eventually completed in 1996, it was officially opened by Queen Beatrix. Made of steel and painted white it must be one of the sights of the city. Called by local people ‘The Swan’ because of its 456 foot span and graceful shape, it has become part of the city’s official logo. There were problems apparently with the web of cables which had a habit of vibrating when the wind and rain were uncooperative (shades of London’s Millennium Bridge!). Stronger shock dampeners solved the problem.

The venue of the North Sea Jazz Festival is moving from the Hague to Rotterdam this month. The annual Film Festival takes place at the end of January into February. But although it’s cultural life can stand up for itself against Amsterdam, Rotterdam is primarily an industrial and commercial city, open to the world with many companies and institutions having their headquarters in the city. Rotterdam Airport is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, and has all the facilities one associates with a modern airport.

But for me the only way to travel to the city, is by sea!

Bryan

Birmingham

Proud of its reputation as the ‘workshop of the world’, Birmingham was originally a small rural manor, the town being established in 1166 with the granting of a market every Thursday. Market-trading became the centre of the town’s development, and whilst agricultural life around it continued, with the advent of the industrial revolution its eventual status as Britain’s second largest city was sealed. James Watts’ invention of the steam engine and Matthew Boulton’s use of gas lighting were two of many inventions influencing manufacturing processes around the world.

Birmingham however suffered from all the defects of that revolution : back-to- back housing with no ventilation, open sewers, low wages and long hours for the workers and, everywhere, grime. No wonder this part of the West Midlands is still called the Black Country. Someone wrote at that time ‘in no town in the world are the mechanical arts more noisy…the people live in an atmosphere vibrating with clamour’. He added, ‘ it would seem as if their amusement had caught the general tone and become noisy, like their inventions’. (With or without noise, ‘Brummies’ are generally thought of today as naturally cheerful).

Over the years there were many changes, campaigns for better sewage and for the introduction of mass culture and opportunity in the latter part of that century and the next. Just now the city is going through one of its periodic re-builds in the centre after some pretty disastrous planning episodes fifty years ago. Birmingham has a notable political history. Joseph Chamberlain (1836 - 1914) was a campaigner for educational reform in the city and a Liberal who when a local M.P. became a Tory as President of the Board of Trade and then Colonial Secretary. Father of Austen and Neville Chamberlain, he was part of the dynasty of wealthy landowners and industrialists, which included the Cadbury’s, and by whom the city was identified in the rest of the country.

The Victorian period was one of increasing pride in the city with some fine buildings such as the Town Hall, where in the 1970’s I heard many concerts by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, now in its new home, Symphony Hall. I often attended rehearsals prior to the evening’s performance, discovering that there can be a very robust relationship between conductor (Louis Fremaux in those days) and players. The Art Gallery has one of the finest collections of pre-Raphaelite paintings in the U.K. The old Public Library was inconvenient but beautiful. I watched it as it was pulled down. A man next to me was in tears at what he clearly and rightly regarded as a desecration. Even so, as the city’s website claims, Birmingham is ‘surprising, vibrant, appealing and exciting’ , and I would agree.
Bryan