Tag: jan morris

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The Goldens + The Lisantis + The Circus Restaurant Bath Somerset

Golden Ratio

“They arrived at Bath. Catherine was all eager delight,” Jane Austen enthuses in Northanger Abbey (1818). Between the architectural ring of perfection that is The Circus and the arc of joy that is Royal Crescent lies the uncurved stretch of beauty that is Brock Street. This artery linking major works is mostly residential except for The Circus Restaurant which fills the ground floor and basement of a house between one of the two Beau Nash antiques shops and Cobb Farr estate agents. Brock Street is exceptionally pretty but this being Bath prettiness is actually the norm. The architecture is still grand Georgian but taken down a notch in formality compared to its heavily parapeted and haughtily pilastered geometrically daring abutting addresses. Charles Robertson notes in An Architectural Guide to Bath (1975), “John Wood the Younger deliberately kept the Brock Street elevations relatively plain.”

The owners of Beau Nash know all about chips as well as Chippendales and sherry as well as Sheratons. The Food Guide (2024) prepared by dealers Ron Pringle and Cynthia Wihardja states: “We haven’t eaten everywhere but we have tried many places. When we recommend a place it’s not only about the food. We also rate the sincerity of the service. We believe the two are essential for a memorable dining experience.” The Circus Restaurant gets their approval, “You can’t go wrong. Good food, honest prices, seasonal menus. Lovely service and very good value for money.” And The Dark Horse sounds too tempting to miss: “Our top place for pre dinner cocktails! A vast array of concoctions to suit any palette. Cosy quality atmosphere.”

The West Country’s first culinary power couple Head Chef Allison Golden and her husband Geoffrey opened the restaurant in 2007. She recalls the warm glow of that golden era, “Our busy independent restaurant served modern European food accompanied by Old World wines in a relaxed atmosphere. We cooked sincerely and straightforwardly to ensure everyone experienced the authentic taste in our ingredients. You’d never find any of the big names that turn wine into an industrial product. Each wine on our list was the individual expression of expertise.” It was the golden age of dining but time moves on and Ally and Geoff have driven off into the sunset in their gold coloured Lamborghini.

It was a gilt edged opportunity for Chef Matt Lisanti and his brother Mike to take over the restaurant – one they couldn’t resist. The staff were retained and the new golden boys are serving up the same type of modern European food and independent Old World wines. Autumn Menu highlights include Sharpham Brie Croquettes (mustard mayo, black garlic ketchup) starter for £9.30 and Cashew Massaman Coconut Curry (sweet potato, pineapple, lemongrass ginger sushi cake, puffed rice noodle) for £21.30. House White is Claude Val Pays d’Oc (fresh, green apples, tropical, creamy) priced £26.50. The food and wine are easy on the tastebuds and wallet; the service is easy on the eye. After a busy day buying first editions from George Baytun bookshop and handmade Italian jumpers from Gabucci (moda per uomo) it’s straight up from the bottom of Gay Street for dinner at the top. Squeezing in a cocktail in The Dark Horse en route of course. Friday evening in The Circus Restaurant is buzzy with a D4 (Dublin 4) feel to it. “What a delightful place Bath is,” cries Jane Austen’s Mrs Allen.

In his essay A Sense of Proportion John Julius Norwich writes, “Bath is a city of superlatives. First of all, it is the most beautiful in Britain. Next, it is the most appropriately named [unlike Bognor Regis which despite name boasts an elegant Victorian seafront] … Finally, and most gloriously of all, it is the one city in this country where fine building and inspired town planning go hand in hand, together creating an atmosphere of Palladian elegance and civilised refinement without equal anywhere.” That was 49 years ago. But as Jane Austen’s character Mr Tilney asked 206 years ago, “Oh, who can ever be tired of Bath?”

