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1819 letter to Thomas Aspinwall with advice about visiting Bath

A fascinating and unique glimpse into Bath’s tourist attractions around the time of Jane Austen is revealed in this letter recently acquired by the Record Office.

The letter - now fragile - was written by Bath holidaymaker Edward Appleton to the American consul Thomas Aspinwall shortly before the consul’s wife and children were to arrive in Bath to spend the winter of 1819.

In the handwritten letter, Mr Appleton remarks: “From what we have seen of the place, I feel convinced Mrs Aspinwall could not have chosen a place in England where she could pass the time of your absence more comfortably. This is truly a city of lodgings.”

Other words of advice in the letter, dated 24 October 1819, were not to bring any unnecessary equipment for a winter stay as everything was provided at Bath lodging-houses, including cooks and housemaids.

It is very rare to find observations from Georgian times on what a tourist in Bath should expect. We are also told the markets are good value; the lodging-house keepers are good cooks and civil; and, most intriguingly, Bath is recommended as a fine place for children as the streets are all paved over.

Name	Details
Read page 1 and cover	PDF, 2 MB	Download
Read pages 2 and 3	PDF, 3 MB	Download
Read a transcript of the letter	PDF, 25 KB	Download

A letter from the Bath Blitz

The Record Office has recently been given a fascinating letter describing the ‘Bath Blitz’. It was written by Mrs Mabel Beevers to her sister, Anne, at the beginning of May 1942, shortly after the bombing raids on Bath which took place on the nights of the 25 and 26 April.

At the time, the Beevers family were living at Ormonde Lodge, Sion Hill, and Mabel was pregnant, expecting her fifth child. After the raids she moved to Pontypridd in South Wales for safety, and it was from here that the letter was written. Her son was born shortly afterwards, in Pontypridd.

The letter gives us a very personal view of the ‘Bath Blitz’, two nights of heavy and completely unexpected bombing of the historic city. Over 400 people were killed, and a huge amount of damage caused to buildings. Interestingly, Sion Hill was not one of the areas of serious damage – although the letter suggests that houses there were reduced to rubble, the bomb damage maps held by the Record Office show only ‘general damage - slight’

On the night of 25th and 26th April 1942, the German airforce carried out major air raids on Bath. Over 400 people were killed, and a huge amount of damage caused to buildings.

The Bomb Damage maps show the effects of this bombing on the City of Bath. Nine of the maps are coloured to show the severity of the damage to buildings, and eight show the exact location of each of the high explosive bombs which fell on the city. There is also a City wide map showing the locations in which bombs fell.

All eighteen maps are available on one CD for £8 or you can receive the maps by online transfer.

Please add £1.50 for postage and packing to UK addresses, or £3 to overseas addresses.

How to make a payment

At the Record Office: payment can be accepted by cash or cheque
By post: payment can be accepted by cheque only
Online:
1. Visit the Bath & North East Somerset Council's home page.
2. Using the 'Pay for It' option, choose 'Pay licence or subscription fee' then choose 'Pay Bath Record Office Fees'.
3. Use your name as a reference to complete the form, then follow the instructions.
4. Note the receipt number produced on completion of payment and email this to the Record Office. You will receive your order once payment has been confirmed.
Cheques must be made payable to "Bath & North East Somerset Council".

Theatre Royal playbills 1781-1782

The Record Office holds nine playbills for the Theatre Royal, Bath, for the years 1781-1782 (reference 1033). Very few playbills have survived from this period, and these are an exciting addition to our collections.

The playbills advertise plays such as Isabella, or, the Fatal Marriage, The Duenna, or, Double Elopement and The Clandestine Marriage. One playbill is for a 'New Tragedy', The Count of Narbonne. It was presented on 14 May 1782, with the famous actress Sarah Siddons playing the role of the Countess of Narbonne. This was almost the last appearance of Mrs Siddons in Bath - she joined the Theatre Royal company in October 1778, but in May 1782 she was just about to leave for London where she had been offered a contract at Drury Lane. Her final performance in Bath was on 21 May 1782, just a week after appearing in The Count of Narbonne.

