Day Trip to Bath - Part II

~ Welcome sign when we entered the Jane Austen Centre/Museum ~

We were taken to a room where we watched a video and were told we'd have a chance to see what Jane Austen actually looked like.

And here she is!  She appeared in a wall hanging, a mannequin and the cover of the souvenir guide.

An excellent costumed guide told us all about Jane's family.  She came from a large family of eight children - six boys and two girls. Jane was the 7th born.  Her father was clergyman and her mother wrote poetry.   

Jane never married but was once engaged for 12 hours to a family friend, Harris Bigg-Wither, but after a sleepless night, she turned him down because she didn't love him.  Jane's novels became the children she never had.

Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were both retitled after her death by her brother, Henry, and sister, Cassandra.  Henry wrote the forward in a joint 4 volumes publication and named Jane as the author.  Her name had not appeared in print before then.

There were several Regency-era costumes on display in the museum.

My hubby was a good sport and dressed as a Naval Officer in the photo below - perhaps Jane's brother, Francis, who was a Senior Admiral in the Royal Navy.  Hummm... was I was supposed to be portraying Jane?

When we finished going through the museum, we went to the third floor Regency Tea Room.

We ordered a pot of Spicy Black Chai Tea and a toasted Bath Bun [also called a tea cake] with Strawberry Jam and Butter.  We were eating conservatively since we still had to go to Sally Lunn's for dinner.

We left the Jane Austen Center and got back on the Hop-off, Hop-on bus.   The bus wasn't allowed to take us to the Royal Crescent and we didn't want to get off and walk to it.  But Bath has six other crescents and we saw a couple of them from the bus.

The bus audio guided tour told us Queen Victoria visited Bath in 1830 as an 11 year old princess, to officially open Royal Victoria Park.  It was reported that a Bath resident made a disparaging comment on the thickness of her ankles.  She took offense and never returned to Bath again! 

Bath, like London, was a target of WWII bombings.  Over 4,500 bombs were dropped on the city with a large number targeting the surrounding areas of the city's railway.  16,000 buildings were damaged and 1,900 of them were historical buildings.

Our last stop before heading back to the rail station was Sally Lunn's on North Parade Passage. We dashed into the tearoom/restaurant in 2001 and quickly saw the kitchen museum used by the legendary young Huguenot baker, Sally Lunn, who is said to have created the first Bath Bunn.   On this trip we wanted a more relaxed and unhurried visit.  Sally Lunn's is said to be the oldest house in Bath dating back to 1482.

We were taken to a dining room on the second floor.   I took pictures of the room in stages as people finished their meals and left the dining room.

My hubby ordered a Vegetable Trencher and I ordered the Steak & Mushroom Trencher.  A 'Trencher' is a carved out piece of bread used to hold food in place of a plate - although ours was served on a plate.

A residential street in Bath as seen from a window in Sally Lunn's House.

~ A Bath Street Performer ~

Our train back to London was set to depart at 6:44 p.m. so we made our way back to the station after dinner.   Below is the train platform inside the station.

It was enjoyable seeing the hedgerows on the countryside while traveling, but our ride home was delayed by 40 minutes due to a tresspasser on the train track.  It was after 9:00 p.m. when we finally got back to our hotel room.  It was a long day, but an enjoyable one.  

If you've never been to Bath, I hope you enjoyed this armchair visit.  There are still unseen attractions to visit if we ever make it back again.