The 2nd Viscount Norwich, son of the socialite Lady Diana Cooper, continues, “The Circus, with its three splendid superimposed arcades loosely based on the Roman Colosseum, is a triumph. Still unfinished when John Wood died in 1754, it was completed by his son, who went on to create an even grander concept, the Royal Crescent, the first crescent in English architecture. In the work of both Woods we can see the principles of Palladian landscaping being followed just as much as those of Palladian proportions. In The Circus, the streets leading in are carefully arranged not to bisect it; in the same way the Royal Crescent, though less than 300 yards away from The Circus down a dead straight street, is actually invisible from it – which makes the sudden discovery one of the great dramatic moments of European architecture.”

He ends, “Yet the beauty of Bath and its uniqueness lie less in these individual triumphs than in the ensemble – in the squares and crescents and parades, ranging from The Circus to many a secluded, unpretentious street behind. The life they were built to sustain was vacuous, vapid and, one suspects, quite shatteringly dull; but they themselves embody very different values – strength, reason, humanity, permanence. This is the paradox of Bath. When the guidebooks call it ‘a monument to bygone elegance’ they are wrong. Only the perishable has perished. The elegance remains.” People come and go; the golden hued architecture is still on show. “The bright genius of Bath is hardly more than a beautiful display, the whim or flourish of an era,” argues Jan Morris in the introduction to Charles Robertson’s An Architectural Guide to Bath. “Edited to the smallest detail of perfection,” to use a phrase of Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors.

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The Royal Crescent Hotel + Montagu’s Mews Bath Somerset

The Silent Banshee

In the late 20th century Cotswolds based neoclassical architect William Bertram converted one of England’s greatest country houses into a hotel and a pair of England’s greatest townhouses into a hotel. At one time, both were owned by Von Essen Hotels. Cliveden House Hotel, Berkshire, and The Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath. Two of the three centremost houses of Royal Crescent were combined and a Dower House built in the mews in the early 1980s. In his book Bath (1944), Tony Smith sums up the country’s most majestic concave semi elliptical piece of architecture: “The whole conception and plan of this dazzling achievement is eloquent of the halcyon days of Bath.” Professor David Watkin describes it in The Practice of Classical Architecture: Quinlan and Francis Terry (2015) as “a half crescent facing down a grassy slope”. In 2010, the Terrys even designed their own crescent of retirement homes in Danbury, Essex.

“As the black of a dinner jacket sets off the bright colours of a dress, so the squares, crescents, quadrangles and circles of bath provide a geometric stage for the flow of life,” reckons Jan Morris in the introduction to An Architectural Guide to Bath by Charles Robertson (1975). William Lowndes notes in The Royal Crescent in Bath, (1981), “The central house of the Crescent is Number 16. It is one of the largest houses, and the adjacent houses also come into this category. There are two distinguishing features about the façade of Number 16 which emphasise its commanding position at the apex of the great curve of the Crescent. Four columns are grouped in pairs, and there is an arched first floor window from which both arms of the Crescent can be viewed in all their elegant symmetry.” There is a third distinguishing feature: it is the only house with single pane wide hall windows flanking the entrance door.

The treatment of the centre of the Crescent has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Charles Robertson notes, “The colonnade is not perfectly continuous; in the middle there is the most unobtrusive of breaks, four of the columns being grouped in pairs with a round headed window in between. This method of marking the centre has been variously criticised as being either unnecessary or insufficient. The former view was voiced as early as 1773, as quoted by Walter Ison, ‘The wretched attempt to make a centre to the Crescent where none was necessary is absurd and preposterous, in a high degree. The pairing of the pillars is too small a difference to be noted in so large a building …’” This 18th century critic radically suggests a chapel should have been placed in the middle of the terrace.

