Bath is a very attractive, fashionable, and popular destination for travelers from England and around the world. When we visited in mid-August 2004, the city was jammed with tourists walking around the town and, especially, browsing through the shops. Bath is a major shopping town. Many of the tourists appeared to be quite well-off, and their types of shops are here, too. With the exception of London, we saw more stores catering to wealthy patrons here than anywhere else in Britain.
Bath's many important historical sights also draw visitors. The main place of historical interest is the Roman Baths, which have been fixed up with multi-media displays and a self-guided walking tour down to the warm mineral baths that give the city its name.
Bath Abbey is right next door to the Roman Baths and many travelers drop over while they're in the neighbourhood. The day we visited, it was crawling with tourists.
Historical evidence at the abbey indicates that Christian worship began in this area around AD 350. It is also known that a monastery existed on this site by the 7th century. Construction of the present church building, the third on the site, began in 1499, making it the last great church built in England before the Reformation. When Oliver King was appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1495, he arrived to find that the previous Norman church, built in the 12th century, had fallen almost into ruins, mostly due to the after-effects of the Black Death in 1348. Over half of the monks in the monastery succumbed to the plague, and the task of repair and maintenance proved impossible for the small band of surviving monks.
Bishop King decided that Bath Abbey needed a new church; he determined to demolish the old abbey and build a grand new edifice. Only 40 years later, in 1539, Bath Abbey—along with all other monasteries in England and Wales—was suppressed by Henry VIII. The abbey's land was sold and most of the buildings destroyed, but the church was given to Bath as its parish church. Bath Abbey maintains a thriving congregation today. A Ship of Fools mystery worshipper attended a service there and filed a generally favourable report.
The west front, shown in the photo on the right, is the first sight most visitors have of Bath Abbey. Highly decorated and carved from Bath stone, it functions as a sort of front cover to the abbey, for it tells the story of the abbey's re-construction under Bishop King. When I first saw it, I thought of the biblical story of Jacob's ladder because angels are ascending and descending on the ladders at the left and right ends. However, the guide book says that the front depicts Oliver King's dream during a visit to Bath in 1499. He, too, saw angels ascending and descending by ladder; he also saw an olive tree at the foot of the ladder and heard a voice saying, "Let an olive establish the Crown and let a King restore the Church". This is said to be Bishop King's inspiration for re-building the church at Bath Abbey.
In the middle of the peak of the carved stone front appears Christ in majesty. The figures down the two sides of the window are apostles, and the crowned figure at the bottom, right above the main entrance doors, is Oliver King's patron Henry VII.
(Click on photos for larger views.)
The Abbey's chief architectural glory is the fan-vaulted ceiling, shown at left, made like the rest of the building from local Bath stone. The ceiling was restored in the 1860s; the stonework, although relatively modern, was modeled on the original vault. The Abbey's guide book says that fan-vaulted ceilings were developed in England and are found nowhere else.
In the entrance from the west front is a wall filled with memorial tablets, mostly from the 18th and early 19th centuries. When I first entered the church, I quickly looked over some of these tablets and was astonished to find one for a famous person in the history of economics. The Rev Thomas Robert Malthus was known as a political economist in his day, but his field of interest is more precisely demographics. His Essay On Population was a popular and immensely controversial book in the early years of the 19th century, and its influence still lives on. Although personally a genial and benevolent fellow, Rev Malthus was vilified across Europe for his pessimistic view of the human prospect: he foresaw recurrent cycles of excessive population growth followed by population-reducing disasters such as famine, disease, and war. The basis for this dreadful vision was his assertion that "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ration" while "the means of subsistence increase in an arithmetical ratio". Thus, demand for food invariably grows much faster than the supply. History has proved Malthus wrong, but he still has his followers today.
Rev Malthus is an important figure in the history of economic thought, and he is buried at Bath Abbey. His memorial tablet is on the right. Plainly, Rev Malthus was held in very high regard by many.
(The white splotch is from my flash.)
For those who are interested in Rev Malthus' writings, the first edition of Malthus's Essay, originally published in 1798, has been posted here. The sixth and final edition is available here. The latter is quite different from the former because Malthus heavily revised and greatly expanded his Essay for its second edition in 1803.
In closing, I want to mention that the first third of the free leaflet available at the Abbey is devoted to a brief presentation of the life and teachings of Christ. The concluding sentences read:
[The disciples'] message of the good news is the reason why this Abbey exists. More important, it is the reason why all over the world there are Christians who know what it means to meet the living Jesus, and who believe that he alone has the key to human life.
May your time in the Abbey be a blessing to you.
Amen to that!
More photos of Bath Abbey can be found here. I especially recommend this one of the east window which depicts 56 scenes in the life of Jesus Christ.
The City of Bath has posted a short history of the town here.
Links to all my blog posts about British churches and Christian sites can be accessed through the box located at the top of the page.
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