The playbills were donated to the City of Bath in 1967 by Mrs Diana Menuhin, when her husband was director of Bath Music Festival. They were framed and by 1996 were on display in the VIP Room of the Assembly Rooms. They were subsequently taken down and put into storage in the Fashion Museum in the Assembly Rooms. When 'rediscovered', they were transferred to the Record Office.

Name	Details
See a large image of the playbill for the The Count of Narbonne	PDF, 3 MB	Download
See a large image of the playbill for The Clandestine Marriage	PDF, 2 MB	Download
See a large image of the playbill for Isabella	PDF, 2 MB	Download

Transcript of the Regulations for Beating the Bounds of Bathwick parish

‘Beating the bounds’ of a parish is a custom dating back to medieval times.

The people of the parish walked the length of the parish boundaries, beating or stopping at the boundary stones or other significant markers. The purpose was to ensure that parishioners were familiar with the parish boundaries.

We have received a document which gives a unique picture of the Beating of the Bounds ceremony held in Bathwick in 1832. The 'Regulations for Beating The Bounds of Bathwick parish' describes the route for the procession of local worthies, who stopped at fixed locations along the boundary for refreshments and the firing of cannon. As part of the boundary of Bathwick parish is along the River Avon, some of the procession took place in boats - and the Regulations are headed by a fascinating coloured drawing of these boats laden with passengers and a band of musicians.

With a 21-gun salute at every stop, and refreshments no doubt being in liquid form, the noise from this procession must have been heard for miles!

Transcripts of the Langton family papers

The Langton family took refuge in Bath in 1809, fleeing from the war which Napoleon was waging in Spain.

The family had moved from Ireland, where they were landowners, to Cadiz in Spain in the early eighteenth century. Here they prospered: they became very wealthy merchants, were recognised as nobles, and made advantageous marriages.

However, in 1809, with the Emperor Napoleon of France invading Spain, most of the family fled from Cadiz and took refuge in Bath. The head of the family, Miguel, remained in Spain, but in July 1810, before he could join the others in Bath, he died in Cadiz.

Miguel's son, Miguel Theobald, spent the next seven years attempting to realise the family’s assets in Spain and elsewhere and to share out the proceeds according to his father’s will. In doing this, he wrote a huge number of letters which have survived to this day, and are now among the papers in the Langton collection. They deal with an enormous range of subjects, and reveal fascinating information about life at the time, both in Bath and in Cadiz. Most are in English, but a small number are in Spanish or French.

Read transcriptions of all the fascinating Langton letters.

The transcriptions were made by a Bath Record Office volunteer, who transcribed the English letters and translated those in French; the Spanish letters were transcribed by a Spanish academic historian. We are very grateful to both for their hard work. Editing and some further transcription was carried out by Record Office staff.

Spelling in the letters has all been transcribed as in the original. Punctuation has however been amended to make the letters easier to read; in some cases this has extended to separating the text into paragraphs.

There are three different series of letters:

Name	Details
1. Five letters sent to Miguel Langton in Cadiz by his family in Bath, between 1809 and 1810	PDF, 103 KB	Download
2. Twenty-three letters sent by Agustín Butler to Miguel Theobald Langton.	PDF, 139 KB	Download

Name	Details
Section1, pages 1-44	PDF, 219 KB	Download
Section 2, pages 45-76	PDF, 224 KB	Download
Section 3, pages 77-96	PDF, 134 KB	Download
Section 4, pages 97-128 (note that the first letter in section 4 starts on page 9)	PDF, 185 KB	Download
Letter found loose in the Copy Book	PDF, 34 KB	Download

The reference for the collection is 0770. You can see the full catalogue for the collection in our online catalogue - put 0770 in the 'RefNo' box.

Transcript of the diary of William Winckworth

What was life like for a Victorian workhouse schoolmaster? Find out by reading his diary!