“The houses have had some notable occupants,” opines William Lowndes, “particularly during the first 50 years of their history. Elizabeth Montagu, who rejoiced in the spaciousness of their rooms, entertained many of the outstanding literary figures of the late 18th century there … The first dramatic change for over 100 years came in 1950, when Number 16 became a guesthouse. In 1971, together with Number 15, the guesthouse designation was abandoned, and The Royal Crescent Hotel was launched.” He records the presence of a ghost in Number 15: a lady in a long blue silk dress at the top of the stairs. She graciously descends, bestowing a warm smile on guests and staff, before disappearing. He guesses it is the social reformer and patron of the arts Elizabeth Montagu still enjoying her home from beyond the grave. “I believe unique places and people are what give the fabric of our lives richness,” says Edward Gabbai, Founder and Director of the Boutique Hotel Awards.

A hotel is the perfect alternative use and does not require subdivision: these houses were built for entertaining. John Haddon frets in Portrait of Bath (1982), “Conversion is not easy and some of these flats are not particularly convenient, although others are rather splendid. After all, these houses were built without electricity or gas, upstairs piped water, bathrooms, or, in many cases WCs, and they were heated by coal fires, so that to provide separate entrances, kitchens, lavatories and bathrooms on each floor calls for a good deal of ingenuity, although more recent conversions to what the selling agents like to call ‘prestigious apartments’ is made easier by gutting the building and rebuilding behind the original façade. Moreover, subdivision of Georgian rooms destroys their proportions and creates units which tend to be too high for their width. On the other hand, if a room is left as originally built it is expensive to heat.”

John Wood the Younger employed several builders on the 30 houses. They were all constrained by defined dimensions and designs on the cut limestone ashlar façade while allowed to run amok inside and to the rear. Over the course of eight years starting in 1767, the 152 metre long 15 metre high 114 engaged six metre tall Roman Ionic columned terrace took shape in all its geometric sophistication. The columns support a continuous returned balustraded parapet, modillion cornice and frieze. The occasional plate glass window, blind box and metal balconette are almost the only later derivations from the architect’s original concept. One other variation counteracting the powerful elongated temple front is found in the fanlight glazing bars including single pane; three vertical panes; diamond, oval and fish eye patterns. The number of entrance door panels also varies. Clever maths is at play to allow a central door in a terrace of an even number of 30 houses: 95 windows are shared unevenly. Number 1 is three bays wide on the curve; Number 2 to 13 are each three bays wide; Numbers 14 to 16 are each four bays wide; Numbers 17 to 29 are each three bays wide; and Number 30 is four bays wide on the curve.

The architect stipulated that the exterior woodwork must be painted white in perpetuity. Two centuries later, Annabel Wellesley-Colley broke the covenant much to the horror of her neighbours. In 1972 she painted the front door of her house yellow, and to make matters even worse, hung yellow blinds either side of it. She then took to sunbathing on her balcony wearing a yellow bikini. Naturally, Annabel chose the same hue for the suit she wore to the consequent public inquiry at Bath’s Guildhall. She won. “I am a descendent of the Duke of Wellington whose favourite colour was yellow and I regard it as my duty to uphold the tradition!” declared Annabel Wellesley-Colley. The door of Number 22 is still yellow. Charles Robertson wasn’t impressed: “The yellow door and blinds demonstrate how idiosyncrasy can spill over into bad manners.”

Lunch in Montagu’s Mews overlooking the gardens is an incredibly stylish affair. The delicately decorated ground floor reception rooms of William Bertram’s building flow into each other with grace and charm. Elizabeth Montagu would approve if she ever ventures beyond the staircase hall of Number 15. After the geometric perfection of the famous façade, the rear elevations of the Crescent are a glorious asymmetric jumble best viewed over Cornish day boat fish. “A fascinating disharmony,” observes Richard Morriss (on the architecture not the food) in The Buildings of Bath (1993). “A hodge podge, job lot look, an enthralling muddle,” adds Jan Morris (still on the architecture).

