REGENCY RELOADED

LET’S CUT THROUGH THE GLAM AND LOOK AT THE GRITTY,
THE COMICAL, AND ALL THE WEIRD AND FASCINATING
STUFF THAT MAKES THE
REGENCY ERA SO GREAT

IT’S NOT ALL PUMP ROOMS AND JANE AUSTEN:
THE SEAMY SIDE OF BATH

Ah, Bath! One of the most beautiful towns in England. Nestled along the Avon River, the houses climb in glorious terraces of honey-colored stone up the surrounding hillsides. Fanny Burney lived here, as did Jane Austen. When we think of Bath, we think of Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth. We think of the Royal Crescent and the Circus. We imagine strolling in the Orange Grove or sipping the waters in the Pump Room. Bath is the epitome of gentility, designed by its architects as a Utopian spa where the wealthy would gather to rest, relax, and amuse themselves with dancing, card-playing, and drinking lots of tea.

We don’t associate Bath with poverty, crime and disease. Yet, there were neighborhoods during the Georgian and Regency periods—and beyond—that were almost as bad as the infamous rookeries of London’s East End. The worst of the slums was situated in Lower Town, along the Avon River, home to the city’s wharves and to the constant mercantile traffic that flowed into Bath.

The center of this blight was Avon Street. For decades, it was a sanctuary for thieves and gamblers, and notorious for every type of criminal or unsavoury behaviour. In the latter half of the 18th century the area held an astounding number of alehouses: one house in nine or ten had a license to serve alcohol. On Avon Street, the number was one in eight. This part of Lower Town, a site of continual drinking by all accounts, was also the haunt of “the nymphs of Avon Street,” as the local prostitutes were sometimes referred to.

By 1821, Avon Street was home to 1,519 persons, about 5% of the population of Bath squeezed into a street just a few blocks long. By then it was so squalid and dangerous that even the alehouse keepers had deserted it. Flooding from the river was an annual problem, with sewage from the drains and waste from pigsties and a slaughter house backing up into basements and into the streets. Here’s a picture of what the area may have looked like in the 19th century.

In 1831, an epidemic of cholera hit the city. More than half of those who died came from Avon Street. Ten years later, a Reverend Elwin wrote:

...whatever contagious or epidemic disease prevailed, - fever, smallpox, influenza, (Avon Street) was the scene of the principal ravages...Everything vile and offensive is congregated there. All the scum of Bath – its low prostitutes, its thieves, its beggars – are piled up in the dens rather than the houses of which the street consists.

Tucked away from of the glories of Upper Town, Avon Street and the surrounding environs housed many of those who labored in the building trades. These were the men who helped make Bath a small Utopia, but it was a paradise denied them and their families, as they lived out their short lives in squalor, violence, and disease.

Sources:
The City of Bath, by Barry Cunliffe
BATH 1680-1850: A Social History, Or A Valley of Pleasure, Yet A Sink Of Iniquity, by R.S. Neale
Bath as Jane Austen knew it: A walking tour of the city, by Terry Old

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