Born in Bath in 1830, William Winckworth trained as a teacher and taught in various schools in London before returning to Bath at the end of 1855. He applied for the post of schoolmaster at the Bath workhouse, and was asked to attend for an interview on 2 January 1856.

His diary for 1856 starts with this interview and goes on to chronicle in detail the events of his professional and private life day by day throughout the year. The diary provides a fascinating insight into life in the workhouse and in Bath at the time, as well as presenting us with a picture of Winckworth himself.

Transcript of the diary of Edmund Rack

Edmund Rack, a Quaker, moved to Bath from rural Essex in 1775. A writer himself, he was soon active in Bath literary circles and in 1777 he founded and became secretary of the Bath & West of England Society.

Two years later he became joint founder and secretary of a lively scientific club, the first Bath Philosophical Society. He seems to have been self-confident, popular, charitable, and steadfast in his Quaker principles, a figure from Bath’s past it would have been good to know.

The 'Journal' is in fact a series of letters sent to his relatives at ‘Old Samford’, now Great Sampford in north-west Essex, between December 1779 and March 1780. It is an intriguing mix: partly a record of Rack’s own day-to-day activities, partly his musings on religion, morality, and other weighty matters, and partly a commentary on life in Georgian Bath – from a scandalous duel on Claverton Down or a performance of Handel’s Messiah to the cost of provisions. Because he was such a busy person, always eager for knowledge, and appreciative of the opportunities of Bath, he is constantly illuminating.

The Journal is held by Bath City Library (reference MS1111), not by the Record Office. It has been transcribed and edited by Trevor Fawcett.

Name	Details
More about Edmund Rack and his Journal.	PDF, 10 KB	Download
Read a transcript of the Journal.	PDF, 182 KB	Download

Rack’s original spelling has been preserved, but his capitalisation and punctuation have been regularised to improve legibility. Editorial additions appear within square brackets and notes at the foot of the page.

Abstracts of Bath Town Clerks' In-letter books relating to public health matters

As part of our ongoing work to catalogue the Bath City Council records, a Record Office volunteer has been working on the Town Clerks' In-Letter Books relating to matters dealt with by the Council acting as the Urban Sanitary Authority. She has made abstracts of the information in the most interesting of the letters in the first 20 volumes, covering the years 1892-1897. The letters deal with issues such as street cleaning, refuse collection, improvement and building works, food quality, hospitals and health related maters. The abstracts are in PDF format.

Name	Details
BC/3/4/6/1 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 1 Jan 1892-17 Oct 1892	PDF, 220 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/2 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 4 Oct 1892-21 Feb 1893	PDF, 240 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/3 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 28 Feb 1893-28 June 1893	PDF, 272 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/4 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 30 Jun 1893-27 Oct 1893	PDF, 232 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/5 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 27 Oct 1893-19 Jan 1894	PDF, 240 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/6 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 20 Jan-27 Apr 1894	PDF, 260 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/7 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book May-Oct 1894	PDF, 279 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/8 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book Nov 1894-23 Mar 1895	PDF, 255 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/9 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 23 Mar 1895-Jul 1895	PDF, 255 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/10 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 1 Aug 1895-30 Nov 1895	PDF, 249 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/11 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book Dec 1895-1 Apr 1896	PDF, 228 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/12 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 3 Apr 1896- 13 May 1896	PDF, 224 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/13 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book Jun-Jul 1896	PDF, 228 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/14 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 1 Aug-21 Sep 1896	PDF, 224 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/15 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book Oct-Dec 1896	PDF, 241 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/16 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book Jan 1897-24 Feb 1897	PDF, 219 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/17 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 3 Mar 1897-21 Apr 1897	PDF, 232 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/18 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book May-14 Jun 1897	PDF, 207 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/19 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book Jul-Oct 1897	PDF, 213 KB	Download
BC/3/4/6/20 Urban Sanitary Authority In-Letter Book 11 Oct-31 Dec 1897	PDF, 208 KB	Download

Ancient Deeds - a window into the distant past

Glimpse the lives of people living in Bath over 700 years ago

You can now see descriptions of some of our oldest documents in our on-line catalogue, thanks to Lavinia Byrne, a Record Office volunteer. The catalogue entries have been taken from Shickle's Ancient Deeds belonging to the Corporation of Bath.

This series comprises almost 550 "Ancient deeds", early written records of property transactions which took place in Bath in the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. They record transactions between many private individuals, the church, and the Mayor and Commonality of Bath (the predecessor to the Corporation and the Council). As such, they offer a fascinating insight into life in Bath in the medieval period. They are among some of the earliest documents in existence to record property transactions between private individuals in England. There are also a handful of wills.

While she was working on the collection, Lavinia was interested to see references to the earliest Mayors of Bath, and she has compiled a list of Mayors from the documents, and has also written about her discoveries:

"MAYORS OF BATH

"According to the ANCIENT DEEDS belonging to the Corporation of Bath XIII-XVI Cent, translated and epitomised by the Rev.C.W.Shickle, published by the Bath Records Society in co-operation with the Bath City Council, 1921.

"The documents translated by Shickle in 1921 all date back to the period we happily call the Middle Ages. They tell the stories of the men and women who lived and died, bartered and traded goods and properties in Bath at a period in the city’s history when it enjoyed peace and prosperity on a grand scale.

"This prosperity was guaranteed by good governance. So it is hardly surprising that these documents record the names of the many mayors who presided over the city’s affairs.

A complete list of their names is given in our pdf. They are transcribed in date order from 1230-1544 and reveal surprising secrets.

"Chief amongst these is the issue of identity.

"At this period in English history, a new confident English middle class emerged and chose to throw off the shackles represented by French or Latin surnames.

"Henry and Gilbert Cissor led the way when Henry adopted the surname Tayllur or Le Tailor, possibly ascribed to them by the clerk who prepared the documents. The association is still to scissors and the craft of tailoring but the way ahead is clear. Other mayors followed suit with Alexander Tinctor being known as Alexander le Dyere or Deighere and eventually Dyar or Dyer.

"William Cocus became William Cook, a straight translation from the Latin. Richard Tabernius or Tabernarius also shed his Latin name which means shopkeeper or apocathery. He became known as Richard Everard while John Pistore went for the more English-sounding Baker.

"This array of names and the way in which they recur through these documents also shows that there were dynasties who chose to intermarry and keep property in each other’s families.

"The role of Mayor of Bath was an honourable one and it too became part of this rich dynastic heritage."

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Explore our online exhibition

Welcome to this section of our website, where we showcase some of the fascinating documents in our care.

A fascinating and unique glimpse into Bath’s tourist attractions around the time of Jane Austen is revealed in this letter recently acquired by the Record Office.

The Record Office has recently been given a fascinating letter describing the ‘Bath Blitz’. It was written by Mrs Mabel Beevers to her sister, Anne, at the beginning of May 1942, shortly after the bombing raids on Bath which took place on the nights of the 25 and 26 April.

On the night of 25th and 26th April 1942, the German airforce carried out major air raids on Bath. Over 400 people were killed, and a huge amount of damage caused to buildings.

The Record Office holds nine playbills for the Theatre Royal, Bath, for the years 1781-1782 (reference 1033). Very few playbills have survived from this period, and these are an exciting addition to our collections.

‘Beating the bounds’ of a parish is a custom dating back to medieval times.

The Langton family took refuge in Bath in 1809, fleeing from the war which Napoleon was waging in Spain.

Read transcriptions of all the fascinating Langton letters.

3. Copy letter book of Miguel Theobald Langton.

What was life like for a Victorian workhouse schoolmaster? Find out by reading his diary!

Edmund Rack, a Quaker, moved to Bath from rural Essex in 1775. A writer himself, he was soon active in Bath literary circles and in 1777 he founded and became secretary of the Bath & West of England Society.

Glimpse the lives of people living in Bath over 700 years ago

Explore Bath's world heritage

Explore Bath's world heritage

Other things to do in Bath

Explore our online exhibition

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