Julia Kent provided a review for House and Garden in May 1987, “The restaurant at The Royal Crescent Hotel is an elegant setting for elegant food, the style of which is contemporary yet classic. First courses have recently included gâteaux of wild mushrooms (a crisp potato galette with creamed spinach and girolles) with timbale of trout with a ragout of shellfish and a rich langoustine butter sauce. For the main course, you might opt for fillet of salmon steamed with cucumber and chive cream sauce. A three course meal from the à la carte menu costs about £27.00.” Lunch is a trifle (or two) more expensive these days.

A lifetime ago, Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors, shared her thoughts that interiors can be classified as either cluttered, hot climate, designer decorated, minimal, ancestral, simple, shabby chic or eccentric. Her London home was definitely “shabby chic” (a term she’d invented) while her Canary Islands retreat was of course “hot climate”. Min did admit, “To subdivide all the glories of interior design into a mere eight categories is shockingly presumptuous but they are fundamental.” The original drawing room of Number 16 currently falls into “modern” unlike the “ancestral” interior of the great fun museum in Number 1 Royal Crescent, one of the two five bay fronted end houses. The middle bay of each of the two end houses is defined by a wider gap between the engaged Roman Ionic columns either side of the central first and second floor windows above a pedimented Doric doorcase. This could have been an alternative solution to the central treatment of the Crescent. The corners of the end houses are emphasised by paired engaged columns on the principal elevations.

Who could forget the cartoon amidst the ancestral decoration of Number 1 Royal Crescent sitting room of a gentleman performing the Dicky Dangle Dance? Back at The Royal Crescent Hotel, the modern art of the drawing room recalls The Snob Spotter’s Guide by Philippe Jullian (1958), “Molly was telling me that at the beginning of his career Picasso used a lot of blue in his pictures. She calls it his Blue Period.” Truer to form, Montagu’s Mews is subtly “designer decorated”. Min often commented, “Beautiful interior decoration will always be one of life’s greatest pleasures.”

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The Landmark Trust + Marshal Wade’s House Bath Somerset

Unvernacular

“I can well remember the first time I entered Bath. It was a very hot day in the summer of 1937 … towards the evening I came to the hills which engirdle the Queen City of the West. Tired and footsore as I was, I lost nothing of that breathtaking moment when the eye first catches sight of that lovely terraced city. Lying, so to speak, in a vast amphitheatre, surrounded by hills of enchanting beauty, it seemed like a city out of an Eastern romance, a new Jerusalem built by some magic hand in England’s green and pleasant land.” That is how Tony Smith reminisced on the Pride of Wessex in his 1944 book simply titled Bath. Hyperbole becomes reality in this city.

Four decades later Kenneth Hudson notes in The Fashionable Stone, “The development of the Combe Down quarries at Bath in the 18th century was due almost entirely to the enterprise of Ralph Allen, who went into the stone business immediately after the Avon navigation was completed in 1727. The improvement in communication by water from Bath made it possible to ship stone by barge to Bristol and from there by ship to anywhere in Britain. It was the Avon navigation that broke the virtual export monopoly that Portland had held for so long.”

The Landmark Trust’s central Bath property predates John Wood the Elder and John Wood the Younger’s developments. This remarkable 1720s townhouse built for Ralph Allen’s friend Field Marshal George Wade – swapping his military life in the Scottish highlands for political life as MP for Bath – was rescued by the Trust in 1975. The ground and first floors are retail use. The top two floors of this now single aspect (save for one landing roof window) south facing building are holiday accommodation. Two reception rooms evenly occupy the four bays of the second floor. A freestanding octagonal kitchen (sink, cooker, fridge and cupboards all in one waist height compact unit) in one of the reception rooms is parallel with five of the walls including the chamfered chimneypiece wall. This allows the panelling and bolection mouldings to remain intact. Two bedrooms on the storey above have floors so slanted that walking across them is like being tipsy on a rocky boat.

All seven main windows (one of the windows in the outer bathroom wall is a dummy) of the palazzo façade overlook Abbey Churchyard. Thankfully it’s a car free space unlike The Circus and Royal Crescent. The angels climbing up and down Jacob’s Ladder on the west elevation of Bath Abbey are almost in touching distance. Directly opposite are the roofs of The Pump Room. The best view is from the loo on the top floor. Unusually for this hallowed and documented city, the provenance of Marshal Wade’s House is lost in the mists of time. The architect was certainly familiar with Andrea Palladio’s Libri dell’Architettura of 1570. “The Ionic pilasters are the first in Bath of the giant order,” Richard Morriss confirms in The Buildings of Bath (1993), “rising through two storeys.” Charles Robertson records in An Architectural Guide to Bath (1974), “The attic storey is somewhat different and may have been added or altered at a later date. “The building next door to the east clearly has a later top floor.

Heading downhill and arriving four decades later, Robert Adam’s Pulteney Bridge is a lighter version of neoclassicism in contrast to the virility of Marshal Wade’s House. Richard Morriss ponders, “It is said to reflect Palladio’s proposal for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.” Charles Robertson isn’t so sure: “Walter Ison suggests that the design may be adapted from a drawing in Palladio’s Terzo Libri dell’Architettura but the resemblance is not at all close, and Adam would presumably have regarded imitation of Palladio as old fashioned. There is really no reason to consider this simple but masterly design as anything other than original.”

So who was the first occupant of this house? George Wade’s family had settled in County Westmeath in the 17th century. Clearly at some stage he crossed the Irish Sea to settle in the West Country. Denise Chantrey records in George Wade 1673 to 1748 (2009), “Wade was a man who made and kept many friends who might easily have been his enemies. He was straightforward and honest, and made a point of seeing the other man’s point of view. He was a flamboyant character and he loved cards, wine, women, comfort, good furniture and art. He had friends in high places but gambled in low dives. He was vain and often commissioned portraits of himself which he gave to family and friends.” It would be rude not to continue the established partying tradition then in his not so humble Palladian abode.

Director of The Landmark Trust Dr Anna Keay explains, “Over 50,000 people now stay every year in The Landmark Trust’s buildings and experience the pleasure of carrying the key of the door in their pocket, ‘a stimulus more powerful than a mere ticket of admission’, and the possibility, for which Landmark was founded, that they ‘might go back home with an interest awakened that would grow, and perhaps last them all of their lives’.” An awakened interest it is then but not before afternoon sherry is decanted at a stop off in Corkage. Life is a stage behind the velvet curtains of this intimate restaurant and bottle shop on Chapel Row. “There is a poignancy,” writes Jan Morris in the introduction to Charles Robertson’s Guide, “to this diminutive side of Bath, or if not a poignancy, a wistfulness.”

In The Landmark Handbook (1988) the then Prince of Wales wrote in the forward: “While I am fortunate to be the Patron or President of a great many charities, I have always been a particular enthusiast for the work of The Landmark Trust. Its philosophy accords closely with my own convictions that historic buildings need – indeed deserve – sympathetic and skilled repair and a viable contemporary purpose both to survive and thrive. It is wonderful that the Trust’s restored buildings give much enjoyment, as well as earn the income to support themselves and the charity that cares for them.” Much enjoyment – taking his now Majesty’s advice the toons are turned up! Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors, liked to have the last word, “The most successful houses reflect their surroundings.”

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SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem + Tel Aviv

Diligent Hands Make Wealth

Achilles James Daunt CBE is not one to rest on his laurels. MD and reinventor of British bookshop chain Waterstone since 2011, back in 1990 the former banker purchased an Edwardian bookshop on Marylebone High Street (incidentally the US Ambassador to the UK Jane Hartley’s favourite London street), stocked it with the best titles, renamed it after himself, and the rest is literary history. The top lit three storey interior is lined with long oak galleries. Stained glass windows and William Morris wallpaper add to the period charm of what is now undoubtedly London’s finest bookshop. There are offshoots in Belsize Park, Cheapside, Hampstead, Holland Park Kentish Town, Oxford and Marlow.

We’re proud to announce Daunt Books Marylebone is the world exclusive stockist of the first book by Lavender’s Blue. You’re getting our dynamic: SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv now takes pride of place in the Middle East travel section shelves. It’s about all our favourite places rolled into two: one of the newest and one of the oldest cities in the world. Brought to fruition by the genius of Digitronix, industry leaders in multi disciplinary design and print. Not forgetting Pete R’s invaluable direction. Beyond conventional categorisation, for we are more than mere phantoms, maybe it’s best to quote some readers’ reactions (from Royalty to Archbishopry to Clergy to Society) to the first edition. Time for some laurel resting.

“This is an outstanding achievement. A vivid creative expression of your wide literary interests and your strong visual sense — and particularly for this subject, your personal spiritual values. Being a person of no religion myself, I’m enjoying your quotations from Biblical sources, especially those expressed in 17th century language. Also the well chosen theological and historical quotes from leading writers of today which are thought provoking. Your rich text together with your wonderful illustrations gives the reader so much to understand and to appreciate about the places described. Congratulations! This is a very engaging book for the reader, it feels like the living experience of a journey with the many historical facts, associations and emotions that are stimulated by travel. In many ways your book makes me think of Jan Morris, who is the ‘grand master’ of travel writing — though she doesn’t offer the reader your richness of visual imagery! I should add that I’m also enjoying your Nancy Mitford references and I really love your quote from Min Hogg: ‘Visiting a hot country especially for those who are not native to it reawakens the senses.’ This is so true.”

“Super, you capture the essence of the Holy Land and Presentation A1, your Singular Contribution to Publishing today. The Slip Cover, so enticing as is the Midnight Blue Binding. So many thanks for the mention, and so apt the dedication to Brother and Prince Alfred. Vulcans must have carried you from desk to studio, as I have never seen a publication arrive at such speed, it is the works of you and the God of letters and images. Now congratulations, and press on now with the next Project, you have The Gift!”

“How wonderful, beautiful, how gracious. So with the packaging still on the floor the next hour was spend reading the text and looking at the gorgeous photographs. Thank you SO much it was so kind of you to think of me for such a beautiful book. I look forward to reading more.  I’ve noticed how the Biblical texts seem so comfortable on the page but also how they are vibrant or energy filled almost as if they jump off the page. You have chosen so well and carefully.”

“Just opened the sumptuous tome on Tel Aviv. What fabulous photographs – they really inspire me to visit and confirm all the wonderful things I have heard about the city. I shall study as the nights draw in and dream of sun kissed climes. You are a true artist of the lens! Straight to the top of the pile … after reading.”

“I was blown away by the stunning book … It is beautiful! I am in awe of the clarity and depth of each picture that speaks so vividly they draw you in … And the time, skill and story you have shared through this stunning piece of art! Thank you so so much (I particularly like page 180)!”

“AND – yesterday we opened a parcel with an amazing book in it – Sabbath Plus One is amazing – what a wonderful creation … utterly incredible and what a lovely gift – we were both enthralled. THANK YOU so much for sending us a copy – beyond that I am speechless! Just THANK YOU.”

“An Amazing Work – I really can’t believe it was the fruit of a lay weekend visit. It feels like you really got under the skin of the place – and had great fun in doing so. Your work is already drawing much attention from those coming into my office.”

“A very interesting book – amazing photos taken with an architectural eye. Brought back memories! I see Newtownstewart and Pubble got a mention on page 28!”

“Amazing photography accompanied by your usual descriptive style and excerpts from Scripture too. Wonderful!”

“Super Daunt Books reception! You follow in the paths of H V Morton and Mary McCarthy. Again, press on and on.”

“A total entity onto itself.”

“I like the book title.”

“A beautiful book.”

(Alternative imagery from the bestseller SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv).