The Bath Magazine March 2020

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Illustration by Dave Bain

ISSUE 210 | MARCH 2020 | thebathmag.co.uk | £3.95 where sold

ROOMS TO IMPRESS

Interior visions: chic spaces and local suppliers to support your design journey

THESPIAN STORM

Michael Pennington takes on Prospero in The Tempest

RULES FOR REBELLION

Sophie Walker on how there is no need for women to settle for less

PARTNERS IN CRIME

Meet a mismatched detective duo in ITV’s new Bathbased police drama

T H E C I T Y ’ S B I G G E S T M O NTHLY GUIDE TO LIFE AND LIVING IN BATH

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Contents 5 THINGS

58

92

March 2020

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10

Essential events to look forward to this month

TOWN TWINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Imogen Windsor tells the story of Buxton, the other sacred settlement built by the Romans around thermal springs

THE BOBBIES ON BATH’S BEAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Jessica Hope investigates the new Bath-based television drama McDonald and Dodds

WHAT’S ON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Our guide to the top events happening around the city

PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Michael Pennington opens up about his life and work as he steps into the shoes of Shakespeare’s Prospero

TAKE TWO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

BATH AT WORK

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62

Neill Menneer’s portrait of hardware store owner Mike Langbridge

WONDER WOMEN

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68

Kate Pankhurst talks about her latest book on the fantastic women from history who saved the planet

WOMEN IN POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Simon Horsford interviews activist Sophie Walker ahead of International Women’s Day

Georgina Southam profiles two films at The Little Theatre Cinema

STEPPING BACK IN TIME

CITY ARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Andrew Swift walks us through the historic town of Warminster

The latest art exhibitions from around the city

INTERIOR NOTES

HIGH-OCTANE ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Discover interior designer Clair Strong’s latest renovation project

Emma Clegg meets Bristol illustrator Dave Bain, who created the image on our front cover (can you see the hidden face?)

THE POWER OF PLANTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

FOOD WRITES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 Melissa Blease and Emma Clegg debate the merits of writing about food and take a trip down memory lane

WINTER WARMERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Emma Clegg visits No.15 Great Pulteney for a Sunday roast, surrounded by dispensary bottles

More content and updates online: thebathmag.co.uk

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Follow us on Twitter @thebathmagazine

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Jane Moore asks where we would be without plants

THE PROPERTY PAGES

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Bath’s finest homes to buy or rent

ON THE COVER

The cover image with an interiors theme by illustrator Dave Bain was specially commissioned for The Bath Magazine; davebain.com

Follow us on Instagram @thebathmagazine

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EDITOR’S PICKS GO ON, MIX IT UP

When it comes to creating an inspiring home, mixing modern furniture with vintage finds can be a winning combination. “You want to have your own identity and bring items into your home that you want to be surrounded by,” says Laura Barnard, product manager at Arlo & Jacob. Offering the backdrop to our lives, such objects create a sense of belonging and comfort. arloandjacob.com

from the

Editor photograph by Matthew Sterling

“

T

he details are not the details. They make the design.” Charles Eames, you are so right. Take the Lost Earring Chandelier above – its magical shower of poetry and imagination defines its home at No.15 Great Pulteney. We have interior details and designs in abundance this month, with two outstanding interiors – a cleanly designed house that majors on white on page 92, and a cottage with an extension celebrating natural light on page 94. And if you want to update any details or designs yourself, refer to our overflowing directory of local suppliers and resources, from page 98, to furnish your every interior requirement.

Details are also on the money in a detective drama, and as a new one set in Bath hits our screens this month, we are delighted that our city has let go of its Georgian bonnets for a spell and embraced a new modern detective duo called MacDonald and Dodds. Jessica Hope investigates on page 24.

The role of Prospero in The Tempest – which comes to Bath Theatre Royal from 7–11 April – is as much storyteller as protagonist, and his character, directing the action around him, has been likened to Shakespeare himself.

Melissa Blease talks to Michael Pennington, who takes on Prospero, on page 34, about interpreting this momentous part in the Bard’s final play.

With International Women’s Day coming up on 8 March, activist and journalist Sophie Walker, who has been described as a ‘modern-day suffragette’, is coming to the city to talk about her new book, Five Rules for Rebellion. Simon Horsford asks her on page 70 about how these rules can give women the power to convert confusion and impatience into a force for change. The women’s cause has also been taken up by Kate Pankhurst, who is a cousin of Emmeline Pankhurst’s descendants. Bearing such a name, the suffragette’s struggle has duly influenced Kate’s work as a children’s author and illustrator, including her latest creation, Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet. Kate is coming to Bath on 8 March, and talks to us on page 68.

Imogen Windsor takes a look at the renaissance of the northern spa town of Buxton on page 58 (with close reference to our own) and on page 48 Melissa Blease and myself talk about the challenges and the changing fashions in writing about food. And I have a go at just that on page 50 when I have Sunday lunch at No.15 Great Pulteney.

Whether it’s building a home, books, bobbies, bards, rebellion or Buxton that ballast your boat best, let’s welcome in March.

Emma Clegg Editor

All paper used to make this magazine is taken from good sustainable sources and we encourage our suppliers to join an accredited green scheme. Magazines are now fully recyclable. By recycling magazines, you can help to reduce waste and contribute to the six million tonnes of paper already recycled by the UK paper industry each year. Please recycle this magazine, but if you are not able to participate in a recycling scheme, then why not pass your magazine on to a friend or colleague.

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CREATE YOUR OWN SCRIPT

There’s so much creative talent in and around Bath, but what about a networking group that unites people who work in theatre and film? Scriptwriter Suzanna Cardash is set to change this. Knowing that collaboration is critical – few playwrights or screenwriters also produce, direct, act in, film, design sound and light or orchestrate soundtracks – she’s set up a new networking company for everyone studying or working in the performing arts. Scriptwriters Bath & Co (SB&Co) is for playwrights, screenwriters, actors, filmmakers and theatrical producers at any stage of their career. Scriptwriters are invited to submit excerpts of their work before 16 March for the inaugural SB&Co Networking and Scratch Night in Bath on 24 March 2020. scriptwritersbath.co.uk HORTICULTURE FOR VOLUNTEERS

Bath residents are invited to become outdoor gardening and conservation volunteers or take advantage of free horticultural training. Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Sydney Gardens team is holding volunteering sessions on Wednesday mornings and the Friends of Sydney Gardens run activities on every second Sunday of the month. The gardens are the UK’s only surviving Georgian Pleasure Gardens and are undergoing restoration following a £2.7m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. bathnes.gov.uk/sydneygardening

❝

The ache for home lives in all of us.

The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned

❞

MAYA ANGELOU (1928–2014)

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5

ZEITGEIST

things to do in

Dirty Bath at the Rondo Theatre

March Watch The Natural Theatre Company is celebrating its 50th birthday this year and will premiere its brand-new show Dirty Bath at the Rondo Theatre.

The play tells a hilarious and alternative, although no less accurate, history of Bath, shedding light on the darker and lesser-known aspects of the city’s past. Running from 11–14 March, audiences can expect to witness the company’s usual quirky comedy characters and street-theatre antics as it explores the underbelly of Bath. Tickets from £16; naturaltheatre.co.uk

The Bath Half Marathon and the Family Fun Run takes place on 15 March

Cheer One of the longest established and most popular city centre road events in the UK, the Bath Half Marathon is set to hit the streets on 15 March. With runners often raising money for local and national charities, the road race is the largest fundraising event in the south west region. In 2017 alone, the Bath Half raised over £2.25 million for a number of different charities. Much to the delight of the runners, the 13.1 mile course is renowned for its uplifting atmosphere and is ideal for beginners due to its flat route. The race straddles the picturesque River Avon as it loops around the city and starts and finishes in Great Pulteney Street. Spectators and residents alike are welcome to cheer on the competitors; bathhalf.co.uk Bill Bailey at the Bath Comedy Festival

Admire

Jessica Siggers at The Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel on 26 March

Following the success of the Phenomenal Women events last year, The Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel is hosting a new programme of events with women who have made a difference. Each talk will be delivered by a high-profile businesswomen who has achieved widespread recognition in her field. On 26 March, digital content creator Jessica Siggers will be talking about how she overcame obstacles and challenges on her route to success. Tickets from £15; eventbrite.co.uk

Listen Laugh The much-loved Bath Comedy Festival will be returning to venues around the city from 30 March to 19 April. Running for 12 consecutive years and with more than 300 comedians performing at more than 100 events across the 21day festival, the events are sure to be punctuated by the roaring of laughter this spring. This year, audiences can enjoy performances from the likes of Bill Bailey, Simon Evans and Josh Widdicombe; bathcomedy.com

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Conductor Pete Harrison will lead the orchestra at The Forum

Back by popular demand, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is performing at The Forum on 27 March with Hollywood Head to Head, featuring classic soundtracks from two great film composers, Hans Zimmer and John Williams. They will perform pieces from film classics such as Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Inception, Harry Potter, The Thin Red Line and Batman Begins. Tickets from £29.50; bsolive.com n

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The city

ist

THE BUZZ THE BUZZ

My BATH

Ruth Keily is the executive director at Mentoring Plus, a local charity supporting young people facing significant challenges. Ruth has dedicated her career to help young people fulfil their potential

Young star wins award

Bath’s much-loved egg theatre is celebrating after one of its productions won a major award at a theatre festival in Philadelphia. Toby Thompson was awarded the prestigious Showcase Victor Award for his production, I Wish I Was a Mountain. The show began its life at the egg’s annual Incubator show in 2017, and Toby then developed it into a full-scale performance. He has since been described by critics as “a star in the making”. theatreroyal.org.uk

Razzle dazzle ’em

I’m from near Bristol originally and I moved to Bath with my family in 2003. I live in Bathwick now and I love that it’s peaceful, close to town and also to countryside. It’s also just ten minutes walk to work at Riverside Youth Hub.

Bath was a special day out when I was little.

My first weekend job was in Bart’s Bazaar, a marketplace of boho stalls then on Bartlett Street. When I left London, Bath is where I wanted to be. I met lots of fun people and never looked back.

I have been at Mentoring Plus since 2013.

We’ve grown from seven staff and a capacity of 30 mentees, then to 17 staff, and now have over 90 mentees. My predecessor, Jamie Luck, led a lot of that growth, and together we’ve built a skilled and ambitious team. It’s needed – demand for mentoring is off the scale.

When I think of Bath’s surroundings, it’s the views that inspire. From Kelston Round Hill, or the American Museum. Or from the A4 coming downhill from Corsham to Box and you see the whole By Brook Valley heading to the hills of Bath. In a summer sunset, with hot air balloons overhead, it’s beyond beautiful.

The Bath Half is our biggest community fundraising event of the year. We’ll have 35 runners including several staff and mentors this year. My role is in our hospitality tent feeding them flapjacks and bananas – it’s a brilliant day out.

I’d say right here, right now is the happiest time of my life. My family are clever and funny and brave. I’ve got friends I can be silly or serious with. I love this work and the people I’m doing it with. I’ve stopped worrying what other people think. Mostly.

I’m still learning. Could be worse!

We support 7–21 year olds across BathNES facing tough challenges. They deserve to be heard, to be safe and to feel hopeful for their future, and our community can help. Our mentors help young people get out and have fun exploring their positive interests, which builds trust, and gives time to talk and overcome difficulties.

Singing songs from smash hit West End musicals, such as Wicked, Rent and Avenue Q, as well as lesser known off-Broadway-gems, all a cappella, Bath Show Choir is exciting, fast-paced and a whole load of fun.

There are no auditions and although the choir do work from scores, you don’t have to be able to read music to join. All you need to bring is a passion for musical theatre. The choir rehearses on Thursday evenings from 7.30–9.30pm at Widcombe Social Club during term times and your first session is absolutely free. With regular performances across the south west and further afield, plus socials and theatre trips, bring some of that West End magic to your week and join Bath Show Choir today. bathshowchoir.com

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When I left university, I wanted to work for a charity. I met a director of Friends of the Earth and he advised me to go and get some commercial experience and then come back to the sector. I worked in publishing and in the city, helped my husband run a business, then started with Mentoring Plus. Mostly happy accidents really, but here I am.

It’s so motivating meeting business leaders who want to get involved. Companies help us promote volunteering, and some donate employees’ time. Businesses also get that we have bills to pay – corporate donations make a real difference to us.

There are 50 to 60 mentors who work with us at any one time. They’re all ages, all backgrounds, all life experiences, but have each decided to give a couple of hours a week to transform a young person’s outlook. Seven volunteer trustees also donate time, skills and insight to help us.

If I had to take up another professsion, I’d be an archaeologist. There’s something about the combination of problem-solving and connecting to ancient people’s lives. I’ve watched all 20 seasons of Time Team – surely that means I’m qualified?

If I could close my eyes and be whisked away somewhere, I’d go to Porthgwidden beach in St Ives, Cornwall. I love the whole place but that beach is extra special – golden sand, turquoise water, dolphins and seals. Lots of happy memories with family and friends.

Johan Hari’s book Lost Connections has recently made an impression on me. He’s changed the way I think about depression and anxiety. We all need to feel connected to each other, to our purpose and our sense of the future, and we grieve if these connections are lost.

There’s so much that still needs to be done.

I’d like to know Mentoring Plus was 100% financially secure for the long term so we could plan, grow and reach even more young people who need support. It’s a big ask but with this community, who says it’s impossible? ■ mentoringplus.net

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The city

ist

Green news from the city Sustainable Bath Cities around the world are making active changes to ensure they reduce, reuse and recycle their waste, to improve their environmental sustainability. According to a recent study carried out by Sarru Home, a company that salvages and recycles vintage products, the city of Bath was revealed as the most sustainable shopping district in the UK, proving to be 85% more sustainable than the average UK city. The study looked at the shopping districts of the biggest cities in the UK and tallied up the number of shops they currently have in six areas including sustainable clothing, furniture, food and entertainment. The four other cities with sustainable shopping districts were Cambridge, Bristol, Nottingham and Newcastle upon Tyne. London and Birmingham were found to be the least sustainable shopping districts.

Furniture company, Sarru Home, dubbed Bath as the most sustainable shopping district in the UK

Plastic bottles banished After promising to eliminate single-use plastics by 2021, the Bath Half Marathon has joined forces with Wessex Water to help banish plastic bottles from the race.

This landmark partnership will be the first UK water company to team up with a road race of this scale. The race takes place on 15 March and throughout the entire 13.1 miles, Wessex Water will supply fresh tap water to runners in a bid to totally free the Bath Half of single-use plastics.

Those in need of refreshments will also be able to fill their reusable bottles at specially designed HydroZones, which will feature tap water stations and will also supply water in compostable cups for those who prefer to not run with a bottle.

The Refill not Landfill campaign is set to significantly reduce Bath Half’s environmental footprint. wessexwater.co.uk; bathhalf.co.uk

Wessex Water have teamed up with Bath Half to help eliminate single-use plastic from the race by 2021

Funds for climate projects

FACE received £1,177 to help empower families to improve their carbon footprint

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For the sixth consecutive year, the community benefit society, Bath and West Community Energy (BWCE), has awarded £28,370 in funding to eight organisations, which work tirelessly to help local residents tackle climate change.

The BWCE split the fund between organisations including the Family Action on Climate Emergency, which received £1,177 to help empower families in Bath and the surrounding area to take action and improve their carbon footprint, as well as Bath Cloth Nappy Library, Cold Homes Energy Efficiency Survey Experts and Kilter Theatre. bwce.coop

March 2020 | issue 210

Green thoughts Jay Risbridger, managing director of the Green Stationary Company, explains how we need to educate ourselves in order to interpret the constant environmental claims around us

Recently there has been a deluge of advertising and marketing by brands keen to show their environmental credentials – car makers, oil companies and airlines proclaiming they are carbon neutral and sustainable. What are we to make of these claims? Are they substantiated? How do we tell the difference between ‘greenwash’ and actions that can preserve our environment?

In general, quantitative evidence can be very misleading when estimating environmental performance, and open to manipulation. Environmental claims are much better examined in terms of their qualitative impacts. But in order for consumers to make informed judgements they have to educate themselves; in particular understanding something about the ecological systems that we need to protect. The air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we grow our food in are all the consequence of a complex interaction and interdependence of plants, animals, bio-chemicals and sunlight. The knowledge of these ecological systems has been popularised by nature programmes such as Blue Planet.

To be sustainable we should take qualitative actions. We must stop using finite resources. We need to create circular production systems where things are repaired, re-used and recycled. In January it was announced that the University of Bath is leading a £4.8 million consortium to develop sustainable plastic manufacturing and help promote a circular economy. Most importantly we need to stop dumping things into the environment, because this is destroying our ecological systems.

The next time you see an advert that says an electric car is the green future, think about whether the production of the car creates polluting waste and does it use non re-newable resources. You might even ask if private cars can ever be sustainable – surely a real green future involves not moving around so much? greenstat.co.uk

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CITY | NOTEBOOK

Richard Wyatt:

Notes on a small city

Columnist Richard Wyatt adopts a counter argument, remembering a time when personal human contact offered the best type of service. Illustration by Brian Duggan

T

here’s just enough room on my tabletop, as I sit in the window of a café in Northumberland Place, to rest my cup of black Italian coffee and set down my iPad. Then it’s time to take a deep breath and muscle down to the challenge of a blank page. Actually, I don’t have to go far in search of this month’s inspiration. These are tough economic times on the high street and that’s maybe why – from large department stores to bookshops and banks – I am seeing fewer people behind the counter. It’s a commercial world of shrinking ‘can l help you’s and ‘thank you – have a nice day’s and a growing one of serving yourself.

The shopping experience is under siege.

Supermarkets started the ball rolling – it still amuses me that the person who would normally have taken your money is still needed to supervise the self-serve stations as people and their real life practical demands continue to confuse the machinery. It’s self-serve at the chemist and the bank. You can check yourself out of a well-known stationers, and they’ve even got a self-serve facility at the post office upstairs. Bath has its first completely self-service garage too.

Now I know the commercial arguments trotted out in favour. It cuts costs, and I am sure those that operate the system would say it speeds up service, but it strikes me that we’re gradually drifting away from direct human contact. The high street’s going to have to re-invent itself to survive and l think we’ve reached a stage where good customer service would actually be a gimmick worth cultivating.

I recently went to a counter till in a Milsom Street shop where the man who served me continued his conversation with a fellow worker while serving me. I didn’t even get eye contact or a ‘thank you’ when I left with my purchase. This is not good enough. Contrast that with a card shop in which I was looking for an anniversary card for my partner. “Can l help?”, said the smiling lady behind the counter, who continued to chat while I scanned the shelves. The conversation turned to how long we had been together and how we met.

She was so smitten by the romantic tale I told that I was given the card. “I am allowed,” she said, “to make a daily gift of a purchase and you’re the customer who has charmed me enough to qualify.”

That made a big impression on me. It happened last November and I can still remember it clearly. I would go back there. Not hoping for a freebie, but knowing I can count on good and friendly service.

Of course, there’s a counter argument to all of this. Pun intended.

So many of us sit at home and let the shop come to us – whether it’s a supermarket delivery or a box of goodies ordered from the world’s largest online retailer. Maybe we just don’t deserve good service any

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more. Just a man at the door with a box from a van parked nearby – usually badly – with its engine running.

Ok, I am another ‘back in the day’ man moaning about how fast the world is changing. Though I must point out my ‘musings’ are all being created and recorded on an electronic pad.

When I was a boy living in a small village, I would be sent out to get fresh bread from the bakery, steak from the butchers and I carried my grandmother’s pudding bowl to be filled with ice cream from the sweet shop that churned its own delicious brand. A trip to the local grocery store is remembered for selecting biscuits loose from a tin, while bacon rashers piled up in front of your eyes from a handoperated slicer.

I fear that future generations may run the risk of slipping completely into an electronic reality where the only human contact is made through a cell phone or computer. Where knowledge and experience stops being extracted from the real world around them.

Shopping is a communal activity where we interact with our fellow humans. A public space in which news and opinions would be shared. In such an environment I now share mine... n Richard Wyatt runs the Bath Newseum: bathnewseum.com

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Editor Tel: Email:

Emma Clegg 01225 424592 emma@thebathmagazine.co.uk

Assistant Editor/Web Editor Millie Bruce-Watt Email: millie@thebathmagazine.co.uk Financial Director Email:

Jane Miklos jane@thebathmagazine.co.uk

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FASHION | SPECIAL

PALE &

Interesting

An easy alternative to this season's neon brights – opt for shades of caramel, beige, off-white and stone. The minimal palette is very much in the spotlight for SS20, showcased on the catwalks by fashion’s big hitters Salvatore Ferragamo, Helmut Lang, Prada and Bottega Veneta.

Look out for simple slip dresses, pale knitwear and wide-leg trousers in muted shades and go head to toe with co-ordinating accessories. W We asked the womenswear team at Harvey Nichols Bristol to select their new-season hero pieces.

Max Mara roll-neck cashmere jumper, £630; Totême tapered-leg trousers, £250; Gianvito Rossi suede sandals, £575; and Wandler leather belt bag, £460.

Gestuz wide-leg jeans, £130

Vince V-neck cashmere jumper, £290

Samsøe & Samsøe checked trousers, £120

Free People cotton-blend jumper, £90

Vince brushed cotton-blend shirt dress, £390

Isabel Marant Étoile cotton-blend shorts, £255

Bec & Bridge satin midi dress, £225

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Free People faux fur jacket, £130

Eileen Fisher silk crepe de chine long shirt, £420

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FASHION | SPECIAL

Marc Jacobs The Softshot 21 leather cross-body bag, £460

Stella McCartney logo medium faux leather tote, £640

Olivia Burton Marble Florals rose gold watch, £85

Gucci Indya 105 leather ankle boots, £970

NEUTRAL GEAR

Valentino Garavani VRing leather top handle bag, £1,690

Complete this season’s pale trend with co-ordinating accessories for a look that’s straight off the catwalk with these SS20 must-haves Accessories featured are available from Harvey Nichols, Cabot Circus, and online at: harveynichols.com

Sophia Webster leather espadrille sandals, £295

Valentino Garavani VLogo 105 leather sandals, £685

Miu Miu blush square-frame sunglasses, £205

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TV | DRAMA

The new bobbies on the beat

Forget the high society balls and scandals of Georgian period dramas – Bath has become the centre of two modern-day criminal investigations as ITV brings its latest detective duo to the city for a new crime drama. Jessica Hope finds out more

A

re you itching for the next series of Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty? Or maybe Midsomer Murders is more your thing?

Do you still reminisce about Olivia Colman and David Tennant’s stand-out performances in Broadchurch?

And don’t get me started on the indomitable Idris Elba in Luther. We’re a nation of crime drama lovers. We have a fascination with the lawbreakers and lawmakers of our society, and there’s nothing better than a gripping weeknight drama to have a good chinwag about around the office water cooler the following morning.

When it comes to filming such dramas, in Bath we’re used to seeing camera crews following horses and carriages with actors holding on tight to their bonnets and top hats, rather than uniformed officers and riot vans. But if you have a keen eye, you might have spotted a different kind of production descend on the city’s streets last summer with CSI kits and police vehicles in tow…

This was all for a new ITV detective series, McDonald and Dodds, which begins on 1 March. Created and written by Robert Murphy (lead writer on DCI Banks), this series of two feature-length films takes us right into the heart of a murder investigation

Tala Gouveia as Detective Chief Inspector McDonald and Jason Watkins as Detective Sergeant Dodds

in the home of a high-flying Bath businessman, as well as a mysterious death in a local private addiction clinic.

At the centre of these investigations are a new detective duo played by BAFTA awardwinning Jason Watkins (The Crown, The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, W1A) and Tala Gouveia (Cold Feet). Watkins plays Dodds, an unassertive detective sergeant who has languished behind a desk doing cold cases for the past 12 years, and who is thrust into frontline action when the new detective chief inspector McDonald (Gouveia) comes on the scene. Moving from the fast-paced world of London’s Metropolitan Police to comparatively sleepy Bath following a leap up the career ladder, McDonald makes an impact on the local constabulary with her battering-ram approach to cracking cases, and Dodds’ old-school approach to work takes a bit of getting used to.

With all this crime-busting going on, Bath’s architecture gets a moment in the limelight, as do some of Bristol’s star locations. “We’ve spent years seeing Bath on television in period shows, so we embraced the opportunity to show the 21st-century version of the city in all its glory,” says producer Amy Thurgood. “The history and the tradition sitting alongside the realities of contemporary Bath provided a perfect backdrop for us to create a new world of crime and investigation.”

The majority of episode one was filmed in a beautiful private residence in Widcombe as the location of a supposed break-in and murder, while the stately home Eastwood Park, near Thornbury, was used as the crime scene in episode two.

“We filmed in The Guildhall, Abbey Churchyard, Abbey Green and Parade Gardens as locations for our principal actors to interact to forward their investigations.

We were lucky enough to film on Lansdown Crescent, giving us perhaps one of the most unspoilt and perfect Georgian crescents in the city,” says locations manager David Johnson.

Bath’s spectacular views over the city from Alexandra Park and Bathwick Meadows also make an appearance in both episodes.

Down the road in Bristol, the University of Bristol’s library in the Wills Memorial Building and a residence on Queen Square were also used for shots. Bottle Yard Studios was also the base for the art department to create a police station from scratch – ironically, as Bath’s central police station was closed and sold off in 2015, before an

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enquiry office in the One Stop Shop on Manvers Street was opened.

Speaking about the construction of the station, Amy says, “After the heavy lifting of building and repainting was complete, the finer details that really build the world of our police characters were introduced – watch closely and you might spot DC Craig’s addiction to junk food, or start to covet chief superintendent Houseman’s taste in contemporary art.”

Both the Bath and Bristol Film Offices were key in presenting options for filming locations, but shooting during the high summer season did lead to difficulties.

“In central Bath the sheer numbers of visitors meant we could only film in the main squares and streets on early mornings or late evenings. Without the help of local businesses and residents associations it would have been impossible to film,” says David.

Much of the series revolves around the unlikely professional pairing of DCI McDonald and DS Dodds – one a hardnosed up-and-comer, the other quite happily passing under the radar. “Our characters are polar opposites. From the start my character finds Dodds quite frustrating,” says Gouveia. “She’s quite impatient and fastpaced. She’s all action, action, action.”

“He’s the analogue to her digital world,” says Watkins. “Dodds is spectacularly dull, he’s not very brave. He’s like a technician and not very careerist.”

And yet, as we see these opposing characters forced together, they begin to rub off on one another. “Dodds begins to appreciate her world a bit and comes to understand her anxieties and pressures.

Particularly with Robert Lindsay’s character, there’s an undercurrent of racism and he sees a vulnerability in her and learns about how that is affecting her,” says Watkins. “It’s not a world that he is used to and he’s not as emotionally intelligent as she is. They begin to redefine each other as they go through, and begin to appreciate each others’ worlds.”

Robert Lindsay as Max Crockett with his family in episde one

Speaking of Robert Lindsay – the cast is exceptional. The BAFTA and Olivier awardwinning Lindsay (most recognised for his role in My Family) plays high-society entrepreneur Max Crockett, whose world comes under scrutiny when a murder takes place in his home. Despite being surrounded by police, Crockett’s mind quickly turns to deciding which of his three daughters will inherit his £30 million business.

“Although they’ve grown up in huge wealth and privilege, he doesn’t want them to support them in their adult lives in order for them to prove themselves. They’re vying against each other in a kind of modern King Lear scenario,” says Ellie Kendrick (Game of Thrones), who plays the youngest daughter.

The other family members include Susannah Fielding (This Time with Alan Partridge), Jack Ashton (Call The Midwife), Navin Chowdhry (Doctor Foster), and Olivier-nominated Rosalie Craig, while McDonald and Dodds are joined on investigations by James Murray (Primeval, Suspects) as Superintendent Houseman, and Pearl Chanda (Motherland) and Jack Riddiford (Poldark) as new detective constables.

Robert Lindsay and Jason Watkins

Jason Watkins and Tala Gouveia by Bath Abbey

The second episode takes viewers to a different side of life where Joanna Scanlan (No Offence, Requiem) plays the director of a private clinic which treats patients with a range of conditions, with Hugh Dennis (Fleabag, Outnumbered) as the facility’s CEO. The hospital is thrown into commotion when a patient is found dead in her room.

Other patients consequently investigated by McDonald and Dodds include Olivier Award nominee Freddie Fox (recently seen in ITV’s White House Farm) who plays a drug addict, Caroline Catz (Doc Martin) stars as a sex addict, and Kiran Sonia Sawar (Murdered By My Father) plays a patient who suffers from social anxiety. Charlotte Ritchie, known for Call the Midwife and Fresh Meat, and Keeping Faith’s Suzanne Packer also feature.

It’s also fair to say that Bath has made an impact on the cast. “It’s lovely working on location. Usually we’re working in a studio where we’re shut away in a weird airport hanger, 40 miles off a motorway, where you’re not immersed in real life,” says Ellie Kendrick.

Speaking about the private home used for filming in episode one, James Murray says “I’ve never been on a location like this where the family have got so involved. The owner has been making us homemade cakes, with fresh tea and coffee.”

The west country location has even tempted some of the cast to relocate. “I’ve been on Rightmove, I’m not going to lie.

This countryside is appealing,” says Susannah Fielding.

With comparisons to Columbo, Prime Suspect and HBO’s Succession, this new series is a “finely tuned, nuanced whodunit,” says Murray. “It’s a characterled, modern day Miss Marple.” Could McDonald and Dodds be television’s new crime-fighting duo, taking on the west country’s felons? “There are lots more stories to tell,” says Watkins. Watch this space, we might be seeing fewer bonnets and more bobbies on Bath’s streets. n McDonald and Dodds begins on ITV on 1 March at 8pm.

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WHAT’S ON in March

Huw Willams conducting the abbey choir

Lola has a starring role in Legally Blonde The Musical

TREAT FOR TWO n Until 30 April, Monday to Friday, 9am until 2pm, Lucknam Park Hotel and Spa This indulgent spa experience gives two people a 45-minute back therapy or facial, a two-course lunch in the brasserie and full use of the spa facilities. £260 for two; lucknampark.co.uk ONCE n 2–7 March, times vary, Theatre Royal Bath The winner of eight Tony Awards on Broadway and a West End hit, ONCE is a ravishing love story, which casts a spell over the audience just as its two lead characters cast a spell over each other. £27–£41.50; theatreroyal.org.uk THE TRUTH BEHIND MEDITATION n 4 March, 6pm, the Gainsborough Bath Spa Ancient wisdom and spiritual teachers have been telling us for centuries that meditation will make us happier and better equipped to lead fulfilling lives. Now scientists, doctors and researchers are telling us meditation is good for our physical as well as our mental health. This talk considers ancient teachings and the latest brain research behind this fascinating practice. £10, including a glass of prosecco, tickets via Eventbrite; thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk PUCCINI – LA BOHÈME n 4 March, 7.30pm, The Forum One of the most romantic operas ever written, La Bohème tells the tragic tale of the doomed, consumptive Mimi and her love for a penniless writer. Starring Elena Dee and the celebrated international soprano Alyona Kistenyova. £20/£30/£35/£40; bath forum.co.uk 26 TheBATHMagazine

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AQUASANA IN THE ROOFTOP POOL n 5 March, 8.15am, Thermae Bath Spa Early birds to the spa can start their session with a complimentary aquasana class in the rooftop pool. Aquasana is an invigorating aqua fitness session that combines classic yoga postures, balancing Tai Chi and strengthening moves to stretch and tone.

The session is part of the Thermae Welcome package. £37, available from 9am, to book call 01225 331234; thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION n 5 March, 6pm, East Building Lecture Theatre 1.1, East Building, University of Bath Construction is not sustainable. The construction and use of buildings is responsible for approximately half of the UK’s carbon footprint, but are we doing enough to tackle this challenge? Dan Maskell explores different ways of innovating within construction and shares his vision of a sustainable future. Free; bath.ac.uk FRIDAY FOOTPRINT CONCERT n 6 March, 6.30pm, Bath Abbey A performance by the Abbey Choir of Boys and Girls, directed by Huw Williams, director of music at Bath Abbey. Composers include Mozart, Handel, with unusual items

by Orban and Burgon and Tallis’s evocative canon. All money raised will go to the Abbey’s Footprint Project, and will be doubled by the Brownsword Charitable Foundation, £10/£5; bathboxoffice.org.uk FAGIN? n 6 March, 8pm, Rondo Theatre Dickens failed to provide a backstory to Fagin, so who was he and who was the real

Live jazz at Green Park Brasserie

man that Dickens based his character on?

Join Fagin as he reviews his situation during his final night in prison before being hanged. £14/£12; rondotheatre.co.uk DECORATIVE ANTIQUES FAIR n 6–8 March, 11am–5pm, The Pavilion, North Parade Road, Bath The Bath Decorative Antiques Fair occupies a premier position in the decorative antiques trade as a regional event with an international audience. The theme this year is Garden as Gallery where 45 exhibitors will show antiques and art with a garden theme to adorn the home and garden. Debuting at the fair are Joseph Berry Interiors, and S. Paege and Marina Adinolfi. £5; bathdecorativeantiquesfair.co.uk JOBS FOR THE GIRLS n 7 and 10 March, 2.30pm, meet outside entrance to Roman Baths, Abbey Church Yard Free 90-minute guided walk by The Mayor’s Guides to celebrate International Women’s Day; bathguides.org.uk KATE PANKHURST n 8 March, 2–3pm, Royal High School, Bath Join illustrator and author Kate Pankhurst as she tells the stories of some of the inspirational women who have dedicated their lives to studying, conserving and protecting Earth and all its living things.

There will be drawing, dressing up and most importantly, there will be lots of inspiration to change the world! 6+, £6; eventsofwonder.com THE COMING OF THE RAILWAY AND ITS IMPACT ON BATH n 9 March, 7.30pm, BRLSI

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Few people have had as great an impact on Bath as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. His Great Western Railway was the wonder of the age, but, far from reviving Bath’s flagging fortunes, it merely served to accelerate the city’s decline as a fashionable resort.

Andrew Swift tells the story of how a great man changed a great city for ever. £7/£4; brlsi.org MIDORI SHINTANI – GARDENING THE TOKASHI MILLENNIUM FOREST n 9 March, 7.30pm, University of Bath Gardening Club, East Building, University of Bath Travelling from Japan, Midori Shintani – head gardener of the Tokashi Millennium Forest – will be speaking about the care and development of this naturalistic garden of 900 acres, where traditional horticulture is merged into wild nature. The gardens are reviewed annually by Midori, along with Dan Pearson, to ensure their sustainability for the next 1000 years. £6 visitors, £20 membership; ubgc.org LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL n 10–14 March, times vary, Theatre Royal Bath Bath Operatic and Dramatic Society explodes onto the stage with this upbeat, high-energy show bursting with memorable songs and dynamic dances. £16–£35; theatreroyal.org.uk VIV GROSKOP: LIFT AS YOU CLIMB n 11 March, 6pm, The Gainsborough Bath Spa Forming part of International Women’s Day celebrations, Viv Groskop is coming to The Gainsborough Bath Spa to host a masterclass to coincide with her latest book release, Lift As You Climb – Women and the Art of Ambition. It’s the ultimate confidence bible for women who want to plan a career in a fast-moving world, but without leaving anyone else behind. £15, including prosecco and canapés; thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk FILM SCREENINGS n Throughout March, The Little Theatre Cinema This month enjoy the beautiful I Vitteloni and catch the world preview and satellite Q and A for Radioactive on 8 March. Showing on 10 March is Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, plus the Met Opera’s live performance of Der Fliegende Hollander is showing on 14 and 20 March. The Royal Opera House is performing Fidelio on 17 and 23 March, the impeccable La Dolce Vita is showing on 22 March, and Jonas Kaufmann: My Vienna on 24 March. Watch the elegant Bolshoi Ballet perform Romeo and Juliet on 29 March and celebrate the 40th anniversary of David Lynch’s The Elephant Man with John Hurt as Joseph Merrick on 30 March. Full programme available online; picturehouses.com/cinema/ The_Little Continued page 28

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WHAT’S | ON

Viv Groskop: Lift As You Climb

Iain Ballamy and the Jazzhouse Trio

DIRTY BATH n 11–14 March, 8pm, Rondo Theatre Behind its beige facade, Bath is hiding a past that is riddled with tales of debauchery, villainy and depravity. Join the Natural Theatre Company on a voyage through Bath’s murkier waters as they throw a light on the less virtuous aspects of the city’s history. £16/£14; rondotheatre.co.uk GORDON OF KHARTOUM n 12 March, 10.30am, The Pavilion Join the U3A for its monthly lecture programme and delve into the deep history of Charles George Gordon during his time as on officer in the British Army during the Crimean War. £2; u3ainbath.org.uk IAIN BALLAMY: SAX WITH THE JAZZHOUSE TRIO n 12 March, 8pm, St James Wine Vaults Renowned in Europe as the ‘Fantastic Englishman’, and known for his distinctive saxophone voice, Ballamy established himself playing alongside notables including Hermeto Pascoal, the late Gil Evans and the New York Composers Orchestra. £9/£8; stjameswinevaults.co.uk BESPOKE EMBROIDERY: BORDER HEARTS n 14 March, 10am – 4pm, Fashion Museum Using a variety of stitches and a combination of gold thread work, students will create a section of the glove’s border with tutor

LIVE JAZZ AT GREEN PARK BRASSERIE n Various evenings, Green Park Brasserie Swing into March with live jazz, funk, and soul music at Green Park Brasserie which hosts live music every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. With a local, modern British menu, the brasserie (now in its 28th year) has become a firm favourite with diners, drinkers and music lovers alike. greenparkbrasserie.com

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Interior Design Taster Day

Deborah Wilding from the Royal School of Needlework. £86, plus £30 for materials payable on the day; fashionmuseum.co.uk THOMAS DE QUINCEY AND THE DREAMS OF SOMERSET n 16 March, 7.30pm, BRLSI Robert Morrison gives a lecture on Thomas de Quincey who became infamous for his book The Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Literature’s great bad boy spent a portion of his boyhood in Bath and it was here that the trouble began. Follow his story and his connection with Bath. £5/£2; brlsi.org FLORISTRY WORKSHOP n 16 and 17 March, 10am–2pm, Lucknam Park Hotel and Spa Learn how to prepare and make your very own floral arrangement, ahead of Mothering Sunday on 22 March. The florist will share her top tips and trusted techniques to help you craft your very own professionally designed arrangement. Includes tea/coffee and pastries on arrival, a workshop with all materials needed and a two-course lunch in The Brasserie with a glass of wine or soft drink. £75; lucknampark.co.uk A NIGHT AT THE MUSICALS n 17 March, 6.30pm, The Forum Join the Bath Philharmonia in partnership with King Edward’s School for The Bath Orchestral Gala Concert 2020, which will take you on a night to the musicals. Includes music from the composers Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and resident composer at King Edward’s School, Mark Boden. £5/£14; kesbath.com CROSS BATH OPEN DAY n 19 March, 10am–5pm, Thermae Bath Spa The historic Cross Bath will be open for free one-hour bathing sessions at 10am, 11.30am, 1pm, 2.30pm and 4pm. Guests will need to bring their own swimwear (a towel will be provided). Numbers per session will be limited and can be booked in advance by calling 01225 331234. A £10

deposit is payable which will be refunded on the day; thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk ABSOLUTE BOWIE n 20 March, 7pm, Komedia Join Absolute Bowie, who have toured for 12 years and been awarded the UK’s Best Tribute Band and Best Bowie act. Be taken on a musical journey through the greatest hits of David Bowie, including Heroes, Space Oddity, Moonage Daydream and more. 14+, £15; komedia.co.uk CLANNAD: IN A LIFETIME n 20 March, 7.30pm, The Forum The Billboard Music Award winners’ farewell world tour celebrating Clannad’s exceptional 50-year career, with memorable songs such as I Will Find You, Closer To Your Heart and In A Lifetime. Fusing elements of traditional Irish music with more contemporary folk, new age, and rock creates a beautifully unique and ethereal sound combining haunting melodies and mesmerising vocals. £30/£45/£60; bathforum.co.uk PATTI BOULAYE ’BILLIE AND ME’ FEAT: THE MUSIC OF BILLIE HOLIDAY n 20 March, 8pm, Chapel Arts Centre The award-winning singer and musical theatre star Patti Boulaye brings to Chapel Arts her moving, one-woman show discussing the parallels of her life and career with that of the great Billie Holiday.

Performing favourites such as Lover Man, That Ole Devil Called Love, Nice Work If You Can Get It and God Bless the Child. £18; chapelarts.org INTERIOR DESIGN TASTER DAY n 21 March, 10am–4.30pm, central Bath This one-day taster is a great intro for any interiors enthusiast wanting to learn interior design basics from the British Design Academy. Come along, have fun and create a design scheme using colour, mood and style, including your very own sample/mood board to take home. (See also page 89). £120, including refreshments; britishdesignacademy.co.uk Continued page 30

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Cross Baths open day

Andrew Ziminiski Stonemason

Ben Miller

CARMINA BURANA n 21 March, 7.30pm, Wiltshire Music Centre The Bath Bach Choir perform Carl Orff’s famous cantata along with pieces from Eric Whitacre and George Gershwin. £20/£25; wiltshiremusic.org.uk HANDEL: ALEXANDER’S FEAST n 21 March, 7.30pm, St Swithin’s Church The Bath Minerva Choir perform Alexander’s Feast, one of Handel’s most colourful oratorios, featuring his celebrated Harp Concerto. £15; bathboxoffice.org.uk WHAT WILL CHANGE AND WILL NOT IN THE COMING DECADE n 23 March, BRLSI A lecture from one of the world’s most pre-eminent philosophers, Professor John Gray, who will address not only the subject of change itself, but the sort of global challenges humanity might expect to face in the decade to come. £7/£4; brlsi.org PHENOMENAL WOMEN: JESSICA SIGGERS n 25 March, 6pm, The Gainsborough Bath Spa A talk from Jessica Siggers, digital content creator, social media community manager and photographer who helped launch an Instagram community for fellow Bristolian photographers. Jess is an ambassador for Destination Bristol and Bristol Social Media Week. £15, including prosecco and canapés; thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk BEN MILLER n 25 March, 6–7pm, Waterstones Bath Get ready for the brilliant new novel from comedian, actor and bestselling children’s author, Ben Miller, called The Boy Who Made the World Disappear. Ben will talk about his latest book, as well as doing a signing. 8+, £6; eventsofwonder.com LOU ABERCROMBIE BOOK LAUNCH n 26 March, 6–7pm, Waterstones Bath Debut author, Lou Abercrombie, launches 30 TheBATHMagazine

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her first novel Fig Swims the World, plus a book signing. A quirky, coming-of-age story, perfect for fans of Katy Birchall’s Geek Girl and Super Awkward. 10+, free, eventsofwonder.com ULTIMATE EAGLES n 26 March, 7pm, Komedia Ultimate Eagles are devotees of the music of The Eagles, performing songs from every album and era, delivering more than 40 years of brilliance. Be sure to rock the night away.

14+, £25; komedia.co.uk ANDREW ZIMINSKI – STONEMASON: A HISTORY OF BUILDING BRITAIN n 26 March, 8pm, Topping and Company Booksellers Andrew Ziminski, a stonemason living and working in what was ancient Wessex, comes to Bath to talk about his new book. He has worked on some of the greatest and most interesting monuments in Britain; from using his skills to create a Stonehenge megalith, to the restoration of Roman ruins in Bath. £20 including book; toppingbooks.co.uk HOLLYWOOD HEAD TO HEAD n 27 March, 7.30pm, The Forum Celebrate the music from the finest film composers in history, Hans Zimmer and John Williams. Witness a battle of the greats as The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra perform pieces from classic film favourites such as Superman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Jaws. £19.50–£29.50; bsolive.com LUCY WORSLEY n 28 March, 2pm–3pm, Assembly Rooms, Bath Historian, writer and television presenter Lucy Worsley talks about her latest novel for younger readers, The Austen Girls. In this witty, sparkling novel of choices, the delightful life of Jane Austen and her siblings is brought to life as you've never seen it before. Perfect for all young fans of Austen novels and films. 11+, £8; eventsofwonder.com

PLANNING AHEAD...

CRAFT4CRAFTERS SHOW n 2–4 April, 10am–5pm, Bath and West Showground Discover over 150 of the finest craft suppliers selling everything from fabrics, stamping, papercraft and more. Check out the daily workshops, talks and demonstrations with professional crafters. £8/£10; craft4crafters.co.uk MODERN-DAY SUFFRAGETTE: SOPHIE WALKER n 7 April, 8pm, Topping and Company Booksellers Modern-day suffragette and long-time feminist activist turned political party leader, Sophie Walker offers us a five-step journey to incorporating activism into our lives. Five Rules for Rebellion is an inspiring handbook for future rebels and revolutionaries – women who are fed up and disempowered, but uncertain of where to begin. (See also page 70). £12.99 including book; toppingbooks.co.uk THE TEMPEST n 7–11 April, times vary, Theatre Royal Bath One of Britain’s best-known classical actors, Michael Pennington, returns to Bath to play Prospero in Shakespeare’s final and tumultuous play. With Prospero’s magic wreaking havoc on the survivors of the shipwreck, it’s only a matter or time until the conflicted families come face to face. (See also page 34). £24–£38.50; theatreroyal.org.uk VIVALDI RECOMPOSED n 17 April, 7.30pm, Bath Apex Hotel Mac Richter’s work blurs genre boundaries and merges tradition orchestral instruments with sound technology. Between Richter’s recomposed Vivaldi, Bath Philharmonia presents the original with two of his greatest cello concertos performed by one of Britain’s finest young cellists, Laura van der Heijden. £25/£5 (under 18s); bathphil.co.uk n

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Handel

Alexander’s Feast Or ‘The Power of Music’

One of Handel’s most colourful oratorios, featuring his celebrated Harp Concerto, starring one of the UK’s premier baroque harpists - Oliver Weiss

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THEATRE

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

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but definitely not fully in charge of himself.

He’s a complex mixture of tyrant and unexpectedly gentle man, insecure on occasions but with a kindness about him too.

He’s furious because he's been thrown out of his own kingdom and ousted from his job by his own brother, of all people; usurped and put out to sea with his daughter, ending up on a bleak, barren, strange desert island. After 10 years of exile, he still wants revenge. And of course, he’s a survivor. But I want my Prospero to be a character you would like to talk more to should you have the opportunity because there’s still way, way more to him than I’ve said so far. We could call him a magician, or a conjurer, or perhaps even a medium; he’s clearly influenced by the occult, and necromancy – and he has the supernatural ability to cause a storm, for goodness sake! It’s difficult to imagine unless you happen to believe in such things.”

And suddenly, our interview takes on a supernatural direction all of its own: there’s a howl of wind outside the window, and the phone goes dead, and the lights flicker. Was Prospero the producer of the preternatural prorogation? When Michael and I reconnect, I decide it’s a good idea to lift the mood...

❝

Being taken to the theatre when I was 11 years old lit a light in me, and that light has never gone out

❝

W

hen you’re preparing to interview a highly acclaimed Shakespearian actor, getting your facts straight is vital. I start with the most straightforward question of all: Michael Pennington (for it is he) – given that you’ve undertaken multiple roles in Shakespeare plays, how does it feel to be playing Prospero, the leading man in The Tempest, for the first time?

“Actually, that’s not quite right,” he says, giving me that tumbleweed moment that all journalists dread and sending chills down the back of my spine. But before I take the response to my opening gambit as my cue to pursue a whole new career, Michael comes to the rescue. “But the error is not your fault!” he laughs. “There’s a little known fact about me that I’m happy to exclusively reveal here.”

And suddenly we’re off on a journey that takes us all the way back to 1958, when Michael was a 15-year-old schoolboy at Marlborough College. The future of this schoolboy involved founding the English Shakespeare Company, becoming honorary associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, writing several highly acclaimed Bard-related books and appearing in countless TV dramas and several films – all such stuff as dreams are made on.

“One of my teachers had noticed that I was very keen – I wouldn’t say very good, but very keen – to act, and asked me if I’d like to play Prospero in the school production,” Michael recalls. “So I said yes, of course!” Then he told me that the RSC hired out all the costumes that had been used at Stratford and he was to wear the magic cloak that John Gielgud wore three or four years earlier.

“I hero-worshipped Gielgud in those days – he was extraordinary! So you can imagine how I felt about wearing his cloak. But when it arrived, it had clearly been hired out quite a bit since Gielgud threw it off; it was built around a corset-like construction with wires, and netting, and all the paint had peeled off.

And it was way too long for me, so as I walked across the stage I ended up picking up any old screws, nails, fag ends – whatever might be on the floor – and gathering it in my hem; I was a sort of one-man refuse collector!

But I didn’t half make a go of it; I had to! The mantle of Gielgud had fallen on my shoulders!”

Michael’s costume, this time around, will be a rather more elegant affair. But what kind of man will Pennington’s Prospero be? “I’ve seen many people play him, as indeed Gielgud did, as a sort of senior figure,” says Michael. “But to me, he’s... well not a psychopath, exactly,

Michael: you must surely be one of the busiest actors in the business. Is there really only one of you? “Actually there is more than one Michael Pennington!” he laughs; “Johnny Vegas! Increasingly, as we both get older, he’s inclined to use his – our! – real name, but I think Johnny Vegas is a much better one; I wish I’d thought of it myself. We don’t know each other, but we occasionally share merry messages. But if you mean are there infinite varieties of myself – well, yes and no. I appear to be, and occasionally am, very busy, but I sleep like a log, and there are many days where I do virtually nothing, or go abroad, or try and write a little bit. I go to the theatre a lot as well; I love a Chekhov or a Beckett or a really good farce, and I like to keep up with my colleagues because these days, pretty much every show I go to has someone I know in it.

Michhael Pennington in The Syndicate; photograph by Manuel Harlan

There are two Michael Penningtons, Melissa Blease discovers, as she talks to the one that isn’t Johnny Vegas. Yes, the one who is taking on the role of Prospero in The Tempest at Theatre Royal Bath. Make way for a storm, a shipwreck and the supernatural...

When I get thoughtful and consider what I haven’t done, it’s usually a movie. But I can’t deny that the theatre is who I am; being taken to the theatre when I was 11 years old lit a light in me, and that light has never gone out.”

Michael acknowledges that the light that inspired him continues to inspire those who follow in his footsteps. “There’s a fantastic younger generation coming to the stage today, and I’m astonished by how good they are, almost without exception. When I started, all you really had to do was look okay and be able to speak reasonably well; nowadays you have to go into the audition able to tap dance, sing rock’n’roll, opera and probably play lead guitar as well; they have to be much better equipped these days.”

Michael is looking forward to returning to the Theatre Royal. “It’s everybody’s favourite theatre outside London,” he says. “It’s very beautiful, and exceptionally well-equipped, and the theatre’s director Danny Moar runs a very good regime. There’s a very good Pizza Express just around the corner too! But I can’t spend too much time in it because I’ve got a bit of a book to write; seeing as I’ll be away from home with a bit of time on my hands, I’ll crack on with writing my memoir.”

Pennington’s passion for pace is clear. But right here, right now: good luck, Michael, with what I now know to be your second time around in The Tempest. “Actually, that’s not quite right,” he says; “I played the young love interest, Ferdinand, in Stratford in 1974...”

It’s time for me to exit stage left. n The Tempest is at Theatre Royal Bath from 7–11 April; theatreroyal.org.uk

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CINEMA | HIGHLIGHTS

Take two: films

Two of the films on offer at The Little Theatre this month showcase the strength of women; a loose retelling of a famous all-female choir and the story of a beauty competition in the 1970s that caused controversy, says Georgina Southam

Military Wives Loosely based on the true story of the Military Wives Choir, Peter Cattaneo’s latest British comedy centres on two women and their attempts to raise the spirits of those left behind on a military base. Military Wives is a worthy companion to Cattaneo’s BAFTA-winning The Full Monty (1997), a feel-good film once again following a group of mismatched individuals who discover community and purpose as they work together towards a daunting public performance.

With their spouses away on a six-month deployment in Afghanistan, the women fall into a familiar routine as they glumly wait for the return of their loved ones, or for the news that there will be no reunion. To distract themselves, the anxious women form a choir under the leadership of the wives of two officers, Lisa played by Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) and Kate played by Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient). Lisa – who could benefit from some military discipline herself – is the overly laid-back mum of a

Misbehaviour It’s 1970 and the global audience is about to switch on its television set to see the highly anticipated Miss World competition. It was then the most-watched TV programme, with more than 100-million viewers, far exceeding that of the moon landing and the World Cup final. Yet no one anticipated the controversy that would surround this particular event.

Misbehaviour tells the story of the Miss World competition, and how the Women’s Liberation Movement – then relatively new – targeted the pageant for a history-making protest against how it represented women.

Feminist campaigner Sally Alexander (Keira Knightly) of the Women’s Liberation

binge-drinking teen girl. Kate, in contrast, is uptight and emotionally removed until, that is, she unleashes her tensions by ordering from a shopping channel. An uneasy partnership forms between these two women, which gradually, and unexpectedly, grows into something much more.

Military Wives makes clear the sacrifices that these women have made for war. While the script doesn’t major on tragedy, there is often a sense of impending darkness with every phone call or knock on the door, and in the characters’ constant connection to the lifechanging news that may one day arrive. It’s a predictable format – with the perfect template provided by The Full Monty – but its genre of crowd-pleasing, upbeat British comedy does have charm and resonance. The challenge of a big performance is an emotional journey and the different characters pull together with sincerity and determination – through chaotic rehearsals and wavering commitment – as the choir starts to feel and show a sense of solidarity and achievement.

Each wife handles the experience of their absent partner differently: Lisa boxes up her

Movement in London took part in a campaign to disrupt the pageant (not a ground-breaking disruption to be honest, as their approach was to throw flour bombs and flyers into the audience, but it was 1970). We see Jennifer Hoston (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) as Miss Grenada, one of the two black women who entered the competition, trying to navigate her place within the pageant world as she faces racism in the industry, sidelined by the media because of her skin colour.

Hosted in London by legendary stand-up comedian and actor Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear), the pageant was troubled with controversy even beyond the flour bombs.

When the competition results were

Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan

husband’s belongings as though he doesn’t exist; Kate carries on with life as normal; others create countdown calendars. But all have the same sense of something lost.

A soldier dies, home truths are faced and sharply acidic comical scenes balance heartwarming emotions. The joy comes from the friendships that these women create as they learn that they are stronger together.

announced, it was Miss Grenada who won the coveted title, becoming the first black woman to be crowned Miss World, beating Miss Sweden, who had appeared to be everyone’s stand-out favourite (she was, by the way, tall and blond).

Written for the screen by Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe, and directed by Phillipa Lawthrope, this milestone in feminist history is turned into an impactful comedy drama.

As women today continue to fight for the same rights as their male counterparts, the film strikes a resonant chord. With the likes of Bombshell and Promising Young Woman also being released this year, it seems the rise of female empowerment is not slowing down any time soon. ■

SHOWING TIMES Military Wives 3 March, see website for times Misbehaviour 13 March, see website for times Gugu Mbatha-Raw (left)

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ART | EXHIBITIONS

STATE OF THE ART With renowned artists and award-winning sculptors adorning the walls of Bath’s finest museums and galleries, don’t miss the chance to explore the exhibitions in the city this month VICTORIA ART GALLERY

By Pulteney Bridge Open: Daily, 10.30am–5pm Tel: 01225 477233 Web: victoriagal.org.uk TOULOUSE-LAUTREC AND THE MASTERS OF MONTMARTRE Until 7 May This exhibition brings the sights and sounds of Lautrec’s thrilling bohemian Paris to life. The exhibition revisits the street art of the era, showcasing over 80 works

by Toulouse-Lautrec, and other avant-garde artists including Mucha and Steinlen.

Evening events will echo the joie de vivre of the Belle Époque and Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris. These will feature music and entertainment to celebrate how visual art, music and dance were intertwined. There will also be a multilingual audio guide, a display of personal items from the performers and a dressing-up area. £6/free for Discovery Card holders.

MUSEUM OF EAST ASIAN ART 12 Bennett Street, Bath Open: Tuesday – Friday 11am–5pm, Saturday 10am–5pm Tel: 01225 464640 Web: meaa.org.uk CHINA ON A PLATE Until 8 May Many beautiful artefacts classified as Chinese art were originally made for daily purposes and were not meant to be displayed in a museum or collected by enthusiasts as they are today. In fact, a large percentage of objects within the MEAA’s collections were originally used as food or drinking vessels.

This exhibition explores the culture of food and drink in China through a wide range of vessels made of different materials and used by various social classes over centuries. The exhibition is the result of a joint research project between the museum and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

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Kraak basin, late Ming dynasty China (c.1600–1620)

Image: La Chaîne Simpson by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

CENTRAL GALLERY Royal United Hospitals, Bath Open: Monday – Sunday 8am–8pm Web: artatruh.org ART AT THE HEART OF RUH Until 20 April After exploring the African bush on safari and venturing into Kruger National Park in South Africa, talented local wildlife photographers, Dean and Helen McLachlan, will be showcasing their work at the Central Gallery at RUH until April. Their love for animals and passion for photography brought them together and this exhibition offers an insight into the rare moments of tranquility in an often merciless environment. Capturing nature at its finest, Dean and Helen bring Africa’s wild wonders to Bath.

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ART | EXHIBITIONS

FASHION MUSEUM BATH

Heeled shoes from the world-class collection

Assembly Rooms, Bennett Street, Bath Open: Daily, 10.30am–4pm Tel: 01225 477789 Web: fashionmuseum.co.uk SHOEPHORIA Opening 28 March This exhibition showcases some of the highlights and curiosities of the museum’s world-class collection of more than 3,000 pairs of shoes. Demonstrating the creativity of shoemakers

throughout history, more than 100 pairs of shoes and boots will be displayed. From the oldest shoes in the collection to shoes belonging to Her Majesty Queen Mary, from trainers and sneakers to designer shoes by Vivienne Westwood and Jimmy Choo, the show tracks the evolution of shoe style over the last 300 years.

Shoes will be interspersed with the fashions on display as part of the A History of Fashion in 100 Objects exhibition, celebrating fashion from the 1600s to the present day.

THE FRAMING WORKSHOP

THE HOLBURNE MUSEUM

80 Walcot Street, Bath Tel: 01225 482748 Web: theframingworkshop.com

Great Pulteney Street, Bath Open: Daily, 10am–5pm (11am Sundays) Tel: 01225 388569 Web: holburne.org

Throughout March

GRAYSON PERRY: THE PRE-THERAPY YEARS Until 25 May One of the Holburne’s most eagerly anticipated shows of the year, this follows a successful public appeal to source Perry’s early ceramic pieces, made between 1982 and the mid-1990s.

Here are a broad range of Perry’s early works, including pieces from the artist’s own collection and works not seen publicly before.

For Perry’s legions of fans, The Pre-Therapy Years will bring a new perspective to the 2003 Turner Prize-winner’s influential and inspiring outlook.

Hannah Clare works in mixed media to produce drawings and paintings which explore layers of story, memory and experience, with work focusing on the female form and drawing on art historical imagery and themes.

This exhibition runs alongside the permanent display of creatively framed objects and images collected and created to inspire visitors.

Left, Waiting on the rock... by Hannah Clare

THE EDGE AND ANDREW BROWNSWORD GALLERY The Edge, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath Open: Tuesday – Saturday 11am–5pm Tel: 01225 386777 Web: edgearts.org

Essex Plate by Grayson Perry

MARINER: A PAINTED SHIP UPON A PAINTED OCEAN From Zubenelgenubi, a film by Serena Korda Until 21 March Work from 14 artists considers the contemporary resonance of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The new commissions and artworks include Zubenelgenubi (The Price to be Paid), a film by Serena Korda; an installation by Mary Evans, which draws on historical artefacts; sculptural works by Grace Schwindt; and a multi-sensory presentation of Raft of the Medusa by Lucy and Jorge Orta and special contributions from Ellen Gallagher and Edgar Cleijne, and Linder Sterling.

MODERN ARTBUYER: SPRING POP-UP GALLERY Milsom Place, Milsom Street and Broad Street, Bath Open: Daily, 10am–4pm Tel: 01225 789040 Web: milsomplace.co.uk

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24 March – 5 April Join gallery director, Jessica Lloyd-Smith, at Modern ArtBuyer’s spring pop-up gallery in the heart of Bath and browse a carefully curated collection of contemporary limited edition prints, original paintings and works on paper.

The pop-up aims to bring local artists together with creators from across the UK, with the likes of Mark Jessett, Maria Rivans and Jonathon Barber.

The gallery will be showing a broad range of affordable to investment pieces.

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Lecture Series 2019/2020

“Through the Glass Darkly” ~ A Study of Glass Through the Eyes of the Painter ~ Lecturer : Jane Gardener

Over the centuries, Artists have included glass objects in their paintings, capturing form and reflections and portraying what is behind and beyond. This lecture explores the way in which artists over the centuries have included transparent glass objects in their paintings at 1.30pm on Monday 2nd March 2020 in The Assembly Rooms, Bennett Street Bath Visitors welcome £10 at the door (No Booking required) Visit our website for membership benefits and other information www.theartssocietybath.com

Gearoid Simms

David Ringsell

Art Prints

A contemporary take on classic Bath architecture A2 - £120, A3 - £90, A4 - £75

commissions undertaken

www.gearoidsimms.co.uk

Affordable custom Giclée prints of original paintings Email: david@real-images.com • Call 01225 469127 Prints, originals & exhibitions

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ART | EXHIBITIONS

DAVID SIMON CONTEMPORARY 37 High Street, Castle Cary Open: Monday – Saturday 10am–5.30pm (closed Wednesday and Sunday) Tel: 01963 359102 Web: davidsimoncontemporary.com GEORGE DANNATT: A RETROSPECTIVE 7 March – 28 April This exhibition will give a broad overview of the work of George Dannatt, a decade after his death. Carefully selected by David Simon, the collection charts Dannatt’s exploration of geometry, form and space from the 1960s through the five decades of his career. Having established his career in painting later in life, Dannatt was successful in exhibiting with important Mayfair galleries. Now, David Simon has provided a rare opportunity to explore the artist’s work once again.

Landscape Study with Grenadine Red No4. 1984 by George Dannatt

LUCKNAM PARK HOTEL AND SPA

BEAUX ARTS BATH 12–13 York Street, Bath Open: Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm Tel: 01225 464850 Web: beauxartsbath.co.uk

Large Blue Moon Jar

by Adam Buick

LIFE IN BRONZE Until 30 April Lucknam Park Hotel and Spa will be hosting an exclusive preview of Life in Bronze, which will feature spectacular bronze wildlife sculptures created by award-winning British sculptor, Hamish Mackie. The preview will take place around the hotel’s pristine 500acre estate on 13 March, ahead of Mackie’s solo exhibition at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May. Patrons will be free to visit the sculptures until the end of April. 

ADAM BUICK Until 21 March Adam uses a single pure jar form as a canvas to map his observations on his surroundings.

He incorporates stone and locally dug clay into the work to create a narrative that conveys a sense of place. In 2017, Adam was awarded the Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales, a prize which encourages established artists to experiment in their work. Adam is in the collections of Chatsworth House, the National Museum of Wales and The British Museum, among many others.

The Big Wild River by Stewart Edmondson

Colerne, Thickwood, Chippenham Tel: 01225 742777 Web: lucknampark.co.uk

STEWART EDMONDSON: SOLO PAINTINGS Until 21 March Where most would be tempted to seek warmth in the face of a Dartmoor winter, Stewart Edmondson welcomes the wild weather that sweeps over the moors, tors and river valleys that surround his Devon home.

His show with Beaux Arts not only takes in the wildflowing Dart river and the woods and moors near his Dartmoor home, but also includes Cornish seascapes.

Life in Bronze, sculpture

by Hamish Mackie

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Valuing silver DUNCAN CAMPBELL HAS BEEN DEALING IN ANTIQUE SILVER SINCE 1986

The right engraving is a matter for celebration

D

o inscriptions devalue a piece of silver? Certainly not to our ancestors. Years ago, virtually nothing left the silversmith’s shop without first being engraved. If you were spending good money on new silverware, the world needed to know who it belonged to. A ghastly, badly cut jumble of letters and dates will not enhance an object, but the right engraving can get me very animated indeed.

A plain, unengraved George III soup spoon is worth about £50, the same one with Nelson’s crest is £3,500 and he is far from the only historic celeb with a following of wealthy relic hunters.

You might think that with so much at stake fakers would simply buy up any old silver and get busy creating false armorials bogus dedications. Luckily for posterity, that is a lot harder than it sounds.

If you’d spent upwards of 60 hours a week, every week since the age of 12 engraving crests on spoons and forks you’d be pretty proficient at it. Even the rope (or torse), which forms the base of most British crests, is extremely difficult to get looking right, especially under a magnifying glass. The freedom and fluidity with which an engraver can render a deer with just half a dozen movements of the cutting tool, is a masterclass in minimalist art.

Over the years, armorials on silver do, inevitably, get erased and then re-engraved as ownership changes. What will really devalue a piece of silver is doing this badly.

I knew a silver dealer, now thankfully retired, who used to grind away at the surface of everything he bought with a mechanical polishing mop until it was glossy and scrubbed of any patina whatsoever, let alone any engraving. Despite my constant complaints that if he only left the stuff alone I’d be happy to pay more, he was proud of his handiwork. He wasn’t the first, nor sadly will he be the last antiques dealer to spend time and money destroying their stock. n beaunashbath.com; 01225 334234

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Discovered in a Cabinet Bought For £50,000

Time to make arrangements for Spring

An unusual and welcome lot in the huge selection of 660 lots of silver and vertu in Lawrences’ recent fine art sale was a VERY RARE medieval draughtsman, made in northern France in the late 12th century.

Measuring just 2¼ inches wide, it was made of walrus ivory, set within a foliate border, the sides with four small leafy medallions, and finely carved to illustrate a scene from Aesop’s fable of the Fox and the Stork. The fable illustrates the predicament of the fox who is unable to eat from the long-necked vase, which is no problem for the stork with its long neck and beak. The stork is actually getting his revenge on the fox who had previously offered him food in a shallow dish, too shallow for the stork’s beak to scoop it up. The moral of the fable is ‘each to his own – and do as you would be done by’.

The game of tables or backgammon is one of the oldest known board games and was popular throughout northern Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. The piece would probably have been used for backgammon as well as draughts. The board game was popular among the nobility and was even taken on the Crusades to pass the time. The example sold by Lawrences, dating to c.1150–1180, must have once belonged to a set illustrating other subjects from Aesop’s Fables.

An ancestor of the seller had allowed the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to have the piece copied in the 1870s, so it was known to scholars and published in reference books, but the original had been lost for almost 150 years until it was rediscovered by Lawrences when they were making a valuation of house contents for sale purposes. Its whereabouts had been unknown for almost 150 years until it was spotted in the Somerset Collection. The owners had kept it in a display table, but had not considered that it had any value. Guided at £15,000-20,000, this exquisite little item made £50,000.

It’s amazing what can be found in a house! So, what may be hiding in your drawers? Feel free to contact a specialist who will guide you through the valuation process.

FREE, NO-OBLIGATION VALUATIONS AVAILABLE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ON BUYING OR SELLING, PLEASE CONTACT: andy.sagar@lawrences.co.uk Entries are invited for their forthcoming 2020 sales.

Lawrences AUCTIONEERS The Linen Yard, South Street, Crewkerne, Somerset TA18 8AB. T 01460 73041

lawrences.co.uk

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The Framing Workshop has been trading as an independent family run business on Walcot Street for over 28 years. We treasure you, our client, and spend time helping you to ďŹ nd the best way to display and protect your cherished objects, artworks and memorabilia. Creativity and respect for each artwork are core to what we do.

Every picture tells a story. Come and share yours.

80 Walcot Street, Bath, BA1 5BD Tel: 01225 482748 www.theframingworkshop.com framing@theframingworkshop.com

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ARTS | INTERVIEW

LEFT: illustration developed for the New Psychotherapist magazine, covering climate change and a feeling of being lost at sea while trying to rescue the situation BELOW: top, Dave Bain in front of a collaborative mural at Redland train station, created with fellow illustrator Zoe Power; bottom, editorial illustration for a Cycling Magazine feature on bicycle sizes for shorter, taller and bigger-build body types OPPOSITE: top, character for beer festival promotion; bottom, crop of an artwork for Bristol Children’s Hospital corridor project

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ARTS | INTERVIEW

Images in action

The work of illustrator Dave Bain is bold, energetic and full of a sense of warm-hearted community. Emma Clegg chats to the artist who designed the animated collection of quirky interior objects for this magazine’s cover

I

mages thrumming with energy, vibrant colours, intertwined figures, wild midair gestures, chaotic limbs, acrobats balancing in a human tower, trapeze act rabbits and monkeys swinging in gay abandon. Looking at Dave Bain’s illustrations is certainly a high-octane experience.

Some of his pieces even have distorted long arms and contorted body positions – but why on earth not drink a pint of beer while wrapping a leg over your head and putting the foot of said leg flat against the wall? Filling a picture space is not something that Dave is coy about, with the action in his work generally stretching from corner to corner. “I have been pushing my characters more and more to contort themselves around the shape of the frame and clients like it and ask for it,” says Dave.

Dave, who grew up in Canterbury – with early inspirations being Tintin and Asterix comics – studied illustration in Falmouth, and is now based in Bristol, where he has lived for 15 years: “I’d been to Bristol a few times and really loved the down-to-earth nature of it all. It felt very creative and the music scene here was a big draw. I think most of all it is the creative circles of people that are what has kept me here.”

The style of Dave’s work has changed in character over the years. “During the illustration course in Falmouth we were encouraged to try all sorts of things. I found my voice with colour and with a particular painterly traditional style – I got very excited about texture and composition, and this has stayed with me.

“Then about 10 years ago I helped set up a studio with a screen-printing area, which motivated me to learn the ropes, with help from talented printer friends. I threw myself into printing and teaching print techniques.

This experience brought a stronger sense of colour to my work, thinking about shape

and form and blocks, and this transformed my way of illustrating. I adopted a similar workflow: lots of drawing, overlaying sketches on a lightbox and scanning in shapes and line, with the final composing and colour done digitally. It’s almost a digital form of screen-printing.”

It can be hard securing your first commission as an illustrator, but Dave’s experience was a positive one. “I feel fortunate as one of the tutors at Falmouth got me a small job while I was still at university, but I was also lucky enough to have an agent look after me for a time.”

This allowed Dave the time to form relationships with his own clients using social media and postcard mail-outs to selfpromote. His paid projects are diverse in character, divided between commercial (examples being CBeebies, Aardman and Cycling Magazine) and community projects (such as NSPCC, Oxfam and the Teenage Cancer Trust). Dave explains that his experience as an illustrator has often merged with areas right on the borders of what might be expected. “There are loads of exciting areas in which illustration is being used. That has been one of the things that has kept me excited, taking advantage of the grey fuzzy borders of what constitutes illustration, involving perhaps a community mural or visual notes for dry meetings that need a bit of livening up.”

One of the biggest murals that Dave has worked on was at the Bristol Children’s Hospital, where the brief was to transform a hospital corridor using artwork, for which he had to go through a lengthy formal submission to explain his ideas. “It wasn’t a narrative mural, because people join and exit the corridor at different points, so I created short vignettes.” The 200-metre corridor included access to the burns unit, and the artwork there was designed in cool colours and featured water. Dave collaborated with a local sculptor who turned some of his visuals into mini sculptures at one of the entrances.

“I don’t want anyone ever to see this hospital artwork – for obvious reasons – but various friends, and even people I don’t know have messaged me, and said what a difference it made to walk their child down the corridor, looking at all the artwork and forgetting their own problems.”

Dave has also worked on visuals for a kids’ play park that is specifically designed for children with learning disabilities, and has done a series of workshops in schools for children. He describes a workshop in Wales that he ran with a musician and a technical

expert. “The musician worked with the children getting them to create music using their hands to create sounds. I worked with them to create artworks that were gestural, using textures with a raised surface. We then put paint on the textures, pressing paper into them and mark-making. The technical contributor then transformed and animated these things using levers and dials, getting the kids to interact with them as they were looking at a screen where their artwork creations were combined with the music.

“It was a beautiful afternoon with about 20 kids with their carers in an independent cinema in the middle of Wales, using the screen and celebrating all their creations.

It’s an example of the furthest edges of what happens when you are an illustrator.”

Dave loves to work in sketchbooks. “I end up working across two or three sketchbooks.

I have never thrown one away – they are my visual thesaurus and mind bin. The ebbs and flows of freelance work mean that if there isn’t a commission coming in or if I’m waiting for feedback from clients, I just dive back into the sketchbook.”

Every few months Dave hosts regular panel talks and events in Bristol organised with the Association of Illustrators (AOI), designed to get conversations going within the industry.

The idea of working together is intrinsic to Dave’s philosophy. “I despair when I hear artists saying they don’t want to see anybody else’s work in case they copy it. That’s ridiculous – people have always been inspired by creative work around them. I love Instagram and following other illustrators who I admire, and the composition and ideas that feed through. It’s fantastic if it feeds into my work in some way – I mean why not? It’s part of being alive and being creative; I don’t want to ignore it.” n davebain.com

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FOOD | & | DRINK

Food writes

Food needs to be eaten, not written about. Not true, say Melissa Blease and Emma Clegg, because to eat, you need to prepare food, and for that you need good advice. While food blogging has become its own industry – and not immune to criticism – it is driven by a wholesome natural urge to understand who we are

It’s unlikely a food writer has ever written like this, but it sets the atmosphere

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alaeolithic man hunted, gathered and ate. He drew pictures on the walls of caves depicting animals and signs. Stone Age Instagram; food writing was born.

We need food to survive, and so it matters.

We cook (some of us, anyway), we look up recipes, we recommend them to others, we read about food and why it’s good or bad for us, we eat food with friends as a shared social experience. We change what we eat to lose weight, to cut out gluten, appreciate another culture, to improve ourselves, or to help save the world. And what we choose to eat defines us – as eaters, as cooks and as writers.

While food writing has changed seismically in the last 30 years with the era of the food blogger and Instagram (OK, it’s not writing but it does describe, and can’t be ignored), it’s not a new thing and – as those cave paintings show – the way we have documented and described food over the years reflects the culture in which the ‘expression’ was created.

In terms of what we understand as food writing today, Mrs Beeton was the one who changed the conversation, seen in her own time and now as the domestic authority of the Victorian era. While much of the content of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management was advice to counter “a housewife’s badly cooked dinners and untidy ways”, it had over 2,000 recipes – including (wait for it) Toast and Water, Hodge Podge Stew, Devilled Oysters and 48 TheBATHMagazine

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Aunt Nelly’s Pudding, and instructions on the best way to roast a guinea pig. So not vegan friendly. But just like Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson after her, Mrs Beeton saw the need to provide reassuring advice on culinary matters for the middle classes and she was one of the first writers to list all the ingredients at the beginning of the recipe. In fact, in her preface to the book she honestly states, “I must frankly own, that if I had known, beforehand, that this book would have cost me the labour which it has, I should never have been courageous enough to commence it.”

Post-war Britain brought writers such as Marguerite Patten, Robert Carrier, Elizabeth David, Elizabeth Luard, and Jane Grigson (as well as Constance ‘Coronation Chicken’ Spry), later followed by Delia Smith, who all reshaped the food writing model in different ways, although at their core were always recipes.

In the latter part of the 20th century, Nigella and Jamie broke the formal barriers and did the recipe thing with sexual and casual warmth respectively, assisted by their own sultry/homely TV shows. While recipes still ruled (based as they are on the ‘what shall I cook tonight’ question), launching into the 21st century there was a new chord resonating in the food world, a growing fascination with food writing being more than about recipes. Food, we discovered, isn’t just what you eat when you are hungry, it’s part of a culture; it joins us together, it makes us who we are. Food memoirs, food

biographies and food travel writing started to load our shelves. Nigel Slater does it best in Toast (2004), where he tells of a childhood in 1960s Wolverhampton with Angel Delight and Rolos bought from the Spar shop, which resonates for those of us who did just that.

This being connected with food idea is part of the broadband era – no doubt it happened because of it. Nowadays we still have Nigella and Jamie, but also Joe Curry, the Hemsley sisters, GBBO winner Nadiya Hussein et al, as well as a host of food writers bringing their cultural food roots to life, such as Ken Hom and Yotam Ottolenghi.

While food blogs can be noisy, they are part of the sharing culture and a clever blogger with a mission and a reason for eating in a certain way, such as Ella Woodward – who started her Deliciously Ella blog in response to her adoption of a plant-based diet to manage a medical condition – is a blogger and a book author.

The problem with blogs is that they are posted on the internet, and anyone can do it. Which is good in one way (freedom), but not in another (quality control). Some people give them a bad name, it’s true, but others do make a real difference, and help people manage their personal food journey.

In a crowded marketplace, books have been commissioned to fill what was perceived by a sales team as a commercial opening and the titles can say it all – Microwave for One by Sonia Allison (1987) being a good example, categorised by The Publisher’s Weekly as the worst book ever.

One of the reviews was, “Would have starved to death if it had not been for this book”. There were chapters on Me and My Microwave and How to Wait 3 Minutes.

The irony is that many food writers are first and foremost chefs, or cooks. Food itself is their expertise. Unless, such as maestro Anthony Bourdain, you have the magic of both, the writing comes second and ghostwriters are often shipped in to help food experts, and especially celebrity chefs, express their food thoughts. But then it’s been said that ghostwriting doesn’t necessarily mean the recipes are somebody else’s, but that they are just helping to get the food from the plate to the page.

Let’s remember that there are those who write about food as a real job, not as a sideline, and, if any given writer concentrates on one specialised subject to earn their living, it’s usually for good

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FOOD | & | DRINK

ABOVE: A journey from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management to Nigel Slater’s Toast, via Elizabeth David’s French Country Cooking and Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course

reason. But such writing won’t work unless you know about food and can write, too.

So, it follows that real food writers care about the people cooking or serving their food, understand why those people cook or serve their food, and want others to share their enthusiasm.

For the best reader experience, these writers have an ability to evoke the senses that you use when you eat – sight, smell, taste, sound, touch – and if you can do that well, the words will evoke something that matters, taking the art form of food into that of literature. To share that enthusiasm

properly – whether it’s a blog or a food review or a constructed recipe – every word has to matter and every line needs to be thoughtful, appropriate and not add white noise. Choose what you read about food to suit your own food journey, but never accept less than you deserve.

THE FOOD WRITER My apprenticeship started when I was moved to write about the taste of Lyle’s Golden Syrup slathered on a chunk of French bread circa 1968. My childish scribblings weren't part of a ‘career plan’ (I was 4 years old) – they were, like all writing is to all writers on all subjects, borne of a compulsion to communicate ideas via the written word alone. I learnt to cook (something else any food writer worth their seasoning has to understand how to do) because my parents didn’t, and the idea of a dinner party used to fascinate me, even when I was 12 years old; if mum and dad weren’t able to cater for six friends on a Saturday evening, I could. And every time I did it, I wrote about what I cooked, what the food tasted like and how the evening turned out. My understanding of food developed, my food vocabulary grew.

At the age of 24, I was finally commissioned to write restaurant reviews for a popular print publication. I looked to Nigel Slater – to my mind, one of the most beautiful literary food writers of a generation – Marguerite Patten and Rose Elliot for guidance, my reasoning being that Nigel would give me the confidence to draw on my own personal experience for context, Marguerite could be my go-to fact-checker (if anybody knew the difference between French, Swiss and Italian meringue, it was Marguerite), and Rose... well, Rose was family, to me. In other words, I began my career in exactly the same way as a driver on the number 4 bus did: with a route map.

As the late, great chef, author and travel writer Anthony Bourdain once said, “experience, thoughtfulness, emotion, context and memory play powerful,

A memorable written piece on food will evoke the sights, sounds and atmosphere of the cooking and eating experience

influential roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.”

Rose Elliot’s vegetarian cookery book Not Just a Load of Old Lentils cost my mum £1.50 in 1972. ‘Fun, practical, easy, delightful’ reads the strapline on the faded orange cover, the words running around an etched sketch of pulses, cheese, vegetables and wine. There’s a photo of Rose herself on page two: demure, but smiling encouragingly, with a subtle twinkle in her eyes. This is the only photograph in the book – it’s left to the reader to decide how Rose’s recipes should be styled.

Lentils lived on a shelf by the cooker in all the kitchens I grew up in, from the semicommune in Wales to the one where the ceiling almost collapsed just after my family did. But in between the covers of this lovingly battered relic, my family remains intact.

On page 179, buttery stains from my own childish fingerprints make a flapjack recipe

almost indecipherable, while a hundred dinner party preparations have left their mark on the stuffed pancakes recipe on page 94.

Potato cakes: served hot, with crumbly Cheshire cheese and a glass of Ribena, were manna from heaven when I was a kid. Dhal, Mushroom Timbale and Red Lentil Cottage Pie are old, old friends. But why the purple stain on the Spaghetti with Aubergines page?

I don’t remember eating this dish. Maybe mum tried, but failed – oh Rose, you let her down! Not so me.

Rose supported me through my first soufflé. She taught me how to make a croustade, stuff a marrow, handle pastry. This weekend, I’ll be making her mushroom stroganoff; last week, I made her banana bread. As I go, I’m adding my own indelible stains to a cookery book that brings back more memories than Proust’s madeleine dipped in tea ever could; 48 years worth so far, and many flapjacks still to go. n

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RESTAURANT | REVIEW

No.15 Great Pulteney 15 Great Pulteney Street, Bathwick, Bath BA2 4BR; no15greatpulteney.co.uk

R E V I EW

Emma Clegg goes wild for the great British Sunday lunch, vegetarian style, at No.15 Great Pulteney as her dining partner shifts to flexitarian, all in the loom of shelves of dispensary bottles

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ild British food is what we’ve been promised from No.15 Great Pulteney’s new head chef Matt Gillard. Prepare not to be disappointed as the hotel’s new restaurant menu at The Dispensary proffers dishes such as roasted cauliflower, pine nut purée, ‘Jack-by-thehedge’ – also known as hedgerow garlic – brassica pesto; and Wiltshire venison with fermented beetroot, local mushrooms and winter berry jus.

After two years as sous chef at Surrey’s Wentworth Golf and Country Club, Bristolborn Matt’s appointment at No.15 Great Pulteney has seen his return to the south west and the region that shaped his career. His career roll call here saw him as head chef at Guyers House Hotel (where he gained 3 AA Rosettes), senior sous chef at Bristol’s Berwick Lodge under former Roux Scholarship winner Paul O’Neill, and part of Giles Stonehouse’s brigade at the Macdonald Bath Spa. We arrived for Sunday lunch (hereafter SL), deliberating on just how ‘wild’ this British second-day-of-weekend ceremony could be. First of all sitting in The Dispensary – the hotel’s basement restaurant – does make the blood rush through your veins. Maybe it’s just my fertile imagination, but the traditional wooden antique chemist’s shop units packed with dispensary bottles that towered above us with multiple wooden drawers below – once stashed with herbs and medicines – do inject notions of potions, notes of magical concoctions and fairy tale rhymes in your 50 TheBATHMagazine

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head. What’s more, the angular glass-spike chandeliers above add a mesmerising visual chant of free-floating seaweed tendrils that keeps things unexpected.

Atmosphere aside – and No.15 Great Pulteney never disappoints on this score with its glamorous entrance areas dripping with artistic chandaliers and eclectic collections of bags and fans and edgy wall art – the menu, while sober in its presentation, is bursting with goodies from hedgerow and field as well as parading inspiration from more exotic climes.

Starters include confit duck and foie gras with pineapple chilli salsa; Wyfe of Bath cheese soufflé; salt and pepper squid with sriracha mayonnaise; and roasted butternut squash, walnut and beetroot salad. With beetroot currently in my top pick of quickgrab fridge snack ingredients, the salad was mine, and its fresh rocket leaves and the toasted sweet walnuts and chunks of butternut made the beetroot that much wilder. Rob decided to soak himself (or rather his fork) in a Wyfe of Bath cheese soufflé, described by its manufacturers as a “semi-hard cheese redolent of buttercups and summer meadows”. Say no more.

There’s only so much you can do with SL mains, surely? Rob – vegetarian all year to date due to a plant-based diet obsession that struck towards the end of December – was fairly swiftly swayed to the carnivorous side with roast chicken and truffle bread sauce, with the standard (to The Dispensary) SL accompaniments of carrot purée, Yorkshire pudding (YP), seasonal greens, roast potatoes

and cauliflower cheese. The YP had clear plans to take over, hogging the limelight with a dark Pavlova-style airy formation leaning across the plate, and was – in combination with the chicken and its sweet medley of vegetables – declared a humzinger by the plant-based part-timer.

I kept the faith with vegetarian nut roast wellington (VNRW), which turned out to be so much more than the dense, loaf-tin nut loaf concoctions of the 1970s, then the default option for meat-free cooking. This VNRW was low and elegant, smoothly oozing with cheese, and with a subtle nutty crunch. Other poultry and meat SL offerings (with aforementioned accompaniments) were rare roast beef with horseradish cream, Hampshire pork belly with apple sauce – as well as cod, lemon and chive crushed new potatoes with white wine cream sauce.

Desserts saw us embracing apple crumble and traditional custard and Bath soft cheese with homemade chutney and crackers, neither of them behaviourally wild options, but the tangy fruit chutney created its own unmissable edible show when paired with the cheese and the ‘crackers’, which are after all just another form of wild.

If you are flexitarian, as Rob appears to now be, don’t agonise over your exact dietary choices at No.15 Great Pulteney on a Sunday – just go wild for the lunch. n Sunday lunch at No.15 Great Pulteney is served in The Dispensary between 12.30 and 3.30pm. Two courses £23.50; three courses £28.50.

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THE US DELICIO GUIDE LOOKING FOR RESTAURANT INSPIRATION? The Delicious Guide to Bath featuring all the fave eateries and foodie treateries is available online at our website www.thebathmag.co.uk

Follow us on Twitter @thebathmagazine

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TRISTAN DARBY

Cordon bleu catering: The Pony & Trap

Drinks columnist Tristan Darby uncovers the complex variations of Burgundy wines

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urgundy’s vineyards stretch almost 180 miles starting in the Yonne, 100 miles south east of Paris, then head south via Dijon towards Lyon.

Large land areas were controlled by the church and nobility until the revolution introduced the dissolution of land and Napoleonic inheritance laws (awarding equal land rights to each child), which made Burgundy a heavily fragmented region where small plots are farmed by many different growers, each owning just a few rows of vines in various small plots. Perhaps that explains why half of Burgundy’s wine or grapes are bought from growers by négociants (shippers), who combine them to create marketable quantities of wine sold under their own name.

Cooperatives play an important role here, too, and single estates (domaines) bottling their own wine do exist but are less common as costs are high.

Four grape varieties are used – but it’s the pinot and Chardonnay grown in Burgundy’s diverse soils and climates that create the most highly prized wines. The ability to make great wines so distinct in style, from vineyards that are sometimes only a few metres apart, using just two grape varieties is perhaps Burgundy’s most unique and endlessly fascinating feature.

Chablis in the far north west is world-famous for its fresh, dry fruity whites. The style of Chardonnay made on the cool chalk-clay soils here is hard to replicate anywhere else. Domaine Bernard Defaix, Chablis 2018 (£19.95, Great Western Wine) is a great example. Crisp, citrusy, fresh, vibrant and textural. A classic and classy Chablis.

At the heart of Burgundy is the Côte d’Or. Just south of Dijon, it’s home to the most prestigious appellations. Côte d’Or is split into two sub-regions. In the north, pinot dominates the Côte de Nuits, and reds here tend to be fuller and deeper than those of Côte de Beaune to the south, where both pinot and Chardonnay share the limelight. For a taste of Côte de Nuits, Domaine Harmand-Geoffroy, Gevrey Chambertin En Jouise 2014 (£49.50, GWW) from a good red burgundy vintage is rich, silky and round in style with lovely ripe fruitiness. For Côte de Beaune try Domaine Gilles Bouton, Saint-Aubin Blanc 1er Cru En Rémilly 2018 (£29.50, GWW) with juicy layers of orchard and stonefruit, a toastiness from subtle oak and a mouthwateringly fresh lemony finish.

Close to the Côte d’Or’s southern tip, Côte Chalonnaise is often overlooked, but there is an increasing number of crisp apple-fresh whites and Beaune-like reds here that can rival northerly neighbours. Domaine Jaeger-Defaix, Rully Rouge 1er Cru Clos du Chapitre 2017 (£29.50, GWW) is a case in point. Fruity with a touch of spice, elegant but intense and with good potential for ageing.

In southern Burgundy, centred around the town of Mâcon, lies the Mâconnais. This is Chardonnay country (90% of the region’s wines are Chardonnay), where rolling hills and the warmer climate help to create weightier wines that can volley France’s response to ‘new-world’ varieties. A favourite is Domaine Paquet Macon Fuisse 2018 (£16.95, GWW), with a classic nose of white flowers, almonds and honey with some tropical fruit. Silky, long and elegant with a hint of spice – delicious. n Learn more about the world of wine with Tristan on a course at Great Western Wine; greatwesternwine.co.uk/events 52 TheBATHMagazine

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It seems to be a bit of a well-kept foodie secret but did you know that, as well as running the Michelin-starred Pony & Trap in Chew Magna, talented siblings Holly and Josh Eggleton also run an events catering company, planning and hosting weddings, parties, corporate and family events across the South West?

For nearly 15 years, The Pony & Trap team have been designing and developing the catering for a wide variety of events in usual and unusual locations – in marquees in fields as well as in the homes of those wanting a dinner or event catered for from their own kitchen. “We start by meeting up to talk about the event you want, what experience you want your guests to have and what your ideal menu will be,” explains Holly. “That might be a number of canapés, a threecourse menu, celebratory sharing dishes or perhaps a buffet or even a tasting menu!

We’ll talk though the service and help organise the timings of your event to ensure it runs smoothly, from the set-up, to the day, and finally the clean-up. We use produce from the South West region, from high-quality, like-minded suppliers we love to champion, to do the best job we can.”

• For further information please email events@theponyandtrap.co.uk or visit josheggleton.co.uk

Imagine having the likes of top Bristol chef Josh Eggleton catering your event!

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Foire aux Vins

Wines from the heart of France 25th February – 23rd March

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Tinsel and tiaras from Victoria Percival

Elodie Crown, £495

Victoria Percival is a specialist in bridal accessories, providing modern-day luxury for style-focused brides. With many years of experience in both bridal hair and make-up, Victoria has embraced the use of innovative statement head pieces, earrings and hair pins within bridal outfits. And her range of accessories are not just suitable for weddings, as her list of celebrity clientele – including Tess Daly, Katherine Ryan and Camilla Thurlow – demonstrates.

If you want to make a big impression at your wedding and let your fashion-forward style do the talking, then come and look at Victoria Percival’s accessory range, stocked at Carina Baverstock Couture. carinabcouture.com

Venice Earrings, £225

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Spa sister

The spa town of Buxton, considered the ‘cultural capital’ of the Peak District, might well seem familiar to Bathonians, says Imogen Windsor, as she tells the story of this northern spa town and a restoration project that promises to bring about its renaissance

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ocated in the heart of beautiful Derbyshire countryside, Buxton boasts Georgian architecture, thermal springs and festivals aplenty. Over the centuries it has dipped in and out of fashion in the same way as Bath, but 2020 is set to be the year Buxton really blooms.

Like Bath, Buxton’s popularity stems originally from the value of its thermal waters. The Romans built only two sacred settlements in Britain around natural thermal springs believed to have healing properties. One of these was Buxton’s Aquae Arnemetiae, or ‘waters of the goddess of the grove’; the other was Bath’s Aquae Sulis, dedicated to the goddess Sulis.

Buxton Assembly Rooms

Buxton’s geothermal springs rise from the ground at a constant temperature of 28°C all year round. Bath’s springs arrive at the surface through different processes, resulting in its water rising at around 46°C – making Bath springs technically the only hot springs in the UK. Temperature aside, people throughout history have visited Bath, Buxton and other spa towns to ‘take the waters’ for their health.

Buxton’s abundant spring waters are piped to St Ann’s Well, located in the centre of town, which was once known as a ‘place of many miracles’. Free for all to drink, people queue at the well to fill their empty bottles with this fresh spring water – the same palatable mineral water bottled by Nestlé and sold throughout the UK. Whereas in Bath, one sip of the warm, mineral-rich water obtained by the glass from the Pump Room is usually enough… as long as you hold your nose.

Buxton is on the cusp of a renaissance, having undergone major restoration work for almost a generation. The town’s focal point is its magnificent Grade I-listed Buxton Crescent, modelled on Bath’s Royal Crescent in the 1780s by William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire. The Duke’s wife, Lady Georgiana Spencer, was a frequent visitor to Bath, which was already a fashionable Georgian destination. Hoping to emulate that, the Duke set about transforming Buxton into an elite northern spa resort to rival Bath.

His architect, John Carr of York, designed Buxton’s opulent Crescent, comprising six private lodging houses and a hotel at either end, which were among the country’s first purpose-built hotels. The Great Hotel incorporated a lavish ballroom and card room, known as the Assembly Rooms, which in high season would host up to two balls every week.

By the mid-19th century, the two popular hotels had expanded to fill the whole crescent. In the 1850s the Natural Mineral Baths were added, along with the Grade II-listed Pump Room opposite, and towards the end of the 19th century Buxton was at its peak.

Photography: main image © Marketing Peak District & Derbyshire. below © Phil Sproson. Opposite, Shutterstock.com

Buxton Crescent, which was modelled in the 1780s on Bath’s Royal Crescent

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TRAVEL

Images: courtesy of the Buxton Crescent Trust

1820s watercolour showing Buxton Crescent within the landscape

William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire (1748–1811)

When the town’s popularity began to wane in the early 20th century, The Crescent Hotel closed and its building became an annex of the Devonshire Royal Hospital. Bought by Derbyshire County Council in the 1970s, this section of the crescent was used as offices and a library. But the buildings fell into disrepair, and in 1989 St Ann’s Hotel at the west side also closed, leaving this historic crescent completely empty from 1992.

Now, together with the adjoining Natural Baths and the Pump Room, Buxton Crescent has undergone a major transformation. Devising a viable commercial use for these important historic buildings presented challenges initially, but in 2003 the Buxton Crescent and Spa Project was born. Funded through both public and private investment, the project is due to complete this spring, and the crescent will finally re-open as a five-star luxury spa hotel and heritage centre.

The Trevor Osborne Group took on the development of the historic site, which involved considerable conservation work as

The former spa baths of Buxton, which now house the elegant Cavendish Shopping Arcade

well as commercial enterprise, resulting in significant delays. Undertaking major works close to the main thermal spring was difficult enough, but an unexpected 23 springs were found that also needed to be protected. Plus much of the grand old crescent was plagued with rotten timbers that required steel reinforcement. The final cost of the project doubled to over £50 million – £23.8 million of which came from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

This scenario will seem familiar in Bath, where the Thermae Bath Spa project was notoriously subject to delays and increased costs. The spa finally opened to the public in 2006, four years later than planned, with costs rising from an estimated £13 million to an eye-watering £45 million.

Yet a survey conducted in 2014 estimated that Bath’s modern-day spa attracts an additional 260,000 visitors to the city each year. This generates an extra £15 million towards the city’s economy, which speaks volumes about the appeal of this kind of wellness tourism.

Buxton is a small town with big aspirations. Its historic buildings have been sympathetically restored and given a new lease of life, but the new spa complex also needs to maximise its assets in order to be commercially sustainable. Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust is a charitable organisation responsible for the protection of Buxton’s buildings. Its patron, the current Duke of Devonshire is, like his ancestors, enthusiastic about Buxton and its future tourism potential.

Buxton’s supportive local residents patiently endured their noble crescent covered in plastic sheeting for years, but the town and its wider community stand to gain from this renaissance as well. The gloriously restored Pump Room is now a free-to-enter public space, and the crescent’s new Visitor Experience offers a chance to learn about the town’s history and regeneration. The stunning Assembly Rooms will operate as a commercial wedding venue, but will also open for 60 days every year for community, cultural and historic events.

“It’s not just a hotel, as in Bath’s Royal Crescent Hotel”, says Liz Mackenzie, the trust’s development and events manager.

“It’s very much a space for the community, visitors and tourists to experience – you don’t just have to be a five-star hotel guest.”

“We’re very interested in our relationship with other spa towns – artistically, culturally, and in terms of tourism. We always considered ourselves the northern ‘poor relation’…because of the crescent being unrestored, but I think now there’s a new confidence in Buxton, and people are increasingly looking to Bath as our ‘sister’ spa town.”

After all these years, Buxton will finally be able to offer a slice of luxury, with a sprinkling of its former Georgian glamour.

For this reinvigorated health capital of the north, 2020 is looking like a good year. n

For more information about visiting Buxton, visit: buxtoncrescentexperience.com THEBATHMAG.CO.UK THEBATHMAG.CO.UK| |january march 2020 2010

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PORTRAIT: Neill Menneer at Spirit Photographic.

Visit: capturethespirit.co.uk, tel: 01225 483151

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Bath @ work

Our series of photographic portraits by Neill Menneer shows Bath people at work. View a gallery of Bath@work subjects at: thebathmag.co.uk

Mike Langbridge

Langbridge Home Hardware

R

etiring, as I’m about to, makes you reminisce about past experiences that have led you to the life you have today. I grew up in a time when teachers would wash out pupils’ mouths with soap. It only happened to me the once – just as I was about to sit for my eleven plus exam at Bathampton Primary School.

Despite this, I progressed through Ralph Allen and signed up for a five-year indentured apprenticeship at Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company. I learnt so much there. In the first year we were taught how to make our own toolboxes and tools before choosing to specialise in semi-conductors. I ended up in the physical research department as an engineer.

The company instilled a real perfectionist mentality into their apprentices and were known for smashing up work that wasn’t up to scratch.

During my apprenticeship I joined the Royal Naval Reserve and had plenty of adventures over the 27 years I served, working my way up to WEO (Weapons Engineer Officer). I even met my future father-in-law during a rescue mission (he was a winchman with the RAF). We only figured it out years later – what a coincidence!

Back home, my parents ran their hardware store known at the time as V&K Langbridge. They opened when I was eight years old, so the shop was something that had been part of my life from an early age.

My wife Angela and I joined the business in 1973.

We purchased the business from my parents as well as the maisonette above (which had been condemned years before).

After three years working there most evenings and weekends, not seeing my wife very much, the renovation was complete and we moved into our new family home.

In the 1990s I was selected to be the ‘DIY guy’ on a new programme for HTV called The House. For the two years it ran, we worked on different projects every week and showed how the viewers at home could do the tasks themselves. It was the best advertising for our shop and it was a great experience.

Retail has changed so much over the years and I like to think we’ve evolved accordingly. This includes the set-up of our website in the early 2000s and our expansion into No. 6 next door – this gave us over a third more retail space, allowed us to hugely increase our tool hire fleet, and enabled us to employ more local staff. We’ve always been so lucky with our staff, and seeing many of them grow from kids to adults during their time here has been so satisfying. Our long-standing staff members are like family to us now, and have been instrumental in helping us grow the business.

Larkhall is such a special community and we feel incredibly lucky to have spent the majority of our lives here as residents and business owners. It’s been a great place to raise our girls with my daughter Rebecca working with us for the last 20 years and one of our grandsons is helping us out too. It’s somewhere that will hold a special place in our hearts and we hope the business will continue to thrive and be valued by the city of Bath. n

PORTRAIT: Neill Menneer at Spirit Photographic.

Visit: capturethespirit.co.uk, divinedivas.co.uk, tel: 01225 483151 THEBATHMAG.CO.UK

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CITY | NEWS

CITYNEWS CLEARLY MOVING

CHEERS FOR THE CHEF

One of the UK’s fastest growing communications agencies has relocated to Bath’s Saville Row. Clearly PR and Marketing Communications offers public relations, content marketing and social media services to a client portfolio spanning the UK, France and the United States. The move to central Bath capitalises on a threefold increase in revenues in 2019.

Clearly’s expansion also includes the recent hiring of two senior communications professionals, Ben Veal as associate director and Tommy Gibbs as part of the business’s senior team. clearlypr.co.uk

Dan Moon, the head chef of The Gainsborough Bath Spa, has been crowned the winner of the Best Chef Category at the 2020 Food Reader Awards. The awards – which this year received more than 100,000 votes – crown the best of the region’s chefs, restaurants and retailers based on foodie insights and votes from readers.

Dan says: “I am honoured, shocked and incredibly excited to have taken home the Best Chef award. It’s always great to be recognised among a line up of fantastic talent and to know that these awards are voted for by the public is even better.” thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk

CLEAVE TO THE POOLS

LUCKNAM TRIUMPHS

Physical work on The Cleveland Pools – the UK’s oldest surviving public outdoor swimming pools – is planned to start in June. The Cleveland Pools Trust is looking for more volunteers to help and, while the project was set up with help from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the project still has a challenging fundraising target of £250,000 to achieve. If you want Bath’s Lido back in the community please do get involved.

There are a wide range of volunteer roles available. clevelandpools.org.uk

Did You Know?

NATURAL POWER

Lucknam Park Hotel and Spa has received four awards at the South West Tourism Excellence Awards 2019/2020.

They were given two gold awards for Large Hotel of the Year and for Spa and Wellbeing Experience of the Year, a bronze for Wedding Venue of the Year and commended for Restaurant/Bistro of the Year (The Brasserie). These awards celebrate the best in the south west, recognising those that contribute to the hospitality industry. lucknampark.co.uk

Today’s fast-moving world means we need to find new, better ways to lead and deliver a competitive edge.

Bath-based Rosie Tomkins has written a revealing, inspirational book, called N-Stinctive: The Power of Natural Intelligence to help individuals and teams thrive and flourish by re-connecting with their innate strengths and beliefs. It recognises a form of intelligence called Natural Intelligence, the missing ingredient of performing at the top of your game. N-Stinctive: The Power of Natural Intelligence is published

by Urbane Publications. n-stinctive.com

BATH BUSINESS BAROMETER

ect is Our Smart City Data proj estimates now one year old and and that, excluding residents , nearly workers of BA1 and BA2 the ed 800,000 UK people visit city centre in 2019

UPDATE: JANUARY 2020

provided by

High Street Footfall (Month on month % change)

Bath

-32.3%

n January is always a less busy time after the December Christmas shopping season and a month-on-month loss of around 30% is typical. In the final week (26 January – 1 February), Bath picked up an 8% footfall increase (compared to the last week of January 2019) and, despite the recent stormy weather, February in Bath is looking up so far. n EVENTS: The Bath Big Sleep Out is back on 6 March and Blues singer Tom Seals heads to Komedia on 25 March.

For sports fans, Bath Rugby meets the Bristol Bears on 1 March (3pm) and Bath City FC has two home games, against Weymouth on 7 March and against Welling United on 21 March. Bath Comic-Con also returns to the Pavilion on 29 March.

South West UK

-25.4%

-17.2% Springboard Research Ltd.

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ocl A C C O U N TA N C Y

141 Englishcombe Lane, Bath BA2 2EL Tel: 01225 445507

www.oclaccountancy.com

Considering starting your own business?

It’s never too late.

IR35 – New rules reminder Where you provide your services to a client through an intermediary e.g. your company, and where you would be an employee if you worked directly for the client, you fall under the IR35 rules. Currently you are required to account for tax and NI on the fees you receive from the client.

Starting your own business is an exciting prospect but knowing when to take the leap can be hard. According to recent research* the average age of an entrepreneur in the UK is 47 suggesting later life is the optimum time. If you’re considering a new business venture in your 40’s and beyond, we’ve created a quick guide to help.

However, from 6 April 2020, if your client is a medium-sized or large business, it will be responsible for deciding if IR35 applies and also for deducting tax and NI before it pays your fee.

Know you’re ready Knowing the right time for your own business venture comes down to experience. The difference between having a great business idea and knowing how to execute it is huge and harder to do well with limited experience.

A promised government review of the changes is already underway; however this will be very limited in scope and is not expected to affect the underlying regulations.

Business drivers Understand what is driving you and why you’re doing it. Is it to improve your work/life balance, financial security, or both? Are you looking for fixed income for a specified number of years, or do you want to grow and then sell for a profit?

In its fact sheets, HMRC explains that you, the contractor, don’t need to take any action in preparation for the changes. It does say that if you think you will be affected by the new rules you can ask each of your clients for a Status Determination Statement as these will confirm if your client plans to apply the new rules, together with their reasons.

Decide on a structure A strong foundation will help ensure future success. Decide if the business is sole trader, partnership or a limited company and confirm the key roles and responsibilities.

We strongly recommend you ask for your Statement unless you’re content to have tax and NI deducted from your fees from April.Where you disagree with your client’s determination, you can formally challenge it and they are obliged to reply within 45 days, not leaving much time if you need to negotiate the terms of your work so that it’s not caught under the new rules.

Keep alert to developments – and in the meantime we have partnered with tax specialists Markel Tax to provide contract reviews for clients on the subject.

For tax saving tips contact us – call Marie Sheldrake, Tom Hulett or Hannah Pettifer on 01225 445507

Plan for growth A business plan should detail the objectives of your business. This will vary according to whether it needs to encourage funding or if it is for you only.

A good plan should consider future growth and the steps needed to achieve this year-to-year.

Finance It’s important to have a thorough understanding of your finances and whether your company will be self-funded, or if you need to borrow. Many entrepreneurs receive funding from friends and family but there are other options including business grants, loans, angel investors, venture capital and crowdfunding.

Exit An exit strategy is key to your future in the business. This should detail any plans to sell the business or a passive income or pension allowance to make sure you are fairly compensated.

Seek expert advice The right legal and financial advice is paramount when it comes to protecting your business interests. Having an in-house Financial Planning service allows Mogers Drewett to offer a combined financial and legal advice package to maximise convenience for busy clients.

To find out more, call 01225 750 000 or visit mogersdrewett.com *Research from Sandler Training

Tom Webb, Partner and Head of Department, Corporate Commercial team at Mogers Drewett.

Call Marie Sheldrake, Tom Hulett or Hannah Pettifer on 01225 445507 to arrange a no-obligation meeting

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CITY | NEWS

CITYNEWS WALK OF LIFE

Bath Abbey has welcomed two new members to its team, Polly Andrews as learning officer, and Mary Wickenden as volunteers officer.

Their roles will help to facilitate one of the Footprint project’s aims, to reach and engage with a greater variety of people. Polly will develop learning activities for schools, create online learning resources and manage the new learning space. Mary will review the volunteer programme, diversify the types of volunteers and build strong relationships and partnerships with volunteer agencies and other volunteering bodies in Bath and the surrounding area. bathabbey.org

Mary Wickenden and Polly Andrews

Thanks to support from local businesses Kier and MJ Church and new sponsors Savills, The Forever Friends Appeal’s Walk of Life event will be taking place again to raise funds for the Royal United Hospitals Bath. The walk runs along the Kennet and Avon Canal towpath. The 26.2-mile walking marathon and 16-mile walks start in Bishops Cannings near Devizes. The 10-mile walk starts in Bradford on Avon and joins the walkers all the way to the Holburne Museum. Entry £25, including fundraising and training support. foreverfriendsappeal.co.uk

SING TOGETHER Longleat has released a song to raise money for their bushfire charity appeal. Together, written by a member of the Longleat team, uses a 30-strong choir of staff and keepers, didgeridoos and Aboriginal voices, 40 instruments and took 120 studio hours to complete. “The song was inspired by the arrival of our southern koalas,” said event manager Daisy Mercedes. “The lyrics were written to recognise how people in Australia and across the world come together. You can watch the Together video on YouTube and the song can be downloaded from iTunes and Google Play. All money raised will go to the organisations Longleat is supporting in South Australia. longleat.co.uk

Keepers Graeme Dick and James Dennis in Longleat’s Koala Creek

RIGHT, FROM TOP: Woke, Marcus Brigstocke and George Alagiah

BATH FESTIVALS: FULL PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED A stellar line-up has been announced for the 2020 Bath Festival, including worldrenowned musicians, acclaimed writers, comedians and some of the most influential leaders and thinkers of our age.

The Bath Festival runs from 15–24 May, with a programme of more than 140 events, ranging from British novelist Ian McEwan talking to broadcaster Simon Mayo, to a pop-up music lounge featuring jazz band Empirical, and stories of his wildlife adventures on the Galapagos from marine biologist Monty Halls, to a performance of the elegiac Sorrowful Songs beside the waters of the Roman Baths.

BOOKS AND WRITERS The literature programme this year embraces the spirit of enquiry as some of the big issues of our time are subject to lively debate, from sustainability to mental health. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks will be exploring issues of morality, while MP David Lammy will be talking about tribalism and community.

Global bestseller novelist Neil Gaiman will be commemorating the centenary of the sci-fi guru Ray Bradbury in discussion with his biographer Sam Weller. The cult graphic designer Stanley Donwood, the man behind Radiohead’s artwork, is coming to talk about his creative career. Other visiting writers include George Alagiah, Lionel Shriver, Polly Toynbee, Claire Tomalin, James Runcie and Joanna Trollope.

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LAUGHS, PERSONALITIES AND POETRY Festival-goers can enjoy comedian Marcus Brigstocke tearing through the Sunday papers and Rachel Parris in her new stand-up show.

Emily Eavis will be looking back at 50 years of the Glastonbury Festival and comedian Adam Buxton delivers his comic ramblings.

There will also be a strong poetry and spoken word collection, including the World Poetry Slam Champion Buddy Wakefield.

MUSIC The music programme includes an evening of Renaissance choral music at Bath Abbey with The Gesualdo Six and a virtuoso recital from pianist Bertrand Chamayou. The queen of punk Patti Smith will be filling The Forum, while folk singer Chris Wood gives a gig at Walcot House. Charles Hazelwood will be bringing the Paraorchestra to the Roman Baths, while Bath Philharmonia will be joined by the Band of the Royal Marines School of Music for the Concert for the People of Bath.

The revival of the Bath Festival Orchestra sees its first festival concert at the Assembly Rooms, there will be jazz from Bristol band Get the Blessing and you can listen to young people’s voices in a new multi-schools choir.

The Finale Weekend on 23 and 24 May includes McFly, Scouting for Girls and KT Tunstall on the Saturday and UB40, Billy Ocean, Fun Lovin’ Criminals and Seth Lakeman on the Sunday. n See the full programme at bathfestivals.org.uk

LEFT, FROM TOP: KT Tunstall, The Royal Marines Band and Heikki Tuuli from the Bath Festival Orchestra

TWO NEW FOOTPRINTS

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Promoted Content

Changing lives for good St John’s Foundation unveils a bold 10-year strategy, pledging £30 million to support vulnerable children in Bath and North East Somerset

L

ast month, Bath’s oldest charity, St John’s Foundation, gathered more than 300 guests at The Guildhall to unveil details of their 10-year strategy. Pledging to commit a whopping £30 million to support vulnerable children under the age of 12, the new strategy heralds a radical shift in St John’s Organisation Funding Support Programme.

Before getting to the nub of St John’s future plans, chair of trustees, Ben Fletcher, first reflected on St John’s history and how the thinking behind the new strategy came about: “We were founded 845 years ago in order to change lives for good. The almshouses, created at the charity’s inception and aimed at older adults, remain central to what we do, as does our commitment to our community outreach activities for the over 55s. However, we also acknowledge that our charity’s founding was a moment of determined, big-thinking intervention and we have taken our inspiration for the next phase of St John’s from that.

We have come to realise that we need to be thinking about how St John’s could best serve B&NES in a modern-day context”.

Despite outward appearances, the B&NES region is one of the most unequal places in the country. From one end of the region to another, the differences in literacy levels, life expectancy, unemployment and life chances are stark. Referencing this marked inequality, Ben continued, “And so, as our current five-year plan drew to a close, we, the trustees, challenged St John’s to plot a new course and think how we could best make the biggest difference to our community”.

Taking up the challenge, chief executive David Hobdey explained to the audience how St John’s had worked with local and national partners to best understand where it needed to focus, and ensure that any plan produced was backed up with robust research, together with St John’s own knowledge and experience.

“We know that there are over 8,000 children in B&NES who are officially classed as living in poverty, but we believe the real number to be so much higher when you include the children of the working poor. And children from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to meet age-related expectations, creating an ‘attainment gap’, where children who live in poverty will typically not do as well at school as their more affluent counterparts. And this gap only widens as the child gets older. This type of inequality is shocking, with B&NES having one of the widest attainment gaps in the UK”.

Acknowledging that the reasons behind such issues are often complex, David went on to talk about St John’s response to the St John’s Foundation announce their 10-year strategy at The Guildhall

David Hobdey, Louise Harvey and Ben Fletcher

problem, “Through the implementation of the Foundation Fund, our commitment is to invest over £30 million over the next decade to ensure every child from birth to 12 years old is supported to grow into a healthy, happy and educated member of our community. This is our vision”.

Before handing over to director Louise Harvey to explain the nuts and bolts of the Foundation Fund, David reassured the audience that St John’s would be continuing to offer crucial support to people in crisis through their Individual Funding Programme and that this would not change.

Recognising the extraordinary work of many of the organisations represented in the room, Louise spoke of how the Foundation Fund would build a co-ordinated infrastructure across B&NES to support children from birth to 12 years old.

“We recognise we have responsibility to use our resources in a way that can bring about transformational change over the next decade.

We will take a preventative approach while children are young enough to make a lasting difference. We intend to make a generational change.”

Referencing the attainment gap that David had highlighted earlier, Louise spoke of the countless children who are not having the best start in life: “We are seeing families struggling to put food on the table and provide a nurturing environment for their children. On a daily basis we witness families whose standard of living falls far short of what we in this room would accept for ourselves or our children. This is unacceptable.”

To try and address these issues, Louise went on to set out the four commitments of the Foundation Fund: “We will ensure every child has access to nutritious food, professional, emotional and behavioural support, extra support with reading, writing, oracy and maths and a safe space outside of school hours. We will build on and enhance the current work already being delivered in these areas, and support the dedicated professionals in their field.”

Rounding off the presentation, Louise left the audience with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”.

And for the next decade, that’s exactly what the Foundation Fund will be doing. n For more information on the strategy, visit stjohnsbath.org.uk THEBATHMAG.CO.UK

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BOOKS

f n s

Celebrating great women

Author and illustrator Kate Pankhurst – a descendant of Emmeline Pankhurst – is more qualified than some to wave a flag for the great women of history who may have been sidelined and overshadowed. To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March, Kate is coming to Bath to talk about her latest book: Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet.

She talks to us about ideas, drawing, and why children respond to her ‘you can change the world, too’ message

have always loved drawing – at my talk in Bath I will be showing some illustrations from when I was aged about 5 or 6 – replicating the Beano magazine’s comic strips. I suppose practice makes perfect, really, and I still wake up and pinch myself every day that I get to do this for a job!

I

deliberately to tune into things around you that most of the time we tune out of.

I think it was Picasso who said inspiration does exist, but it has to find you working.

There is of course always a conversation with my editor, who is really helpful in brainstorming ideas and helping to hone some of the initial ideas I have.

The first drawing I show is an early one, just a picture of my family and my house. There are lots of photos of me even younger than that with pen-in-hand, though. I think I was born an illustrator. The writing did come later, though I think I’ve always been a storyteller too. I have certainly always loved reading.

I couldn’t possibly choose a favourite woman out of all those I’ve included in the series. I become so invested in all of their stories when researching that it’s hard to move from spread to spread. Having said that, I do particularly love Eugenie Clark, who features in the latest book. Known as the ‘shark lady’, Eugenie was a groundbreaking marine biologist who emphasised the importance of respecting our oceans and all living creatures.

Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet is the fourth in the FGW series of books – I wanted to pick another really strong theme to curate a group of world-changing influential women.

The environmental theme seemed the right choice for two reasons – firstly, protecting our planet is of huge concern to our young readers. Secondly, there are so many incredible women who have contributed to the discussions we are having about the challenges our planet faces today. Many of these women you may never have heard of.

For me it’s really vital to feel relaxed and playful in order to think of good ideas.

Deadlines are good for a flurry of ideas under pressure, but I’ve realised it is important to have a bit of time away from my desk if I want to think of anything good. The best ideas come from talking to children, being out and about and trying

It’s important to celebrate the stories of women who have sometimes been overlooked by history, and for young children to understand that things have not always been the way they are today.

We have so many more freedoms (in many countries) thanks to the sacrifices and determination of some pioneering women.

International Women’s Day is a chance to reflect, and celebrate just how far we’ve come.

I have an ancestral connection to Emmeline Pankhurst and in all the political turmoil of late I am constantly reminded in my work on the Fantastically Great Women books of the fact that at one point women didn’t have a say on what happened in the political sphere. It’s important to educate the younger generations on what inspirational work the suffragettes did to get women the vote. Emmeline features in my first book in the series, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World.

I believe that if children have an insight into the challenges women faced in the past, they will be more questioning of unfairness and inequality today.

I received a lot of lovely letters from Fantastically Great Women fans and love hearing imaginations run wild with questions at book signings and events.

The ‘you can change the world, too’ message of the books seems to have really stuck with young readers, which I’m really pleased about.

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In July, the Fantastically Great Women series moves into a thicker chapter-book format for older readers, which is very exciting. The first two books in this new series will be Fantastically Great Women: Artists and their Stories as well as Fantastically Great Women: Scientists and their Stories. They are aimed at slightly older readers, aged 7–9, allowing the readers who enjoyed my books when they first came out (and who have now grown a bit older) to delve a little deeper into the lives of some of the women in the picture books (and some new ones, too!).

My studio in Leeds is a beautiful old mill building but it is big, spacious (and cold).

I solve this by always having my dog Olive there for company. I might dedicate a book to her in the future – she’d certainly make a mischievous character! n Kate Pankhurst will be giving a talk on 8 March (International Women’s Day), at The Royal High School, Bath, 2–3pm. £6, tickets via Eventbrite: eventbrite.co.uk Event organised by Wonder: eventsofwonder.com

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Rebellion rules

International Women’s Day – on 8 March – has a sharp contemporary relevance in a culture where the rights of women still need fighting for. Sophie Walker’s latest book, Five Rules for Rebellion, gives a template for how women can incorporate activism into their lives. Simon Horsford finds out more

W

ith time to spare before meeting Sophie Walker, the founding leader of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP), I pop into the National Portrait Gallery in London where I chance upon a room with a display of three ‘Suffragette Postcards’ depicting key figures in the movement; the cards were sold to supporters in the early 1900s to raise funds.

It seems an appropriate coincidence as last year Walker was hailed as one of ‘The New Suffragettes’ in Vogue magazine.

Walker stepped down from the WEP role in 2019 to champion new campaigners, activists and leaders from different backgrounds – she’s now CEO of the Young Women’s Trust and director of the Activate Collection, a feminist group which aims to “fix politics through representation”. Much of her philosophy and belief in the urgent need for change is captured in her latest book, Five Rules For Rebellion.

As we order a couple of pots of tea, Walker laughs at the suggestion that she is a modern-day feminist. “I do not spend any time thinking about who I am. I am much more interested in what I am doing and what I can do to help.” And for the past 10 years or so, Walker has been helping women find a voice, via her time with the Women’s Equality Party and now with Five Rules For Rebellion, which lays out a set of ideas about how women can incorporate activism into their lives by channelling ‘hope’, ‘despair’ and ‘rage’ into something positive. It draws on the thoughts of several activists and campaigners as they discuss their work on everything from equality and access to education to abortion rights.

Far from a strident polemic, it’s a well argued, thoughtful and heartfelt call for positive action.

“What I wanted was to write the book that I would want to read. As a journalist and writer, I tend to write things through to make sense of them and I had come through this sort of firestorm [10 years of activism], if you like, and wanted to construct something useful for other people who might be feeling the same way.”

What has driven Walker is her belief that “there is a need for activism and a fundamental need to find different ways to bring about peace and equality and that we 70 TheBATHMagazine

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Sophie Walker

are faced with some huge questions.” In this sense, she says, her aim in the book was to “write a philosophy of activism that would find nourishment in the most difficult bits of it. I also wanted to interview other activists, so that, maybe, by talking to each other we can help each other move forward.”

Among those interviewed by Walker are the Irish campaigner Ailbhe Smyth, activist and food writer Jack Monroe and Nigerian peace worker Joy Onyseh. “These amazing women have dealt with particular circumstances and learned lessons that seemed to plot along a journey that become the five rules. I also noticed common areas of experience that chimed with what I had felt. I started with three very clear ‘rules’ – despair, anger and hope – but my experiences of doing media work made me want to explore how we talk to each other in a more collaborative way, so that’s how the last bit of it came together [‘Collaborate with Compassion’ and ‘Practise Perseverance’].

Looking back to her time as the leader of the WEP, I wondered if she believed the party has been a success, or whether it failed to galvanise opinion? “The four or five years of the Women’s Equality Party was an absolute rollercoaster,” she recalls. “We all lived through about 100 years of politics in

that time. It was challenging and exhilarating but as the leader of a brand new political party that was trying to directly challenge [the main parties] and offer answers to some of the big questions we were grappling with, it was like being hit by lightning. I learnt a lot but I also felt this is too big, it felt like throwing yourself at a brick wall.”

Walker believes the WEP, which now has a new leader, still has an important impact on how we incorporate women’s perspectives into politics, and create policies that speak to women’s experiences and needs. “I think they’ve done some really important work on how to do politics differently as a small party when up against a really restrictive voting system – first-pastthe-post – that effectively forces us to vote for what you don’t want rather than what you do want, and we did some really good stuff in terms of talking about collaborating with and working with other parties. And we looked at how to be a member of more than one party and finding common ground.

“I have good friends in all of the UK political parties – apart from UKIP,” she says with a laugh, “and they sat down with us and tried to find ways of working.”

She thinks that the emergence of the WEP, who have done a lot of work on the importance of investing in care, believing it should be seen as an investment rather than an expense, did have an impact on the policies of the main parties. “We have seen the other parties contort themselves to look a bit more like ones that understand women’s equality, with Boris Johnson calling himself a feminist – I mean that’s a whole other issue – but I do think the conversation has changed, and in part that is due to the arrival of the Women’s Equality Party.”

Taking part in two elections (London Mayoral in 2016 and the General Election the following year) must have been fascinating, I suggest. “The mayoral election was an absolute blast,” she recalls. “We’d been open for about 10 months” [the party was formed in 2015]. “It was joyful and terrifying. Walker got more than 50,000 first preference votes.” The following year in Shipley, West Yorkshire, she stood against the Conservative MP Philip Davies, chiefly because he had tried to block a domestic violence bill with an ultimately unsuccessful

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BOOKS | INTERVIEW

between 18 and 24 regarded themselves as feminists, the same proportion identify sexism as a major problem, and one in 10 has taken part in some form of activism or protest in the last year.

Walker believes there is an impatience for change. A recent survey by University of Cambridge researchers concluded that there was huge dissatisfaction with democracy within developed countries, which was at its highest level in almost 25 years. In 1995, it claimed, the proportion of those dissatisfied with democracy in the UK was 47 per cent; it’s now 61 per cent.

In the same vein, Walker cites figures that claim 70 per cent of young women say their confidence in politicians has plummeted because they don’t see any responses from politicians to their lives. With stories of women struggling with increasing childcare costs and having to decide between paying bills or buying food, Walker suggests: “for those people politicians are completely distant and have no bearing in their lives.”

❝

Some men have no idea of the spectrum of abuse that women experience, from catcalling to domestic abuse

❝

filibuster. “It was a nasty campaign. He (Davies) was always perfectly nice to me, but a lot of his supporters were deeply unpleasant and the Labour Party was vitriolic. I was trolled and abused.”

The last point raises the question of social media and how women are frequently targeted. “The promise of social media to connect people has been tainted by the same kind of limiting behaviour and bullying and silencing of women that we see offline…

“Our future tech is being written by men according to their own experiences and so creating a future which is mimicking our past, one that doesn’t give space to different perspectives. Women’s journeys through social media and what they are guided to look at are very different from men’s.”

And yet Walker, who is very active on Twitter, opining on everything from Brexit to parenthood, adds that she started using social media 10 years ago when “I was feeling very lonely and isolated as the mother of a young child with autism and I discovered online communities that have sustained and fortified me.”

Tellingly, however, she doesn’t feel social media is the place to have effective conversations about activism. In the book, Walker highlights how it doesn’t allow for complexity or nuance, and that it is far better to meet face-to-face. “Activism is in community,” she says, adding that social media should be used tactically as a first step to make fresh connections that can then be taken offline into fresh collaborative spaces.

Confident, strong-willed and with an infectious sense of humour, Walker fervently believes our existing political system simply doesn’t work for everyone. “You can choose to look at the fact women still only make up a third of political representation at national and local level, or at policy making, where 10 years of austerity have hit women disproportionately.” Her last point is based on a House of Commons library analysis in 2017, which suggested that 86 per cent of the burden of austerity since 2010 has fallen on women.

In the book, Walker highlights various barriers to a fair and peaceful world and I wonder if she remains hopeful of change.

“There are huge global questions that people are grappling with around the world, from globalisation to technology to the future of work and jobs and the increasing fragility of the planet, and in the face of that people are coming up with some very binary choices.

There are self-styled populists, who want to hang on to their own power and influence and they are doing it by dividing and conquering and telling us all that it will all be fine if you just stay in your place and that is very alluring to some people.

“On the other side, there are movements growing which reject that approach. I am hugely heartened by that. At the Young Women’s Trust we had some research, which showed that 70 per cent of young women

Naturally we move on to the #MeToo movement and I ask whether it has become now more about victimhood. “I think there are those who would seek to portray #MeToo and feminism more generally as women trying to portray themselves as victims, she says. “And that is part of a centuries-old trend of telling women that it is their fault. Some men have no idea of the spectrum of abuse that women experience from catcalling and domestic abuse to rape and violence. But also the extent to which that abuse forces women to edit themselves to change their behaviour or clothing or quieten their voice.”

“There are lots of reasons it didn’t work, and part of that is that patriarchy doesn’t like being told what to do. There were also women of colour affected, but their stories weren’t told, so it was presented as white women telling ‘us’ what to do. And presenting experiences also has to be about presenting solutions.”

Walker, who lives in London with her family, says in her book that no single event made her an activist, but a combination of them. “We become activists because we reach breaking point,” says Walker.

Influences include her parents “My Mum and Dad were working class northerners, who were p****d off with the levels of

injustice that they had lived through.” Born in Blackpool, Walker grew up in Glasgow.

In the seventies, they marched about everything from the miners to CND, and her mother was also active in the Women’s Liberation Movement. “They gave me a sense that you have to be fully in the world and speak up when you see something that’s not right or fair”.

Then there was the battle to get recognition for her eldest daughter’s autism and about whom she wrote so movingly in Grace Under Pressure: Going the Distance as an Asperger’s Mum. “A huge push was being a single parent trying pay the rent, trying to keep a job and trying to get support for my daughter that wasn’t there, and understanding a society that holds in utter contempt those who are different and those who need care.”

And yet Walker remains positive about the future, although, she admits, to be so, she has to reset every day: “It’s a deliberate thing.” And going for a morning run (she used to run marathons) “is the most immediate way to meet the day.” On a lighter note, I mention Frozen movies as a celebration of sisterhood. “I love them,” she says, “I took my girls to them, little girls belting out songs about female empowerment.”

As we say goodbye, I wonder if Walker thinks we live in rebellious times. “I think people are mobilising in a way I find incredibly invigorating.” And if she has a message: “For us all to want a lot. Don’t settle for less because the less you settle for, the less you get. Want it all.” Those turn-ofthe-century suffragettes would certaninly be impressed. n Sophie Walker will be discussing Five Rules for Rebellion at Toppings on 7 April at 8pm; toppingbooks.co.uk

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Leadership Skills for Tomorrow’s World University of Bristol offers part-time Masters in Strategy, Change and Leadership for senior professionals

The University of Bristol is offering a part-time Masters programme in Strategy, Change and Leadership. This part-time programme is for aspiring senior managers and is designed to fit around the demands of a busy job.

Today’s leaders are facing the most challenging operating circumstances for a generation. The necessary skills and competencies have shifted from the motivation of employees in a buoyant economy to change management and strategic leadership in this landscape of budget cuts, increased hours, more sophisticated technology and leaner workforces. Few organisations have escaped these changes whether they are in the private, public or not-for-profit sectors.

The University of Bristol has recognised this and designed a bespoke Masters degree in Strategy, Change and Leadership aimed at providing senior managers with the tools and techniques they require in order to navigate their organisations through such demanding times.

Programme Director, Helen Ballard says “I am delighted that we are able to offer this type of programme. Excellent leadership is critical in this challenging climate, and high performing organisations are recognising the need to further develop their managers. This practical Masters degree will offer a return on investment from day one.”

To find out more about the programme, come along to our open evening at the University on Wednesday 25th March from 6pm – 8pm. Contact Cheralyn Dark for details: efim-scl@bristol.ac.uk

For further information about the course please visit: www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/2020/ssl/msc-strategychange-leadership/ 72 TheBATHMagazine

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Foreign Languages Centre UNIVERSITY OF

Daytime, lunchtime and evening foreign language classes for members of the public. Enrolling now!

Arabic

French

German

Italian

Japanese

Mandarin Chinese

Portuguese

Spanish

We offer a wide range of foreign languages at beginner through to advanced level.

To find out more about the courses available, or to enrol, visit our website www.bath.ac.uk/flc and apply online or call 01225 383991.

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FAMILY | EVENTS

Family diary IDEAS FOR THINGS TO DO WITH THE CHILDREN THIS MONTH and the king of the forest. While the girls’ mother lies sick in the hospital, O-Totoro takes them on a magical adventure. Suitable for all ages, £2.50; picturehouses.com

Stella and the Starshiners at The Pound Arts Centre

SCIENCE BUSKING n 7 March, 11am–3pm, The Roman Baths As part of British Science Week, investigate Roman science and technology as you get hands on with finds from the museum.

Suitable for all ages, free event but normal admission applies; romanbaths.co.uk FORTNIGHTLY TAKEOVER n 7 and 21 March, 11am–2pm, The Edge, University of Bath Artist Victoria Willmott hosts a series of fun and informal creative activities that explore The Edge’s current exhibition with special themes. Drop in for just 10 minutes, or stay for the duration and get creative. Suitable for ages four to 12, free event; edgearts.org

ROOTS AND SHOOTS n Every Tuesday during term time, 10–11.30am, Bath City Farm Toddlers can explore every inch of the farm, and make friends with the animals while they feed them breakfast. Have fun digging in the mud, learning about the bug huts, making crafts and listening to the incredible stories from the farm. Suitable for children five and under, £3.50–£7.50; bathcityfarm.org.uk SUPER PIRATES n Every Friday during term time, 10.30am, Komedia Super Pirates will be transforming Komedia’s dance floor into a fun-filled playroom. Build dens, play crazy games and let off confetti cannons. There are also playmats, toys and plenty of space for running around. Suitable for babies and toddlers. £4 per child, adults and newborn babies go free; komedia.co.uk AFTERMIRTH n 5 March, 12pm, The Rondo Theatre An adult comedy club that you can bring your baby to. Each show features three top circuit comedians delivering their usual club routines, so the material is mature and sweary with the odd birth story flashback.

The only difference is it’s during the day.

Adults and babies under 18 months only. £10; rondotheatre.co.uk WORLD BOOK DAY n 5–8 March, 10am–4pm, Dyrham Park Celebrate World Book Day at Dyrham Park, celebrating with a story-creating activity and storytelling on site. Exchange your £1 book 74 TheBATHMagazine

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token for an exciting new read in the shop.

Set off on an adventure and create your own story in a trail around the parkland. Suitable for all ages, free event but normal admission applies; nationaltrust.org.uk/dyrham-park ADRIFT n 6–7 March, times vary, The egg Two children are in a boat. They play, they laugh and they argue. They dream of catching a fish so big it will capsize the boat.

Of encountering a mermaid who will sing them the most beautiful melodies. Of lassoing a whale who will pull them to shore, to a new land of thick green grass and endless blue skies. Suitable for ages seven and above, £8 children, £9 adults; theatreroyal.org.uk

LITTLE MERMAID n 8 March, 2pm, The Mission Theatre Little Mermaid tells a story of friendship, family, life under the sea, unexpected love, and even a dancing seahorse. Follow along with Nerida as she aims to learn more about the world above sea level. Despite the warnings of Regina the Sea Queen, her mermaid sisters and beloved pet seahorse Briso, Nerida is determined to find love in the world above. Suitable for ages five and above, £11; missiontheatre.co.uk HANDS-ON SCIENCE n 9–13 March, 2–4pm, The Roman Baths As part of British Science Week, take a look at science through the museum objects.

Learn more about the archaeological finds in the collection and the science behind them.

Suitable for all ages, free event but normal admission applies; romanbaths.co.uk

CURIOUS KIDS n 7 March, 10–11.30am, Wiltshire Museum There will be stories and multi-sensory fun for curious minds, and there will also be the chance to delve into the past and have fun learning together – using different materials, sounds and songs to look at different themes from the Saxons at Home collection. Suitable for ages two to five. £4, booking essential; wiltshiremuseum.org.uk

WALL-E n 14 March, 10.30am, The Little Theatre Cinema Catch the Disney classic about a robot who soon discovers what he was truly meant for.

Follow Wall-E’s comic adventures as he chases his dream across the galaxy. Suitable for all ages, £2.50; picturehouses.com

MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO n 7 March, 10.30am, The Little Theatre Cinema Follow the story of two young girls who find their new home is next to a mystical forest inhabited by a menagerie of fantastical creatures called Totoros. They befriend O-Totoro, the biggest and eldest of them,

STELLA AND THE STARSHINERS n 14 March, 2pm, The Pound Arts Centre In a secret place at the top of everything stands the tallest mountain in the world.

On the peak of the mountain sits a tiny little village. In the centre of the village leans the tallest ladder in the world. At the bottom of the ladder is Stella, and Stella is afraid of

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FAMILY | EVENTS

heights. With puppetry, live music and dazzling storytelling, make unexpected new friends and reach for the stars. Suitable for ages three to eight, £7 children, £8 adult; poundarts.org.uk WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD n 14–15 March, 11.30am and 3pm, The egg Before anything new is made it must be dreamed. Create the universe, starting with putting the stars in the sky and move through history.

Discover fire and celebrate the new world that you have made.

Suitable for ages two and above, £8 children, £9 adults; theatreroyal.org.uk World Book Day

TYNTETOTS: THE LITTLE RED HEN n 18–20 March, 10–11.45am and 1–2.45pm, Tyntesfield Enjoy storytelling, crafts and games inspired by the classic story of The Little Red Hen. Become a baker, play with farmyard friends and plant seeds. Suitable for ages two to five, £6 children, £2 adults; nationaltrust.org.uk/tyntesfield

TODDLER EXPLORERS – FLOWERS n 20 March, 10.30–11.30am, Somerset Rural Life Museum Join in the fun with themed arts and crafts, museum objects and storytime within the lovely surrounding of the museum. Suitable for ages one to three, £5, booking essential; swheritage.org.uk JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH n 21 March, 10.30am, The Little Theatre Cinema James is an orphan who lives with his two cruel aunts. He finds a massive magical peach in the garden, climbs inside and meets new friends as he goes on a wonderful adventure-filled odyssey. Suitable for all ages, £2.50; picturehouses.com

My Neighbour Totoro

MINI n 21–22 March, times vary, The egg Mini tells the story of two characters and space which becomes a magical place of discovery. Explore space, shapes, sounds and colours put into play in front of and around you, which react and come to life as a result of their movements and thus compose a magical design. Suitable for ages two to four, £10; theatreroyal.org.uk n

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EDUCATION

EDUCATION NEWS STONAR PARTNERS WITH WWF Stonar School has announced a new exciting collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). The WWF partnership was announced as part of Globeducate’s Global Agenda for change. The partnership will see all schools host screenings of the Netflix series Our Planet alongside educational acitvities. Stonar School pupils will also take part in the charity’s Wear It Wild event in June, which will raise money to protect endangered species. Other activities will include pupils attending a summit at the WWF-UK Living Planet Centre and the David Attenborough Première screening at the Royal Albert Hall.

Headmaster Mr Matthew Way said: “Young people across the world are very much tuned in to information about the environment, not least climate change. As a school we want to encourage this interest and we want to offer opportunities for real, hands-on engagement and, in the process, our pupils will feel that they are able to bring about tangible change.” stonarschool.com

PRIOR TENNIS RANKS SECOND IN UK Prior Park College has been ranked second in the country for Girls’ tennis.

The LTA (NGB) published the overall school tennis rankings for 2019, which are based on a school’s success in the national school tennis competitions.

Prior Park’s head of tennis, Mrs Scollo, commented, “In 2018 we finished 8th so this is a great progression for the school and the girls. I would like to thank all the staff involved with supporting the girls at school, both academically and pastorally, to enable them to train and attend competitions throughout the school year.” priorparkcollege.com

CODERS GO NATIONAL A team of four King Edward’s School students have secured themselves a place in the UK national final after winning the south west final of the National Cyber Security Centre’s CyberFirst Girls Competition.

The competition aims to boost interest in cyber security among girls, as women are under-represented in the industry, and tests skills on topics ranging from logic and cryptography to networking and online safety. Nearly 12,000 girls have taken part in this year’s contest, and the Year 8 code breakers now join only nine other teams for the final in March.

Dr Wainer, who accompanied the team to the competition, said, “We are so incredibly proud of the girls and what they have been able to achieve. They threw themselves into this competition with a passion and it is a testament to their hard work that they have done so well.” kesbath.com n 76 TheBATHMagazine

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A.L.F.A. LANGUAGE SCHOOL FRANCE

HOST FAMILIES REQUIRED Would you like to host French students? Ages 11-17 Saturday 11th July – Friday 31st July One student – £560 Two students in room share – £1060 Two students in 2 rooms – £1120 For further information please contact Mrs Susie Houston on 0777 379 2866 or email: susie.houston.alfa@gmail.com

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The Orangery fp March.qxp_Layout 1 21/02/2020 09:29 Page 1

Established for over 25 years we are the experts in skin health, aesthetics and advanced beauty treatments in Bath.

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36 Gay Street, Bath • Tel: 01225 466851 • www.theorangerylaserandbeautybath.co.uk

Health and Beauty News MAR.qxp_Layout 22 21/02/2020 18:15 Page 1

HEALTH & BEAUTY

HEALTH & BEAUTY NEWS Mother’s Day is on its way – on 22 March – so we’re thinking big health treats this month, with a facial, a massage, a microneedling treatment and a selection of spoil-the-best-person-in-the-world beauty products. Of course that person could easily be you...

CAUDALIE INSTANT FACIAL

SKIN SAVIOUR

Frontlinestyle are offering a Caudalie facial day on 24 March, offering a one-to-one skin analysis and an instant beauty facial. The facial includes eye and skin cleansing, deep exfoliation, the application of a customized mask, and a hand massage. The experience is completed with serums and moisturisers to meet your individual requirements.

This express treatment is tailormade to meet the needs of every skin type. Booking fee £15, redeemable against products.

Book by calling 01225 478478.

Do you have something to hide? A new treatment called Skin Pen is a microneedling treatment to help with acne scarring, stretch marks, fine lines and wrinkles and collagen production. The only FDA and CE-approved microneedling device on the market, with as few as three non-invasive treatments spaced 30 days apart, you can improve your appearance for six months after your last treatment, and step out with confidence. The normal

price is £220 for one treatment and £550 for a course of three, but Enhance Medispa have an introductory offer of buy two and receive the third free.

• enhancemedispa.co.uk

Before and after the treatment

• frontlinestyle.co.uk

MOTHER’S DAY GIFTS PLANTING BEAUTY

SKINCARE

Would you like some gorgeously scented, sustainable beauty and home products for Mother’s Day? Planty Kate is a new business founded by Larkhall-based Kate Clark. It all started with a houseplant obsession, but now her range includes a wide range of plant-based gifts such as candles and beauty products, often working collaboratively with other producers.

The ethos behind the products is they are well sourced, as sustainable as possible, smell great, perform brilliantly and bring fun and joy. Candles use rapeseed wax as their base and reed diffusers use quality natural plant oils, essential oils and fragrances. Soaps are made the old fashioned, coldpressed way, scented with essential oils then slowly cured, resulting in a beautiful soft, rich lather.

Caudalie Skincare Heroes gift set A travel-sized collection of skincare treatments including a moisturiser, cleansing lotion and eye cream. Worth £45, and free with any Caudalie face or body treatment at Frontlinestyle.

• frontlinestyle.co.uk

• plantykate.com Gift sets by Planty Kate, various prices

Superfood 4-Step Collection Feed skin a serving of balancing prebiotics and nutrient-dense superfood extracts for a healthy looking, outdoor-fresh glow. The collection includes blackcurrant jelly exfoliator, facial wash, day cream and facial oil. £45.

• enhancemedispa.co.uk

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Candles by Planty Kate, £16

Frontline Style fp.qxp_Layout 1 19/02/2020 13:01 Page 1

style Boutique Salons & Spa Nestled in the heart of Bath, the award winning Frontlinestyle Beauty Spa and Hair Salon is renowned for its highly trained & knowledgeable team of beauty therapists & hair stylists.

Popular treatments include….

Blow dry bar • Wella Colourist • Massages • Facials • Lashes • Caci Synergy IPL • Electrolysis • Waxing • Threading • Nails • Footlogix medi-pedi • Wigs

4/5 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2AJ. 01225 478478

11 Broad Street, Wells, BA5 2DJ. 01749 672225

Book online www.frontlinestyle.co.uk

Health and Beauty News MAR.qxp_Layout 22 21/02/2020 18:43 Page 2

HEALTH & BEAUTY

R E V I EW

GLOWING INNER HEALTH

Millie Bruce-Watt finds powerful solace in an aromatherapy massage

T

ucked away in one of Bath’s characterful side streets lives the ever-radiating Neal’s Yard Remedies, where holistic therapist Keiko Kishimoto offers a holy grail of aromatherapy treatments. On entering, I was instantly greeted by the sweet scent of aromatic oils as the door swung open to the heated emporium. I could almost feel my stresses quickly melt away before the 75 minutes of therapeutic massage had even begun.

From reflexology to natural face-lifts, Keiko offers a variety of different treatments to target the areas that need attention. Taking your own preferences into consideration, she will choose a unique blend of oils depending on whether you want a relaxing experience or a rejuvenating, immune-boosting health kick. On this particular Monday, I went for a full-body massage and Keiko recommended a blend of stress-busting floral oils, such as rose and lavender, to ease my ‘computer shoulders’.

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With an array of scents available, including sandalwood, Earl Grey and geranium – all totally free of harmful toxins and all offering different health benefits – Keiko uses a combination of Swedish and hands-free massage techniques, aiming to bring tranquility and relaxation as well as physical and mental wellbeing to her clients. It certainly worked for me – with the deep but gentle massage, I found myself drifting away to the sultry sounds of rolling waves before I knew it.

As many of us carry our home or work stresses around with us on a daily basis, aromatherapy massages and powerful oils can release you from the constant, and sometimes chronic, conditions that plague our lives. Combining the best of Eastern and Western techniques, I’d say that a calming massage was the ideal way to relax, unwind and indulge your senses.

Keiko was born and brought up in Japan and having always been interested in the link between the mind and body, she

moved to England to work in one of Bath’s five-star spas and enhance her knowledge in holistic care. Now, after setting up shop above Neal’s Yard, she aims to introduce people to the benefits of aromatherapy, help them return to their harmonious state and achieve their own inner potential. 

• Keiko Kishimoto, Neal’s Yard Remedies, Northumberland Place, Bath Open: Friday 9.30am–6pm and Sunday 10.30am–5pm. Tel: 01225 466944 keikokishimoto.co.uk

HN Beautyfool Bath page qxp.qxp_Layout 1 20/02/2020 15:22 Page 1

EXCLUSIVE READER EVENT

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Enjoy complimentary mini treatments from brands such as Nails Inc, Jo Malone and Nars.

Meet Fenty Beauty Event Team Artist, Paul Fletcher to discover ‘Fly Eye’s by Fenty Beauty’.

Pick up tips and tricks from the beauty team and enjoy complimentary Prosecco and live music.

Tickets £10 (Redeemable on beauty purchases made on the night)

To purchase tickets visit: aprilbeautyfoolharveynicholsbristol.eventbrite.co.uk

For more information visit: thebathmag.co.uk Follow for updates thebathmagazine

P84.qxp_Layout 22 21/02/2020 16:56 Page 1

OFFICE SPACE/THERAPY ROOM Available on the third floor of a mid terraced Georgian building in Gay Street offering period style features, close to Queens Square and The Circus.

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At running bath our specialist staff use the latest technology to analyse your running gait and goals, allowing us to recommend the best footwear and products for you.

www.runningbath.co.uk 18 High St Bath BA1 5AJ

Tel: 01225 462555

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Introducing the Optomap

16 Pierrepont St, Bath BA1 1LA | Tel: 01225 464433 www.kathrynanthony.co.uk

with optomap ultra-widefield retinal imaging

Kathryn Anthony Optometry prides itself in offering the newest state of the art technology and we are delighted to welcome the latest Optomap equipment from Optos. The retina is the only place in the body where blood vessels can be seen directly, therefore in addition to eye conditions signs of other diseases such as stroke, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes can also be detected. This complements our OCT eye scanner which gives us an in depth look at the optic nerve head and macula.

without optomap

CJ Beauty Offering a wide range of treatments massage manicure pedicure waxing tinting facials IBX nail treatment LVL lash lift callus peel hopi ear candles microdermabrasion 10 -11 Green Street, Bath, BA1 2JZ 07840 864829

Owner Michelle previously Senior Therapist at Green Street House

cjbeauty.uk

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THE | WALK

Warminster High Street, 1890

Warminster walk

Andrew Swift takes us on a journey through the historic town of Warminster – choose either the full walk starting on the downs and continuing through the town, or just follow the street walk following the town’s architectural milestones

T

he town of Warminster – referred to in The Domesday Book in 1086 as Guerminstreis – is only 35 minutes from Bath by train.

Its grandest houses, which were built by clothiers in the early 18th century, stand alongside cottages and workshops, while the building materials range from squared rubble stone and local brick to ashlar stone.

Warminster is surrounded by downland, with three massive Iron Age hill forts overlooking the town. This walk starts with a short walk up to the downs before heading back to explore Warminster’s streets. You could also just do the town walk.

DIRECTIONS Arriving at Warminster station from Bath, do not cross the footbridge but head into the car park and turn left along the approach road.

• If you just want to do the town walk, turn left under the railway, continue straight on along a path and turn right at the end. After 150m, turn right along another footpath. At the road, cross over, turn right and then left along Portway Lane. After 500m, opposite Sherwood Close, turn left through an avenue of trees – and skip to .

• For the full walk, after turning left along the approach road, take the path on the right-hand side and follow it as it turns right uphill. When you come to a road, cross and continue up to a lychgate on which are 86 TheBATHMagazine

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carved the dates of the two world wars. Cop Heap, the hill behind it, was dedicated as a war memorial in 1950.

After climbing a few steps, turn left through a kissing gate and follow a track uphill beside the fence. As it levels out, bear away from the fence and follow a faint track across the field. At a waymark, head towards a gate to the right of some bungalows. Turn left along a road for a few metres, then right up a rough track and right again to follow an Imber Range Path sign to the left of a house.

After 250m, the track curves left up a holloway to emerge on the downs, curving round the lip of a vertiginous scoop of land called Kidnapper’s Hole. This is claimed to be one of the sites where UFOs landed in the 1960s and 1970s, when Warminster was the UFO capital of England. Looking east from here you can see two hill forts – Battlesbury Camp across the valley, and Scratchbury Camp in the distance.

At the end of the golf course, turn left to follow a restricted byway for 500m, before bearing left to follow a footpath along the northern edge of the golf course. After another 350m, when the path forks, bear right, passing a bench commanding a view of Cley Hill, encircled by the ramparts of another hill fort.

The track soon starts descending through woodland. Carry on down in the same direction, ignoring tracks branching off.

At the bottom, go through the remains of a kissing gate, head down to a road, cross and turn left along the pavement. After 120m,

by No. 19, turn right along a footpath.

After crossing the railway, turn right along a road and follow it as it swings left and left again. After another 85m, with Sherwood Close on your left, turn right through an avenue of trees. Here the two walks join up.

After crossing the meadow, the path leads over the diminutive River Were, which gave Warminster the first part of its name. At the end of the path is the minster church of St Denys, which provided the second part.

Turn left along Church Street, passing the grammar school of 1707 on the left. A little further along, at No. 30, is the National School of 1815, still with its original sign.

Byne House – No. 40 – was built for a wealthy clothier in 1755 and sports a splendid Venetian window – something of a Warminster speciality. Just beyond it is a Warminster Turnpike Trust milestone in the wall.

The obelisk at the end was built in 1783 to commemorate the enclosure of the parish.

Through the gates to the right of it can be seen the former lock-up. Continue along Silver Street, home to some of Warminster’s most fascinating independent shops.

Carry on at the mini-roundabout, cross at the zebra crossing and head back to turn left into Sambourne Road. If you look across to the Farmers Hotel, you will see a ghost sign from 1860 above the entrance. Cross another zebra crossing to a cottage with a plaque commemorating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, and head along Emwell Street. The

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THE | WALK

Weymouth Arms, on the left, is a compendium of local building materials. The older, central block is of coursed rubble stone, albeit with bricks interposed, while the two rather more imposing wings are faced in brick.

Continue along Vicarage Street. Wren House, near the end, was probably built in the 1720s, while Tudor House, next door, is a jettied building dating from the 16th century.

Turn left into Pound Street to find Warminster Maltings, the only surviving stand-alone traditional maltings in Britain.

Carry on past Cobbett Place and take the next left.

At the end, turn right and right again into The Beeches. After 200m, you will see a two-storey ashlar and rubble stone building ahead. This is Warminster Workhouse, built in 1837, and its homely facade hides something very different, as you will see when you bear left to follow the road round to the blocks where the inmates lodged.

Although converted to housing in the 1990s, after being used as a hospital, it is still possible to sense the dread this institution must have instilled into generations of local people.

Follow the road round and retrace your steps to the main road. If you fancy a break at this point, an award-winning traditional pub, the Fox and Hounds, is 200m along on the right. Otherwise, cross the zebra crossing, carry on across another zebra crossing and

straight on along Upper Marsh Road. Take the second left along Ferris Mead and at the end bear right through a kissing gate. Head diagonally downhill alongside a fence and go through another kissing gate into Smallbrook Meadows Nature Reserve.

If you want to explore the reserve before continuing with the walk, there is a map on an information board by the gate. Otherwise, cross a footbridge over the River Were and turn left through Lakeside Pleasure Gardens, laid out in 1924 as a work creation scheme on the site of the town’s rubbish tip. At the end, turn right and, when you emerge on the road, cross and turn right uphill, looking out for a couple of ghost signs opposite.

At the top, turn left along High Street.

As it drops downhill, you will see a couple more Venetian windows on the right. Beyond the ashlar-stone elegance of the Chantry lies Bartlett’s Brewery, which closed in 1920 after being taken over by Usher’s of Trowbridge.

On the left is a pub once owned by Bartlett’s, the Organ. Dating from the 1770s, it closed in 1913, but reopened 93 years later, in 2006. Not only is it one of the finest traditional pubs in Wiltshire, it also has an art gallery upstairs.

At the zebra crossing, cross and double back to turn left along Portway. Behind the splendidly unrestored No. 22 on the right is the ivy-covered malthouse of Bartlett’s Brewery. Portway House, at the end, is

Warminster’s only Grade I-listed building.

It was built in 1722, but the front door was later replaced by a single-storey bay whose insertion seems to have caused the windows above to sag.

Cross at the traffic island, turn into the Close to return to the High Street and turn left. Continue into the Market Place, which is still lined with inns recalling the town’s heyday as a coaching centre. The oldest is The Bell, dating back to 1493, although it was rebuilt in the 18th century.

From here, a left turn at the end leads into Station Road brings you to the end of the walk. n Andrew Swift’s Country Walks from Bath is available from bookshops or direct from akemanpress.com. Andrew is also co-author, with Kirsten Elliot, of Ghost Signs of Bath

FACT FILE n Distance: 6 miles (full walk); 4 miles (town walk only) n Level of challenge: Full walk – muddy and steep in places. Town walk – mostly on paved surfaces, but with one field track and two kissing gates.

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ADVERTORIAL | INTERIORS

Inspired interiors

Vonnie Hope of the Bath-based British Design Academy explains where to find inspiration for your home

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nspiration – what is it and where do we find it? Inspiration can strike out of the blue, triggered by something completely random; at other times, it can be elusive, and no amount of teasing it out will help.

As a designer, ideas, and inspiration are what we trade in and so having resources and references to hand that can ensure a steady flow of work, is essential. On your next interiors project, regardless of whether working with a design professional or rolling up your sleeves to do it yourself, having ideas to hand will help the process. Here are a few places to find source material.

MAGAZINES, ONLINE APPS AND BLOGS The most accessible sources of ideas are magazines, online apps and blogspots, which are full of beautiful images and ideas.

Follow design accounts on Instagram; local Bath-based accounts include Pink Walls At Number 13, and the British Design Academy. Create a Pinterest board to bring together your ideas; go ‘old school’ and mark favourite pages in a magazine, cut them out and paste them into your ideas notebook, or add them to your pinboard.

As you do this, you’ll begin seeing a theme take shape and one that could be developed into a design.

DAVINCI PENDANT

BY BELID, SWEDEN

NATURE Nature can provide great inspiration.

Getting outside is always helpful for clearing ‘brain clutter’, decompressing and making space for fresh ideas.

Colours, textures and shapes that can be found in nature, as well as actual designed products using natural motifs – such as floral print wallpapers, natural wood furniture and basket weave patterns – are some elements that can be used.

TRAVEL You never know what might inspire you on your next sojourn: maybe it’s the light, a colour, a flavour, sounds.

Perhaps a souvenir that you bartered hard for at a local souk will become the centrepiece of your next interiors scheme.

Use these references for inspiration to create designs for your home that reflect your taste and style. n The British Design Academy runs interior and garden design courses in Bath; their next Taster Day is on 21 March; britishdesignacademy.co.uk

LIGHTING SPECIALIST 8 BATH STREET, FROME. TEL: 01373473555 WWW.FIATLUX.CO.UK TUESDAY – FRIDAY 9.30AM – 5.30PM, SATURDAY 9.30AM – 5.00PM

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PROPERTY | INTERIORS

Hope-full interiors

Hope House, an elegant development in the centre of Bath, has been sensitively restored by Galliard Homes and Acorn Property Group over three years, and now offers a selection of stylish modern homes. We were given a fascinating insight into two of the development’s show homes, which represent both listed and new-build properties

T ABOVE: The restored mansion fronts onto the communal formal lawn. The Park Row Townhouses are shown to the left and have views over the lawn and parkland beyond BELOW AND RIGHT: The show apartment in the restored listed mansion, with an open-plan living area, designer Stephen Graver kitchen and a marble island

he restoration of Hope House, a Grade-II listed Georgian mansion in Bath, has been completed, providing 54 refurbished and newly built homes. Hope House, which has been restored

by Acorn Property Group and Galliard Homes, was originally the home of Hon. Charles Hamilton (1704–1786), the son of the 6th Earl of Abercorn and England’s first commercial vintner.

Over the last three years, the mansion and its parkland has been returned to its role as a prestigious residential address, guided by architectural heritage specialists Nash Partnership, with specification by design house Lambart & Browne and landscaping

by Matthew Wigan Associates.

Arranged around the historic Hope House, there is a collection of beautifully crafted,

newly built homes, including a collection of four townhouses with three and four bedrooms at Park Row on the northern boundary and three bedroom townhouses and one, two and three bedroom apartments at Hope Place.

The development is set in six acres of parkland, which includes a tennis court, walkways, seating and mature trees. Dramatic views of the green setting is an important element of each property.

Two different interior designers – Lambart & Browne and Andrew Henry Interiors – were commissioned to represent different parts of the development, covering both listed and new-build properties. Here is an insight into two of the show homes and the design aspirations and interior visions that the designers used for each one.

HOPE HOUSE: THE ORIGINAL BUILDING Design: Lambart & Browne • The brief was to create an elegant, timeless and classic design.

The use of raw English materials were key features that underpinned the design.

• The design maximises the appreciation of the landscape beyond; with private terrace looking out onto the communal formal lawn and parkland-like grounds.

• A combination of old and raw materials throughout the development was paramount – using the existing traditional features, the design is a blend of Bath’s classic and contemporary history.

• Fully fitted designer kitchens by Stephen Graver, with integrated Miele and Neff appliances and granite worktops.

• Natural timber and exposed brickwork show off a selection of fine English craftmanship.

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• The Master Suites include Roman-inspired polish marble flooring, and the use of natural timber, bespoke joinery and antique bronze finishes.

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PROPERTY | INTERIORS LEFT: A view of the parkland which has been a key factor in the interior design of all the properties

LAMBART & BROWNE Lambart & Browne was founded by Freddy van Zevenbergen in 2010, offering an exclusive interior design service.

Award-winning interior architects and designers, the company has a reputation for exceptional, carefully crafted design.

Lambart & Browne combines design excellence with the creation of a client’s vision, providing them with comfort, privacy and intimacy. The company has responded to a variety of briefs, from the clean and contemporary to the heavily ornate, from floating family abodes to cutting-edge private nightclubs. lambartandbrowne.com

BELOW: The ground floor of the Park Row townhouse provides an open-plan fully fitted Leicht kitchen and dining area with a central island and engineered timber flooring for a sleek finish BELOW LEFT: The bedrooms in the Park Row townhouse were designed as cocoons, providing an escape from the outside world

ANDREW HENRY INTERIORS Andrew Henry Interiors, who were commissioned to design the interiors of the Park Row townhouse show home in the Hope House development, specialises in new-home developments, with the company’s interior styles ranging from traditional country to modern chic.

When developing a design approach for show homes, the designer will focus on the detail so that viewers can visualise the potential of the space and how their belongings will fit. The approach is to give every room an identity, with the power to hold the interest of potential buyers. andrewhenry.co.uk

PARK ROW TOWNHOUSE: NEW-BUILD PROPERTY Design: Andrew Henry Interiors • The townhouses have picturesque, south-facing views over the Bath countryside and the living space opens on to a patio area through folding French doors for views to the landscaped formal lawns. To make strong connections between inside and outside spaces, inspiration was taken from the gardens, with the incorporation of green and blue tones.

• Includes a mix of contemporary, traditional and classical designs.

Spaces were also designed to be multifunctional.

• As this part of the Hope House development is newly built, the design used a different colour palette to the listed building, while incorporating creams and whites to continue the ‘clean line effect.’

• Uses a sophisticated colour palette of emerald green, cobalt blue and gold paired against elegant grey and cream throughout.

• The show home provides a carefully curated and eclectic mix of furniture and accessories which are designed to appear as treasured items acquired over many years.

The Hope House development has a selection of one, two, three and four bedroom apartments and houses. Hope House is open daily from 10am–5pm. To view call 01225 614 307 or visit: acornpropertygroup.org

• The clean open lines of furniture throughout were used to make the interior space flow fluidly.

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The living room with its stand-out circular sculpture by David Mayne

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INTERIORS

Calm blanche

Interior designer Clair Strong shares a recently completed renovation project; a modern family home situated on the hills surrounding Bath. Photography by Nick Smith

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his four-bedroomed home just outside Bath is the beloved home of a professional photographer and journalist couple. They moved here with their family 20 years ago, choosing the house for its large southfacing garden, parking and sense of space. Being within easy reach of both the town and the countryside was also a big draw.

They first renovated the property 15 years ago. This initial renovation involved dropping the floor level of the kitchen/diner and adding bi-fold doors that open on to a terraced area and garden.

Then, when their children had left home, the couple asked me to help them undertake a second refurbishment stage.

We took the decision to update the house throughout. But, rather than replace everything and start from scratch, the couple wanted to update and add to their favourite pieces. They have a vast array of prints and artwork, including a striking David Mayne piece that sits over the fireplace in the living room. Our goal was to design interiors that would provide a backdrop for their collection.

With this in mind we replaced radiators and doors, reupholstered furniture, and altered and repainted the kitchen cabinets. We added a few new pieces of furniture, chosen because they worked with existing pieces, and replaced the splash-back in the kitchen.

We also installed new lighting, carpets and wooden flooring.

In the kitchen, a bespoke table by Reynolds Collcutt was specially designed with a central plinth to fit the area and prevent sitters from banging knees. Diners can enjoy a completely open view of the garden when the bi-fold doors are opened. The splash-back and fabric on the kitchen chairs were chosen to match with the Bridget Riley print over the banquet seating.

One of the large rooms on the first floor is used to edit photos, and is a pleasing and ordered space with a mix of furniture styles. There’s a vintage planning chest from a reclamation yard, a classic Varier Peal chair and the iconic Herman Miller Aeron office chair, mixed with colourful prints and wooden artichoke pendant light fittings.

The feeling of the house is calm, understated and uplifting.

Features like the pale oak flooring, wooden furniture and serene colour scheme give it a Scandinavian look.

The couple have a strong sense of design and going in to the refurbishment, they had a good idea of what they wanted to achieve.

Leading busy lives made it very difficult to source products and organise the work, so hiring an interior designer was essential in helping them realise their vision. The couple are delighted with the outcome. n

Clair Strong Interior Design is a small, friendly, creative business based in Bath and London, providing services for residential and commercial clients; clairstrong.co.uk reynoldscollcutt.co.uk; nicksmithphotography.com

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INTERIORS

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Transform a cottage into a modern, open-plan space. This might feel a big ask, but Architect Your Home, who specialise in architectural home improvement projects, took on just this, creating a series of living areas flooded with natural light that included floor-to-ceiling glass doors with garden views. Managing director Jude Tugman explains the process

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The clients’ main request was for Crittallstyle metal doors to the rear elevation. Initial Pinterest images that they sent to us included metal doors with an arched head, but we persuaded them not to use arched door openings as they would not have suited the period character and aesthetic of the property, or the construction of the rear extension.

The original house was a small cottage with timber features. The traditional timber theme was adopted in the modern extension by using exposed timber ceiling joists that continued externally under the roof eaves.

The main challenge proved to be the kitchen layout. The architect went through a number of design orientations of kitchen island with the clients, eventually reverting back to the original proposal. Such a to-andfro design development process is quite standard, and being able to evaluate different options allowed the clients to find just the right solution for them.

The new single storey rear extension across the full width of the existing house and the internal ground floor alterations allowed the clients’ ideas and desires to be accommodated in a fluent and coherent way. n architect-yourhome.com; barget.co.uk

ABOVE: This corner window gives a wonderful double aspect view to the garden and the soft timber panelling creates a calm contemplative place to sit and think BELOW: This dark timber kitchen, designed by Barget, sits contentedly in this open-plan space and looks out across the family seating area into the garden beyond

Photography by Martina O’Shea

his detached cottage in Bushey, on the outskirts of London, had been extended a number of years previously with a two-storey rear development, but the homeowners now wanted to achieve a more open-plan arrangement.

The clients had a very focused attitude to the design style for the interior before the extension started. The pre-conversion plan had internally subdivided rooms along the rear ground floor, and this gave very limited transparency between the living spaces and the external terrace. The clients wanted the extension to create an open-plan kitchen, dining and family room, providing suites for both entertaining and family life. Natural light was a key part of the plan, as well as the need to make a close connection to the garden views outside.

The architect met the homeowners initially in March 2016. The early design meetings that then took place with paper and pencil sketches avoided any dramatic alterations of the design. The scheme level drawings were submitted for a planning application in May. The drawings were then developed to the construction stage and were despatched for tendering in September 2016.

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The timber sliding doors enable the spaces to be either contained or free-flowing into each other, and the step up to the kitchen gives a sense of transitioning from one room to the next

The extension has a wonderful sense of open space and yet each area is carefully deliniated and has its own specific character. Here the soft blue sofa creates a cosy sitting area in this charming family living space with views through the metal frame doors to the garden beyond

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INTERIORS | PERIOD STYLE

Georgian: classic contemporary Etons of Bath specialises in the design and renovation of Georgian period properties. There are four broad style approaches that can be taken with a Georgian property, explains the company’s creative director Sarah Latham.

Here she evaluates how the classic contemporary style can be applied to an interior The classic contemporary style is one of the most popular for a period house. When creating a classic contemporary home and interior scheme, Etons of Bath first consider the architectural integrity of the Georgian building. This involves assessing the existing Georgian features – staircases, cornices, ceiling roses, windows, flooring and fireplaces. We then work on any that need to be preserved, repaired or enhanced in order to ensure that the original character of the room shines through. It’s these features that inspire clients to live in a Georgian property, so preserving their original character is essential, even when the style also involves then adding some contemporary design twists.

The next stage is to overlay more contemporary modern internal finishes and fabrics to complement the property’s character. All these elements – such as floor

Etons of Bath, 108 Walcot Street, Bath; etonsofbath.com

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finishes, door furniture, lighting and electrical plans, furniture layouts, kitchens and sanitaryware – are selected so that the interior details blend in with the classic elements and proportions. n

FOUR GEORGIAN STYLINGS There are four broad approaches that can be applied to the refurbishment of Georgian houses and hotels: • warm classic • calm classic • classic contemporary • on-trend contemporary

BELOW: A mix of classic joinery by Hawkers Joinery and pendant lighting with more contemporary bespoke Etons of Bath furniture creates a stunning look in this calm study

ABOVE: This gentleman’s dressing room mixes contemporary furniture, panelling and bespoke Etons of Bath carpets with a classic pendant light, ceiling rose and wall lights

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Image shows Karndean Heritage Collection

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“Founded in 2011 by Marcus Spanswick, who already had 20 years’ experience in the industry, Mardan Removals and Storage Ltd is a, family run, professional full service removals and storage company based in Bath. Marcus wanted to build a company that he and his team would be proud of. The key to the company’s success is providing a personalised service, treating each customer as an individual to ensure they get an excellent removal service. Mardan have a fleet of vehicles allowing them to offer; commercial moving, local to international moves and storage”.

DOMESTIC & COMMERCIAL MOVERS • PACKERS • STORERS • SHIPPERS

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THE LITTLE BOOK OF

HOMES, INTERIORS AND GARDENS Our guide to Bath’s best businesses and services

spring

/summer 2020 PROMOTED CONTENT

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Inside out It’s time to get your house in order. Our spring/summer guide features all the best trades and services to help spruce up your house and garden. Whether it’s a small decorating touch or an ambitious major project, this directory offers a great range of expert services to make all those home, interior and garden ideas become reality.

KELLY MARIE KITCHEN INTERIORS 8 Pulteney Terrace, Bath BA2 4HJ Tel: 01225 481881 (Mobile: 07796 554466) Web: kellymariekitchens.com Kelly Marie has more than 15 years experience in the kitchen design industry.

She has had the pleasure of working on many luxury kitchen projects in the Bath area and now owns her own unique and creative business based on a constant list of word-of-mouth recommendations. Her technical designs with intrinsic creativity allow spaces that are functional yet beautiful. With a vast portfolio of luxury German kitchen projects, Kelly works with each client’s budget, providing personalised attention throughout the design process.

Kelly believes that it is all about the little details and her approach combines purposeful variations of colour, textures and finishes. The careful selection of these elements endow the home with a sense of harmony, while reflecting the individual style of the client.

FIAT LUX 8 Bath Street, Frome BA11 1DH Tel: 01373 473555 Web: fiatlux.co.uk Let there be light... Fiat Lux opened its Frome showroom in 2003, and since then it has been the go-to place to see a huge range of superb lighting, from traditional fittings and shades to the most up-to-date trends in contemporary lighting designs. For interior lighting projects there are fixtures and fittings, bulbs, coloured cords and cables in every possible combination, as well as a full display of exterior lighting ideas.

Fiat Lux works with leading manufacturers such as Vita, Original BTC and many more and is an established favourite with property developers, architects, interior designers and all lighting aficionados, professional and domestic. Whatever your style, mood or interior desire, then a trip to Fiat Lux will really light up your ideas.

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BATH RECLAMATION Tel: 07983 556757 Web: bathreclamation.co.uk It was a sad day when Walcot Reclamation and Walcot Architectural Salvage had to move out of Bath, but the good news is that former manager and director, Cary Morgan, is now the owner of Bath Reclamation, based just outside Bath in Newton St Loe. Bath Reclamation stock and source all types of reclaimed materials, with a special focus on building materials such as Bath stone ashlar, paving, flooring, roofing and bricks.

All other types of salvaged materials and salvaged items – from windows to sleepers, curbs and resawn pine – are kept in stock when available. A visit to its helpful, new website is a must.

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ASPECT WINDOW STYLING 1 Saracen Street,Bath BA1 5BR Tel: 01225 469559 Web: aspectwindowstyling.co.uk Aspect Window Styling is a local family business that specialises in high-end made-to-measure window furnishings. These include blinds, powered blinds, shutters, curtains and awnings. Based in the centre of Bath, the team provide a full design, measuring and fitting service for both small and large design projects across the South West. The showroom is full of the latest products and its highly experienced staff are on hand to provide expert advice both for design and technical queries. Aspect Window Styling understands every window is unique, and aims to provide its customers with specialised solutions to bring out the best in their home.

BONITI

MARMALADE HOUSE

Dunsdon Barn, West Littleton, Wiltshire SN14 8JA Tel: 01225 892200 Web: boniti.com

Tel: 01225 445855 Web: themarmaladehouse.co.uk Marmalade House is an awardwinning, professional furniture painting and design company, based in Bath. It specialises in French and Gustavian finishes that include the layering of colours, distressed paintwork and lime-washing as well as gilding, colour-washing for ageing and waxing services.

The focus is all about colour and style and how that fits into a customer’s home. The team of trained interior designers also offer a design and styling service that brings together the client’s style and aspirations for change.

For those who prefer to do everything themselves, the company also offers popular training courses on how to paint furniture to professional standards, and the use of colour within your home. Run by Vanessa, Marmalade House is an established, friendly company that has its clients’ interests at heart, whatever changes they would like to make, and at whatever scale.

TR HAYES 15–18 London Street, Walcot, Bath BA1 5BX Tel: 01225 465757 Web: trhayes.co.uk TR Hayes has been selling furniture in Bath for over 100 years and has a reputation for good quality and good service. The large store features many well-respected brands, with an amazing array of furniture of all types on display – sofas and chairs, dining and living room furniture, beds and mattresses (including Hypnos, Vispring and Tempur). Styles range from classic to contemporary, with ranges to suit all budgets. There are also highly respected carpet and curtain departments. Carpets and wooden flooring can be fitted, made-to-measure curtains and blinds provided, and advice on poles and accessories is available. With friendly and knowledgeable staff to help guide you, and excellent aftersales care, you can rely on TR Hayes.

Image: Hypnos Beds

Run by Giles and Simon Lunt, Boniti is a high-quality interiors (and exteriors) business. The showroom is a destination for all types of natural stone, porcelain and timber flooring, as well as decorative tiles, stoneware, Kadai firebowls, garden furniture, homeware accessories and the highly desirable Everhot range cookers. Boniti has an impressive client list of property developers and offers a specialist bespoke service that will supply and fit worldwide. For large and small projects, the Boniti team are masters of their profession and it shows in every detail.

The showroom is easily reached from J18 of the M4.

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WOODHOUSE & LAW 4 George’s Place, Bathwick Hill, Bath BA2 4EN Tel: 01225 428072 Web: woodhouseandlaw.co.uk Woodhouse and Law is a well-established full service interior and garden design partnership. From the showroom and studio on Bathwick Hill, the company offers every component necessary in the delivery of a project from concept to completion, ensuring the highest quality throughout.

The unique service combines the expertise of in-house interior and garden designers with that of a highly skilled team of local craftsmen and technicians. So, whether your project is residential or commercial, the team at W&L can help with a wide range of services to transform your space. From making up soft furnishings to a full design service and project co-ordination, everything is delivered with exceptional attention to detail. To arrange an initial consultation, get in touch or pop in to meet the team.

SCHMIDT BATH

HOUSE OF RADIATORS

1 Park Road, Bath BA1 3EE Tel: 01225 337276 Web: schmidt-bath.com

22 Wellsway, Bear Flat, Bath BA2 2AA Tel: 01225 424199 Web: houseofradiators.co.uk

Providing bespoke made-to-measure solutions in Bath for over 30 years, the Schmidt Bath team, headed up by Leroy McKenzie, can transform every room of your home. Specialising in kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, Schmidt Bath, formerly Interior Harmony, has highly skilled in-house installers headed up by Colin Bevan, and can now offer complete renovation projects including extensions.

The growing design team based at Park Road in Bath can help you create your dream kitchen, advising on the best layouts and appliances from brands including Neff, Siemens and Miele. If you’re looking to upgrade your kitchen, revamp your bedroom or design the perfect home office, give the team a call to book your free quotation.

House of Radiators sells traditional and designer radiators that can be off-the-shelf sizes/finishes or bespoke sizes and colours. This popular, family-run business opened its Bear Flat showroom in 2011 and not only sells to Bath areas but throughout the UK and overseas. Following a recent re-fit, there are over 100 radiators on display and due to increasing popularity the traditional cast iron and column radiator range has expanded.

With over 45 years experience in the heating and radiator industry they offer a friendly and high level of customer service. This is key in helping customers choose the right radiator for their home that will not only look amazing but will heat their room and do its job. Because the team work with 20 of the leading manufacturers and distributors in the radiator industry, there’s always something to suit all budgets and styles. Locally the company offers a free, at-home consultation where they’ll measure up and work out the correct heat requirements and size up radiators accordingly.

THE URBAN GARDEN Marlborough Buildings, Bath BA1 2LZ Tel: 07791 537930 Web: theurbangarden.org.uk This is Bath’s newest and smallest garden centre and it’s full of great ideas. Opening on 28 March at 11am, The Urban Garden is a social enterprise-based business, which means it does things a little differently for the benefit of the city’s community and the environment – without any compromise on quality or style.

Located in Royal Victoria Park, at the bottom of Marlborough Buildings/Royal Avenue crossroad, The Urban Garden will host a beautiful range of inspring plants for pots, borders and window boxes and garden products for all types of urban spaces. Visit the website for details of the opening, updates, and getting involved.

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NEWMAN’S JOINERY

BEN ARGENT KITCHENS

3 Broadway Court, Miles Street, Bath BA2 4HX Tel: 01225 318378, Web: newmansjoinery.co.uk

Dunsdon Barn, West Littleton, Wiltshire SN14 8JA Tel: 01225 892270 Web: benargentkitchens.co.uk

In April 2015, Roland Newman took over the thriving Hulin & Hudson joinery firm following the retirement of Mike Hulin. Based in Widcombe, the joinery shop was a well-established local business providing highquality joinery for houses in Bath and the surrounding areas. Chris, the foreman, worked with Mike for almost 20 years and continues to run the workshop, so the wealth of experience and local knowledge has been retained. The company deals with everything from timber windows, staircases, doors and frames to alcove cupboards, panelling, timber conservatories and shop façades and they have a specialist knowledge in listed buildings. Contact Newmans for a free, no-obligation initial visit to discuss your requirements.

Creators of bespoke contemporary kitchens that successfully combine functional design with elegant simplicity. Ben has a background as a designer/maker and extensive experience in the specialist furniture industry. He launched the company in 2007 with a clear understanding of the subtleties and technicalities required to achieve sophisticated and highly individual contemporary kitchens. The beautiful new showroom is conveniently located near M4 J18 with plenty of free parking. Contact them to arrange a viewing.

RICHER SOUNDS 4A York Place, London Road, Bath, BA1 6AE Tel: 0333 900 0088 (local rate) Web: richersounds.com/stores/bath In 1978, aged 19, Julian Richer opened his first shop in London. Now, 40+ years on, Richer Sounds remains as committed to great value audio products as ever, stocking a wide range of hi-fi, wireless streamers, home cinema equipment, projectors and TVs. In May 2019, Julian handed control of the business over to an employee owned trust, making the company controlled and majority owned by the people who work there. In Bath, the team are audio-visual enthusiasts and experts, ready to find a perfect match to your needs and budget, enhancing your overall home entertainment experience. From the home-styled experience room, where you can try before you buy, to their obligation-free at-home survey, they’re happy to help customers every step of the way.

TRADITIONAL UPHOLSTERY SCHOOL Unit 2, Holt Holdings, East Lane, Holt, Wiltshire BA14 6QU Tel: 07505 651030 Web: traditionalupholsteryschool.co.uk In its new home surrounded by rolling Wiltshire farmland near Bradford on Avon, The Traditional Upholstery School is recognised as one of Britain’s top craft training centres. The School offers courses for everyone, from fun one-day hobby classes to professional training for prestigious Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMUSF) diplomas.

Students travel from all over the UK for acclaimed classes ranging from creative lampshade-making to deepbuttoned footstools. Some want a creative day out – others are looking to train for a new career or lifestyle. All are expecting free cake... and they are never disappointed. This small, friendly school is owned and run by local upholsterer, lampshademaker and author Joanna Heptinstall, as well as her team of expert tutors and Nellie the dog. But mostly by Nellie.

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THE BATH FRAMER

HEIDI REIKI BALANCING ENERGY IN PLACES Tel: 07776 255875 Web: heidireiki.com What people say about Heidi Reiki : “We really appreciate the work Heidi did for us; energy clearing the space after we had moved into our new clinic in London. Heidi is lovely, and has a very professional and healing nature. We had been recommended by a friend and are so glad we did.

Heidi gave us Reiki sessions individually with specific advice for each of us to feel as good as possible. Our clinic space feels so clear and peaceful now, thanks to Heidi’s extensive and thorough work on the area. Heidi also gives you a thorough report explaining everything she did and what she found, which she also talks through with you, giving you tips to enhance the energy in the area. It honestly all made such a difference and our clinic has been thriving ever since. Thanks again for all your work Heidi, and we look forward to our next session in the future. Highly recommend to everyone.” Chiropractic Alchemy, London.

A peaceful place to live: Major life changes, such as a new job, a new relationship, a new home, or an illness are all times when you and your home could benefit from energy clearing. And it’s not just at these times either. For the general health of your home, a yearly process of energy clearing could be beneficial. Moving through grief, healing and life obstacles is very important for wellbeing and Heidi’s process can help support you to resolve these challenges. In addition to Feng Shui, she will use Reiki on those living in the house to help achieve a peaceful, relaxing space for you and your family. You may sense an uneasy feeling in a room. Maybe you’ve experienced when something doesn’t feel ‘quite right’ and sometimes things maybe described as being ‘out of kilter’. By using Reiki and Feng Shui, Heidi will help energy to flow in places where there has been emotional upset or other environmental factors. To find out more contact Heidi Lerner Rearden.

14–15 Walcot Buildings, London Road, Bath BA1 6AD Tel: 01225 920210 Web: thebathpictureframer.co.uk The Bath Framer, owned by Kelly, is a friendly boutique picture framers that has a beautifully quirky front of house and an amazing naturally lit workshop. Both are a joy to work in and to visit for customers wanting to see how frames are created. Since opening, the business has gone from strength to strength, building a client list of local residents and businesses based in Bath, Bristol and beyond. A bespoke framing service, tailored to suit all individuals’ needs runs alongside a gorgeous selection of cards, gift wrap and stationery.

ANNA DESIGN BESPOKE FABRIC COMMISSIONS Tel: 01761 471663 / 07779 951691 Web: anna-design.uk Anna Fraenkel has been fulfilling textile commissions since she was 17 and for the last decade has been working with national interior design company Jayne Clayton. She specialises in textiles for the home and for events and parties. Whether you’re looking to transform a village hall into a beautiful wedding venue, your children’s playroom into a magical circus tent, want something unusual for an event, or simply need some curtains, blinds or cushions for your home, Anna will visit, advise and bring your ideas to life.

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AVONVALE CARPETS 37 Kingsmead Street, Bath BA1 2AA Tel: 01225 427057 Web: avonvalecarpets.co.uk

GAROLLA Tel: 0800 468 1982 Web: garolla.co.uk Boost your kerb appeal today with one quick and easy purchase from Garolla. The nation’s largest roller garage door installers, Garolla specialise in creating beautiful, bespoke garage doors that can truly transform your home’s exterior. And with local installers across the country, it couldn’t be easier to make the change. Hand-crafted by highly skilled professionals, every Garolla roller shutter garage door is created with your space in mind. Increasing your thermal efficiency, safety and security, these garage doors are an invaluable addition to any home and allow you to sleep easier at night. Available in a range of 18 vibrant shades and two different slat sizes, so you can design the perfect accompaniment to your home’s style and architecture.

The choice of flooring is vital in transforming any room and the range of options can sometimes overwhelm. Luckily Avonvale Carpets is on hand to assist. It has served homeowners and businesses throughout the city of Bath and Wiltshire for 48 years, providing an excellent choice of flooring, in-depth expertise and perfect fitting. An independent, family-run business, Avonvale Carpets only works with trusted, local, professionally trained fitters, and deals directly with major manufacturers. The extensive selection of quality flooring is second to none: woollens, naturals, eco-friendly alternatives, vinyls, hard flooring and tailor-made options, too. You will be amazed at the variety on offer in the shop, found just off Kingsmead Square.

LOAF Unit 1D, Centaurus Road, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, BS34 5TS Tel: 020 3141 8300 Web: loaf.com

JOEL BUGG FURNITURE & SPACES

Brit-brand Loaf makes laid-back furniture for people to kick-off their shoes and to help them lead happier, more relaxed lives.

The comfy sofas and upholstered beds are hand-produced in Long Eaton, Derbyshire – the heart of British upholstery making. And the mattresses are handmade in Wiltshire. Loaf opened its eighth ‘Shack’ last year at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol.

The 5,000 sq ft showroom includes a mattress testing station, oodles of squidgy sofas and arcade games for little (and not-solittle) Loafers to enjoy, making it a haven for kicking back and relaxing. There’s even an old-school ice cream parlour where visitors can lap up their favourite scoop!

Tel: 01225 583520 / 07779 236242 Web: joelbugg.co.uk Joel Bugg Furniture & Spaces designs and creates elegant, bespoke fitted furniture and interiors, which are architecturally thought through to seamlessly fit and suit your property. Joel and his team offer a fully managed service from initial space planning and concept designs, using teams of skilled cabinet makers in their manufacture through to final installation. They will also recommend, source and provide lighting, flooring and other finishing touches as required.

Their expertise spans all interiors from kitchens and bathrooms to libraries and boot rooms, and as well as working directly with clients they work collaboratively with architects and interior designers to deliver a truly tailored solution.

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SOFAS & STUFF Woodchester Mill, North Woodchester, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 5NN Tel: 01453 700812 Web: sofasandstuff.com With over half a century in the furniture industry, Sofas and Stuff have the knowledge and expertise to guide you to your perfect piece of bespoke furniture. Whether you’re looking for a dog-proof armchair or a handcrafted bed, their highly skilled team will create a unique set of furnishings tailored to you. Sofas and Stuff’s impressive local showroom, a converted Wool Mill in Woodchester, is bursting with over 40 sofa styles and thousands of fabrics. With everything from their own house range to luxurious designer brands, you are guaranteed to find the fabric that fits your every need. Their friendly design team are also on hand for when you need help updating your designs or fully renovating your home. If you’ve got your heart set on a fabric from somewhere else, Sofas and Stuff will also upholster your sofa or bed in the fabric you want. This is a high-quality furniture company that promises to craft bespoke sofas at an affordable price, delivering them straight to your door in just six to eight weeks. The quick and easy process makes Sofas and Stuff the ideal company to use when refurbishing your home.

STEPHEN GRAVER Elmsgate, Edington Road, Steeple Ashton, BA14 6HP Tel: 01380 871746 Web: stephengraver.com Stephen Graver, does things differently. The company ethos is to differentiate itself by offering a unique combination of totally bespoke design, installation and project delivery. Whether it’s a kitchen, bathroom or a bigger remodelling or renovation project, or something specific or unique to a certain space, you can be assured of innovative design and total project management. It’s also why most of the comapny’s business is by recommendation or word of mouth and why you’ll find a client testimonial behind each project. Stephen Graver’s project management and after-care are second to none, which is another reason why relationships with clients go beyond the end of a renovation project. The business is built on reputation and it really cares about getting everything right, first time, every time. For more inspiration, and to see just why Stephen Graver is different, take a look at their website and view the extensive gallery of finished projects. If you’re in the process of planning your own home improvements, talk to Stephen Graver to see how your ideas can be brought to life.

KINDLE STOVES Glenavon Farm, 331 Bath Road, Saltford BS31 3TJ Tel: 01225 874422 Web: kindlestoves.co.uk At the heart of your home should be the perfect stove.

Kindle Stoves is a local specialist in clean burning, Eco Design Ready stoves approved for burning wood in Bath, with a wood-burner to suit every home and every style.

The team stock the super-efficient Woodwarm, Contura and Rais models as well as many more, offering a full installation service – from fireplace alterations, to slate hearths and stone fireplaces. The lovely new showroom, situated just outside Keynsham, has one of the largest displays of wood-burners in the South West and is open seven days a week. Pop in for advice and brochures or to book a home survey. Seasoned logs, gas fires, and the Big Green Egg outdoor cooker are also available.

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JOHN BOYCE PLASTERWORK

HOMEFRONT INTERIORS 10 Margaret’s Buildings, Bath BA1 2LP Tel: 01225 571711 Web: homefrontinteriors.co.uk

Unit 5, Channel View Farm, Clevedon, Bristol BS21 6US Tel: 07970 278028 Web: john-boyce.co.uk John Boyce Plasterwork Ltd is a locally based company with over 30 years’ experience in the plastering trade, tackling any size of job from a simple repair to a complete restoration project. The team has a large range of moulds built up over the last three decades and is capable of matching and reproducing any type of plasterwork. The company also has a large range of stock cornices and ceiling roses to pick from, with something to suit most tastes and budgets. The company carries out ceiling surveys and repairs, lime plastering and rendering and bespoke one-off pieces, offering free, no obligation quotes and advice.

Visit the website for a small taste of what John Boyce Plasterwork can offer.

The eclectic Homefront Interiors has an ever-changing selection of homewares, gifts and cards. This little independent store may be small, but it has a wide range and a regularly updated stock of new and vintage homewares and follows a simple ethos of sustainability. This could mean recycled materials, Fairtrade origins, small-scale production or simply showing a little love and care to vintage finds. It is the clever mix of vintage and contemporary alongside an ever-growing selection of handmade pieces from local artists, including textiles, ceramics, jewellery, art prints and cards, that makes Homefront such a great destination.

Ideal for gifts and unique finds for your own home.

AHM INSTALLATIONS Showrooms in Wellington and Yeovil Tel: 0800 7316495 Web: ahminstallations.co.uk For 20 years, AHM Installations have paved the way for mobility in the home, helping both the elderly and people with additional needs to feel safer in the bathroom. AHM Installations can provide wet rooms, walk-in showers, walk-in baths, automatic toilets, raised toilets, grab rails and shower stools. The AHM team pride themselves on the delivering a professional service by sales surveyors and fitters who are experienced in dealing with the most complex of bathing requirements. All share a common knowledge and expertise in dealing with the most vulnerable of people and show great empathy, which is much appreciated by customers. Every customer receives a free bathroom survey and a no obligation quotation, as well as free advice on available government grants. AHM Installations are a member of BHTA (British Health Care Trades Association) and checkatrade as trusted tradespeople.

SOLARSENSE Helios House, Brockley Lane, Backwell, BS48 4AH Tel: 01275 461800 Web: solarsense-uk.com Solarsense has been designing, installing and maintaining awardwinning sustainable solutions for homeowners since 1995. With more than 10,000 residential renewable energy installations alone, they offer unparalleled experience within the industry. Whether you’re looking to install a fully integrated home solution or single technology such as solar PV panels – Solarsense have the technical skills to design a bespoke energy system capable of reducing your carbon footprint and increasing your bank balance. The company is able to install residential solar panels, battery storage, heat pumps, solar hot water systems, electric vehicle charging points as well as offering maintenance and repairs. They pride themselves on building strong relationships and will offer industry leading advice, guide you through the installation process and offer help with commissioning your EPC, planning applications and more.

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ARCHITECT YOUR HOME Tel: 0800 849 8505 Web: architect-yourhome.com Architect Your Home’s service kicks off with an initial design consultation – this is where your project starts. The consultation will include an in-depth discussion to fully establish your requirements and aspirations. You will also be provided with sketch drawings of a properly considered and collaborative design proposal. The practical implications of your design will be explained in detail and you will be equipped with the necessary tools so that you can move your project forward confidently to the next stage. You will also receive advice on issues with planning permission, listed building consents and structures. At the end of the session you will have an agreed proposal and recommendations on the next steps and how to move the project forward.

BATH KITCHEN COMPANY 7–9 North Parade Buildings, Bath BA1 1NS Tel: 01225 312003 Web: bathkitchencompany.co.uk Established in 1990, Bath Kitchen Company is a well-regarded family business based in Bath. With vast experience, the company takes pride in its close attention to detail and its understanding of what each client requires. Whatever an individual client’s tastes, the team will find a bespoke kitchen that strikes a perfect balance between aesthetic and practical requirements. Consequently every kitchen is unique, beautifully designed and perfectly functional. Handmade using premium materials and to the highest standards, a beautiful kitchen can be carefully crafted to make the most of available space, existing features and the latest technology. Whether designing for Bath’s oldest private homes or cutting-edge city apartments, the principle is the same – Bath Kitchen Company will create a place that enhances your lifestyle.

HURLEY ENGINES AND GARDEN MACHINERY Unit 7, The Maltings Industrial Estate, Brassmill Lane, Bath BA1 3JL Tel: 01225 336812 Web: hurleyengines.co.uk Hurley Engines and Garden Machinery has been trading in Bath since 1967, providing services such as engine machining and re-manufacturing in its fully kitted-out engine machining workshop. Hurley is main dealer for some of the world’s leading industrial engine manufacturers such as Kubota, Yanmar, Briggs & Stratton and various other brands. Over the last 10 years, Hurley has added Garden Machinery to its roster and began supplying, servicing and repairing commercial and domestic products ranging from chainsaw and strimmers all the way to woodchippers and tractors, becoming main dealers for some of the worlds leading brands such as AL-KO, Hayter, Weibang, Stihl and many others.

Hurley will also collect and deliver within the Bath area. Call the team today for any enquires you may have.

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MANDARIN STONE 15–16 Broad Street, Bath BA1 5LJ Tel: 01225 460033 Web: mandarinstone.com Renowned for its comprehensive natural stone collection, Mandarin Stone has gained quite a reputation for its on-trend and beautifully designed porcelain. Ranging from tiles that cleverly mimic materials such as wood, concrete and marble to striking glazed and patterned tiles, the collection has endless surface design possibilities. Established for over 25 years and with 10 inspirational UK showrooms, it offers dependable specialist knowledge as well as technical expertise. Almost the entire natural stone and porcelain collection is held in stock in the UK, so lead times are short.

GROUTGLEAM Tel: 01225 800232 Web: groutgleam-bath.co.uk Whether it’s walls, floors, your bathroom or your kitchen, GroutGleam provides a range of revolutionary services to help bring your tiled areas back to life. A cheaper, cleaner and quicker solution to a complete re-tile, GroutGleam can clean or recolour your grout, giving it a new lease of life. Other services include silicone sealant replacement and shower-glass restoration. The company also provides a glass and tile protective coating service that helps keep these areas cleaner for longer. Displaced or cracked tiles that require replacement can also be fixed.

FRAMING WORKSHOP 80 Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BD Tel: 01225 482748 Web: theframingworkshop.com In 28 years of trading on Walcot Street, The Framing Workshop has framed many weird, wonderful, beautiful and fascinating objects and collections, all of which have their own story to tell. What do you have tucked away that you could have framed and displayed to tell its own story?

Whether it’s paper, canvas, fabric, objects, memorabilia – let your imagination be inspired.

CATRIONA ARCHER Tel: 07823 884945 Web: catrionaarcher.com Catriona Archer believes that interior design should be accessible to all, which is why providing inspiring and practical working solutions is at the heart of what she does. Catriona starts by making the most of your existing items, storage and space. This is a wonderfully quick and inexpensive way to refresh and update your interior before discussing and sourcing any further additions you may require. So, if you are looking for a complete design and styling experience from start to finish, or simply an introductory half/full day consultation to spring-board or fine-tune your existing ideas, then contact Catriona to discuss what works best for you.

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RADSTOCK CARPET AND BED CENTRE The Old Cinema, Coombend, Radstock BA3 3AW Tel: 01761 432808 Web: radstockcarpetandbeds.co.uk Featuring a large carpet, hard flooring and bed showrooms, the Radstock Carpet and Bed Centre is located just seven miles south of Bath in an old Methodist chapel and there’s free parking just behind the shop. It’s an independently owned business with its own specialist carpet and hardflooring fitters. The range of flooring is enormous, including every style and quality of carpet, luxury vinyl tiles, vinyl and wood flooring and there is also an extensive range of beds and mattresses on show, at highly competitive prices. A visit allowsyou to chat to the knowledgeable and friendly staff, who clearly take great pride in their excellent customer service. The company has received glowing reviews from customers on Facebook and Google.

COOPERS STORES 13–15 Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BN Tel: 01225 311811 Web: coopers-stores.com The highly-acclaimed recent winner of Best Small Independent Retailer in Domestic Appliances 2019, Coopers is an independent, familyowned, Bath-based kitchen appliance retailer with over 70 years of continuous trading. With a large showroom in the centre of Bath, you can see a fantastic display of range cookers, refrigeration, laundry and small appliances before you buy, and the dedicated, expert team are always on hand to help choose the best products. Coopers Stores aim to be very competitively priced against the other high street players and online sellers too. They can deliver throughout the South West and offer flexible delivery slots to fit with a customer’s needs. They have also established links with a great team of expert installers to offer a complete advise, buy, deliver, and install service. This is independent retailing at its best – values driven and a superb customer service – which is a real tonic to the spiritless online experience and for many years running, a popular entry in our ‘Best of Bath’ list.

MARDAN REMOVALS AND STORAGE Tel: 01225 313233 / 07899 847857 Web:mardanremovals.co.uk Mardan work with both home and business owners directly and all work is of the highest standard, reliability being paramount.

The team are highly experienced in moving fine arts and antiques giving you the confidence that your most prized possessions will be moved safely and carefully. All your effects will be packed to European standards. Mardan offer a full packing service and all packing materials are free of charge with every move. The company also provides secure storage hire in Bath with around-the-clock access and CCTV security and with flexible rental periods and storage size at competitive rates.

Whatever your reason for needing storage, if you’re looking to store all your household goods or just a couple of items, look no further. Mardan Removals can take the stress away and arrange it all for you in Bath.

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KNEES HOME AND ELECTRICAL Spitfire Retail Park, Trowbridge BA14 0AZ and High Street, Malmesbury SN16 9AA Tel: 01225 754161 Web: knees.co.uk Loved locally since 1879, Knees offer a one-stop-shop to update your home. They sell the top appliance brands, beautiful furniture and pride themselves on spending time with their customers to help find the right product for their needs and their budget. Knees regularly have great offers as well as a price match promise so that you can be sure you will receive the best deal available. Buying from a local family business like this means that customer care is always taken seriously. With a fabulous showroom in their flagship store in Trowbridge, you can see a wide range of appliances, home furniture and accessories. You can also drop by for one of their regular free cooking demonstrations where professionals are on-hand to provide expert advice.

GARDEN AFFAIRS Trowbridge Garden Centre, 288 Frome Road, Trowbridge BA14 ODT Tel: 01225 774566 Web: gardenaffairs.co.uk Create space for work, hobbies, a growing family or even a new business venture with a cost-effective, versatile, fully-insulated garden room. Garden Affairs offer a huge range of high quality, sustainable garden buildings and will help you get the design, the installation, the quality and the price spot on. Visit their extensive display centre at Trowbridge Garden Centre in Wiltshire to see garden offices, art and craft studios, teenage dens, granny annexes as well as a range of ‘posh sheds’ and summerhouses.

BATH CARPETS AND FLOORING 4 Kingsmead Street, Bath BA1 2AA Tel: 01225 471888 Web: carpetsandflooringbath.co.uk Supplying and fitting flooring throughout the South West for 16 years, Bath Carpets and Flooring (BCF) offers a wide selection of carpets, all made from a variety of different materials including wool, polypropylene, nylon and sisals.

With the combined experience of more than 90 years, the team’s extensive knowledge and expertise puts you at ease as they match your needs with the perfect flooring solution. BCF pride themselves on only giving impartial advice and hassle-free measuring and estimating, so there will never be any sales pressure or confusion. As the city’s largest Karndean flooring specialists, BCF’s luxury vinyl tiles will give you the freedom to create impressive floors, where the only limit is imagination. As the showroom prepares to expand over two floors this spring, BCF will soon be offering an even greater selection of homely heavyweight carpets and authentic traditional rugs. The commercial business, Bath Contract Flooring Ltd. is also expanding, so the great service you receive at home can be matched at work.

ETONS OF BATH Tel: 01225 639002 Web: etonsofbath.com Founded in 2006, Etons of Bath is a specialist interior design practice focused on refurbishing, renovating and reinvigorating period homes and hotels. Their team of 12 interior designers, planners and project managers help you plan, design and deliver classically inspired interiors that add value, turn heads and improve the use of space. They cover projects of all shapes and sizes from large country estates to Bath townhouses, small apartments and cottages, boutique hotels to bijou boltholes, combining creative flair and solid experience together with a passionate and friendly team.

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MILES CANTELOU CREATIVE ART & DESIGN (MCCAAD) 3A Market Street, Bradford on Avon, BA15 1LH Web: milescantelou.com Miles Cantelou is a published photographer and artist who has relocated from London to Bradford on Avon. His commissions have taken him all over the world, but more recently the focus of his work is for interior designers in London and the USA. His unique originals are now available as limited editions in the Miles Cantelou Studio (MCCAAD). The second exhibition starts on 7 March and continues every weekend during the month. The theme in March is “Las Sevillanas” a collection of seven individual pieces of colourful, moody and striking artwork illustrating the soul and passion of Flamenco in the south of Spain. Original artwork is available as a limited edition of 10 beautiful unique prints, mounted and framed. Open edition prints are also available and there are prices for all budgets. Public viewing weekends 10am to 5pm.

TRUESPEED BROADBAND SERVICE PROVIDER Tel: 01225 300370 Web: truespeed.com TrueSpeed delivers futureproof connectivity to some of the South West’s hardest to reach areas, and is a full-fibre broadband and infrastructure company with a difference. Across the region TrueSpeed have built an entirely new network (going where other broadband service providers refuse to go) in order to provide residents and businesses with a solution to all their online needs.

Delivering 200Mbps guaranteed speed broadband into every property it connects, TrueSpeed provides reliable round-the-clock connectivity. And, driven by its community focused ethos, TrueSpeed invests in the areas it works by providing local schools and community hubs with free broadband for life. Allowing entire communities to benefit from the service for generations to come.

ORIENTAL RUGS OF BATH Bookbarn International, Hallatrow Business Park, Wells Road, Hallatrow, Bristol BS39 6EX Tel: 01761 451764 Web: orientalrugsofbath.com Oriental Rugs of Bath sources a beautiful and eclectic range of handmade rugs, kilims and furnishings from the Middle and Far East, promoting centuries-old traditions and designs. Afghan tribal weavings are interspersed with ornate Persian carpets and Turkish mosaic lamps.

The shop itself is nestled in the countryside between Bath and Bristol and offers exemplary guidance through the rug choosing process. Specialist cleaning, repair and valuation services are available and all stock can be purchased online. ■

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Echinacea

Cotton plant

Clover

Tomatoes

Field of Echinacea

The purpose of plants

Jane Moore reminds us just how important plants are, in all their forms, and how we just couldn’t exist without them

B

eing a gardener is a deeply humbling experience. As the years go by and my gardening knowledge increases, I realise I know very little about the vast, wonderful world of plants. But that’s one of the things that keeps me gardening: there is always something new to learn, a new group of plants to get passionate about growing, a greater understanding to be gleaned of the delicate balance of ecosystems, and the huge part that plants have to play in our fragile world.

Without plants, there simply is no ecosystem. Without plants to feed animals and insects, algae in the sea and rivers, without plants dying and rotting down, there is no soil where more plants can grow.

It’s all wonderfully, beautifully interconnected and, when I stop to smell the roses, so to speak, I am in awe of it.

However, the stopping and smelling doesn’t perhaps happen as often as it should.

When I’m busy getting ready for spring, I’m more occupied with the weather, the ever-growing grass and the non-stop weeds than more elevated thoughts. But last year’s Bath Society for Botanical Artists’ exhibition 100 TheBATHMagazine

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gave me just such pause. The theme was Plants with a Purpose and while the artwork was extraordinary, so were the subjects the artists chose to paint. There were all the edibles you might expect to see, all the lovely fruits and vegetables like apples, pears and blackberries, the chillies and the Brussels sprouts (a personal favourite). But aside from these, there were the unexpected subjects, beautiful paintings of plants one wouldn’t necessarily expect to have a purpose other than looking lovely in the garden.

MEDICINAL PLANTS Take the very symbols of spring: the snowdrop and the daffodil. Besides their obvious charms, these bulbs contain a compound called galantamine which is useful in treating dementia. It’s now synthesised, but it was experimentation on the real bulbs that led to the compound’s identification in the first place. (Daffodils, incidentally, also contain a toxic chemical in the stem and bulb.) Another garden favourite is an important drug used for the treatment of cancer. Taxol is extracted from the yew tree, abundant in the UK as formal hedges, making the drug easy to collect in the form

of hedge clippings. Again, this now mostly synthesised, but it’s important to realise where it comes from. Apart from this modern-day incarnation, the yew has long been an important plant, mainly for its beautiful and extremely tough wood. Just think of all those yew longbows of medieval times that England was famous for at Agincourt. Yew trees also contain the highly poisonous taxane alkaloids that have been developed as anti-cancer drugs.

I knew a lot of plants have had medicinal uses, but I hadn’t realised that over 17,000 plant species have a known medicinal use and that a huge 25 per cent of prescribed drugs are derived from plants. We all know about Echinacea for colds and Calendula for scrapes and bruises but who knew that warfarin is made from a compound contained in clover, or that aspirin was developed from willow tree bark? As for statins, the wonder drug of recent years, look no further than the oyster mushroom for its origin.

MATERIALS As it happens, mushrooms are also being heralded as a great hope for reducing plastic packaging in the future. Fibrous fungi can be

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Tomato saplings

grown into really rather intricate shapes designed to cocoon objects, keeping them safe in transport.

Many other natural fibres are already in common usage and have been for centuries.

Just think of hemp and sisal ropes, cotton and wool cloth, as well as more recent fibres such as bamboo, which is now lauded as a hardwearing, sustainable woven fibre.

FOOD AND DRINK When you think of the uses of plants, it’s food and drink that comes to mind. Where would we be without fruit and vegetables?

Tea and coffee? Even if fruit and vegetables aren’t your favourite foodstuffs, think about bread, chocolate and wine – they all come from plants. And even if you’re a complete carnivore, it is plants that feed the animals that we eat. Whether you are a gardener or not, you’re completely reliant on plants.

According to research the Bath Society of Botanical Artists carried out for the exhibition, the UK is 60 per cent selfsufficient in vegetable production and nearly 40 per cent self-sufficient in fruit, which is good news for our health. Dessert apple yields have grown from three and a half tonnes per acre in 1960 to more than 20 tonnes now, due to the breeding of new varieties and rootstocks. If that doesn’t inspire you to get some things growing this spring, then I don’t know what will.

Whether it’s just a handful of herbs, a little kitchen garden or a full-blown orchard, the plant kingdom is doing good work for us and we should celebrate it.

Jane Moore is an award-winning gardening columnist and head gardener at The Bath Priory Hotel. Twitter: @janethegardener

Sloe (Prunus spinosa)

by Brenda Coleman

The Bath Society of Botanical Artists offers a programme of workshops and events throughout the year and meets weekly in the church hall in Winsley; bsba.co.uk

Create space with a garden room GARDEN OFFICES • LOG CABINS • STUDIOS • SUMMERHOUSES POSH SHEDS • TIMBER GARAGES • OUTDOOR LIVING SPACES

01225 774566 • www.gardenaffairs.co.uk Visit our Display Centre at Trowbridge Garden Centre 288 Frome Road, BA14 0DT THEBATHMAG.CO.UK

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the directory

to advertise in this section call 01225 424 499

Electricians

Holiday Rental

60+ luxury properties for lets 2 nights to 5 months Holidays – For business – Friends & family – Temporary accommodation during renovation/relocation Contact: 01225 482 225 alexa@bathholidayrentals.com www.bathholidayrentals.com Providing 4 & 5 star self-catering properties since 2006

Health, Beauty & Wellbeing

House & Home

Independent family run business with family values • • • • • •

Holistic Treatments for Wellbeing

Aromatherapy • Reflexology/Facial reflexology Japanese Cosmo Facelift • Deep Tissue Massage For more information, please visit:

www.keikokishimoto.co.uk 07739 827186 contact@keikokishimoto.co.uk

Trowbridge & Neal’s Yard Bath 102 TheBATHMagazine

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New and Reconditioned Warranty Contracts Straight and Curved Stairlifts Services and Repairs Rental Stairlifts Removals

Call 01666 822 060

Email: info@simplystairlifts.co.uk

Web: simplystairlifts.co.uk

Textile AnnaDesign Bespoke Commissions

Corporate - Events, Weddings & Parties Home - Childrens rooms Curtains & Blinds

KEIKO KISHIMOTO

Create your home for life

Bath based 07779951691 01761471663 www.Anna-design.uk

Cobb Farr PIF.qxp_PIF Full Page 21/02/2020 18:21 Page 1

PROPERTY | HOMEPAGE

A

n attractive link-attached converted mews house, 10 Upper Lansdown Mews is one of 15 properties located to the rear of Lansdown Crescent in a quiet residential street.

This handsome property offers generously proportioned accommodation arranged over two floors. On the ground floor, the property boasts a beautiful open-plan sitting room and drawing room with attractive travertine flooring, along with a charming aspect overlooking and enjoying access onto the gardens and sun terrace. The ground floor also has a wellequipped kitchen with a central island and a large utility and boot room.

An impressive contemporary staircase leads from the sitting room to the first floor galleried landing, which has a feature Venetian window. From the landing, there is access to four beautiful bedrooms, all with fitted wardrobes and a family bathroom. The master bedroom is particularly spacious and has a large well-appointed ensuite shower room and a pretty aspect overlooking the gardens.

Externally to the rear, accessed from both the sitting room and the boot room, there is a charming south-facing, well-stocked ornamental parterre garden and sun terrace. The property also has a generous integrated single garage, which can be conveniently accessed from the front lobby. The converted houses also sit behind their own secure gates.

Upper Lansdown Mews is located on Bath’s sought-after lower northern slopes and is within easy reach of Bath city centre.

Cobb Farr, 35 Brock Street, The Circus, Bath. Tel: 01225 333332

UPPER LANSDOWN MEWS, BATH, • Four generous double bedrooms • Two lovely bathrooms • Large open-plan sitting and dining room • Private garage • Hugely sought after residential location

£1,500,000

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Highcliffe House, West Ashton £695,000

• • • • • •

4 bedrooms En suite facilities 3 reception rooms Gated driveway and car port Level gardens and studio Paddock approximately 2.14 acres

01225 333332 | 01225 866111

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Beckington, Frome £1,250,000

• • • • • • •

4 bedrooms Superb kitchen and conservatory Light sitting room Fully modernised accommodation Triple garage with adjacent carport Large gardens and paddock in 1½ acres 3 loose boxes

01225 333332 | 01225 866111

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What can we expect from the Bath property market over the next few years?

Peter Greatorex managing director of The Apartment Company

Are the waters calming for apartment sales in 2020?

A

s we are racing into this new year, the newly elected majority government has given a sense of certainty.

Rightmove has recently released its predictions for the price of property in Britain next year, so are the waters calming for buying and selling apartments in 2020?

Across Bath we have slowly seen the confidence of homeowners decrease with the political uncertainty, but as we look to the months ahead, Rightmove predicts a 2% rise in property prices. Commenting, Miles Shipside, Rightmove director and housing market analyst said, “The greater certainty afforded by a majority government gives an opportunity for a more activy there is a higher possibility of an end to the series of Brexit deadlines, home this year.

Andrews property consultants has more than 40 offices throughout the south of England and pride themselves on offering national reach with local knowledge

A

s a new decade has begun, it’s a perfect time to take a look back on the housing market over the past 10 years, as well as looking forward to what we can expect in the next few years.

Over the last decade, property prices in the UK have increased by £72,000, rising from £171,858 in 2010 to £244,258 in 2019.

Across the south west of England, average property prices have increased by even more – with prices in some areas going up by over £100,000. In Bath for example, prices have increased from £226,250 in 2010 to £354,662 in 2019, a price difference of £128,412.

Detached properties in Bath have seen the highest annual change in average price as they increased by over 7% in 2019, whereas flats and apartments have actually seen an over 2.5% drop in average price and are now averaging £287,741.

So what do the next few years look like, locally and nationally, for the property market? It’s predicted that the average price of a property in the UK will rise by 1.5% over 2020 and 15.9%, cumulatively, over the next five years, an increase in purchase price of just over £37,000. The south west is expected to see a 0.8% growth in 2020 and an increase of 14.8% by 2024. However, the south west will remain more affordable, compared to London, as this increase relates to a monetary figure of a £35,000 purchase price increase compared to over £53,000 in London.

At Andrews we’ve been property experts in Bath for 43 years, which means there isn’t much we don’t know about property in Bath and the surrounding villages. We also understand how tricky it can be to navigate the ever-changing market. If you’re wondering how much your property price may have changed over the last decade then have a look at our instant online valuation tool on our website, andrewsonline.co.uk, or book a valuation with one of your local experts across our five branches in Bath. andrewsonline.co.uk

The number of properties coming on to the market is also expected to increase in the forthcoming months, but it may not make up for all the lost ground. With demand for apartments across the city still high, we anticipate that demand will continue to outstrip supply during the months ahead. 2020 could be an exciting time in the Bath property market, and we can’t wait to see what it brings for all our clients, whether they are first-time buyers, experienced sellers, or those looking to invest.

Our expertise in the niche sector of Bath’s apartment market puts us at an advantage, as we’re able to give you an honest and specific insight into how your property will perform, and when may be the right time to move. If you’re curious about what this year could bring for your home-moving plans, call The Apartment Company on 01224 471155.

The Apartment Company Pg@theapartmentcompany.co.uk or call 01225 471144

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Ashford Homes celebrates 30 years!

Founded in 1990, Ashford Homes started from humble beginnings with just four people, running a couple of sites a year. Over this time, the company has steadily grown to a 30 strong team with an established reputation of building luxury, high specification homes.

Originally located in the charming village of Broughton Gifford, the company moved into a purpose-built office in Melksham it remained for 25 years. Having outgrown that, Ashford Homes recently moved into its new state of the art, contemporary headquarters in Bradford on Avon last year. The company is currently developing in Wiltshire, Somerset, South Glouceshire and Dorset.

Over the past 30 years the compay has developed many sites in Bath. Notable work includes the spectacular building at Holburne Place on the corner of Bathwick Street and Henrietta Road, Sydney Place, Crescent Lane, Monmouth Place and James Street West.

Rod Timbrell-Whittle, Co-founder and Group Chairman said, “We are immensely proud of Asford’s achievements over the past 30 years, demonstrating our dedication towards crafting high quality homes throughout the region for generations to enjoy. To maintain our commitment to excellence and exceeding customer’s expectations at a time of significant growth is a real testament to our passionate and committed team and the quality of product we produce.”

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Who we are

Quality, service and professionalism are at the core of everything we do. We are very proud of our reputation for building innovative, thoughtfully designed homes with generous living spaces, close attention to detail and high-quality workmanship. Our goal has always been to build homes of unrivalled quality and specification that stand the test of time and that our customers are proud to call ‘home’.

Rather than mass producing, we focus on building smaller, individual developments crafted to a higher standard. Devoted to the quality of our craftsmanship, we strive to set exceptional standards in specification and finishes.

We handpick the best locations for optimal lifestyle balance, whilst also making positive contributions to the community. We are passionate about providing a first-class buying experience, from the first enquiry to longlasting aftercare. This is why we have repeat business from customers and people that have “always wanted an Ashford home”.

Commercial

Did you know we also build commercial developments? Most recently, we completed an award-winning development of three highly specified offices in Bradford on Avon. One of the offices is our new headquarters and successfully let the others to a global client. We carry out commercial fit out work as well as design and build contracts and have various opportunities within the area for commercial and light industrial buildings in a range of square footage. Contact us for more details.

Land

Ashford Homes is always seeking land opportunities throughout the South West.

If you have land for sale in either a greenfield or brownfield location, with or without planning permission, please get in touch with our Development Director, Tom Griffiths.

Contact details: Tom Griffiths ahmail@ashford-homes.co.uk

Central

Andrewsonline.co.uk

Belmont BA1 £395,000

01225 809 571

A grade II listed Georgian apartment in the centre of World Heritage City of Bath. With far reaching views across the city, this flat features two double bedrooms, bathroom, modernised kitchen, sitting room and a unique mezzanine floor.

Energy Efficiency Rating: E

central@andrewsonline.co.uk

To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

Camden

Andrewsonline.co.uk

Fairfield Road, BA1 £350,000

Very well presented period house with attractive features throughout, cornicing and period fireplace. Lovely main reception area, a through lounge/diner, and modern kitchen. Upstairs the property has views towards Bathford and a pretty period fireplace. There are two further bedrooms and a modern and family bathroom.

Pretty terraced garden with a patio area that could become parking. Energy Efficiency Rating: D

01225 809 868 camden@andrewsonline.co.uk

Andrews March.indd 1

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18/02/2020 17:22

Newbridge Andrewsonline.co.uk

Farmborough View, Farmborough BA2 £295,000

Ideally situated in the popular village of Farmborough and equidistant to Bath and Bristol this property definitely has the wow factor! With stunning views from the front and the rear of the property and open plan living it’s a property not to be missed. This terrace house feature 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, garden and off street parking.

Energy Efficiency Rating: B

01225 809 685 newbridge@andrewsonline.co.uk

To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

Bear Flat

Andrewsonline.co.uk

199 Wellsway, BA2 £500,000

Five storey Georgian townhouse currently comprising of three one bedroom flats and a garden maisonette.

Energy Efficiency Rating: TBC

01225 805 680 bearflat@andrewsonline.co.uk

Andrews March.indd 2

To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

18/02/2020 17:23

Savills PIF V2.qxp_PIF Full Page 21/02/2020 15:13 Page 1

PROPERTY | HOMEPAGE

18

Russell Street stands on the corner of one of Bath’s most notable streets, set off The Circus and opposite the Assembly Rooms. Whilst various works have been carried out to provide comfortable modern day living, this fine, elegant house has retained its original charm and character with features including working shutters, ornate fireplaces, fine cornices, plaster ceiling roses, as well as a rare whistle pipe system from upper levels to lower level, a Georgian rainwater collecting tank for an upper floor WC and a Georgian basin. There is a very rare sauce stove in the original kitchen, similar to that at Hampton Court.

The three principle rooms, comprising the drawing, sitting and family room, are magnificent, all dual aspect with high ceilings and wonderful light. There are five bedrooms in total, with the option of an additional bedroom on the lower ground floor. Bathrooms can be found on three of the levels.

The spacious accommodation is arranged over five floors. There are five bedrooms and three bathrooms, arranged over three levels. There is also the option of an additional bedroom on the lower ground floor.

The drawing room is located on the first floor with wedding doors off the upper hall. This room offers westerly views towards the central trees of The Circus, and a southerly outlook over the magnificent Assembly Rooms.

On the second floor is the master bedroom with southerly views towards the Abbey. This bedroom has direct access to the adjacent bathroom. There is a large dressing room to the other side of the landing, and a further bedroom as well as a separate cloakroom. On the upper floor are three further bedrooms and a bathroom. There is a further dressing room with fitted storage, a water tank and an additional boiler.

Savills Bath, Edgar House, 17 George St, Bath BA1 2EN. 01225 474500

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Russell Street, Bath • Double aspect Grade II Listed townhouse • Sought-after city location • Beautiful period features throughout • Outstanding views

Guide Price £2,350,000

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Holburne Place

O.I.E.O

£700,000

Newly refurbished · Three double bedrooms · Immaculately presented · Central location · Covered parking space for two cars · 1248 Sq ft · Private gated entrance

CO

G IN M N O SO

Marlborough Buildings

O.I.E.O

£600,000

Georgian · Grade II Listed · Three large double bedrooms · Two luxury bathrooms · Close Royal Cresent · Prime location · Approx. 1195 Sq Ft.

SALES

01225 471 14 4 The Apartment Company March.indd 1

LETTINGS

01225 303 870

sales@theapartmentcompany.co.uk

21/02/2020 09:27

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Circus House

O.I.E.O

£500,000

Georgian apartment · Grade I listed · Prestigious location · Views over The Circus · Second floor · Two double bedrooms · Approx. 742 Sq. Ft.

N

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Lansdown Place West

O.I.E.O

£400,000

Georgian · Grade II Listed · Fabulous sitting room · First floor apartment · Stunning city views · Quiet location · Approx. 766 Sq Ft

www.theapartmentcompany.co.uk

The Apartment Company March.indd 2

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Highgate

N

O.I.E.O

£450,000

New development · Penthouse apartment · Two bedrooms · High specification · Private balcony · Light and spacious · Approx. 635 Sq Ft

LD SO TC S

Portland Place

O.I.E.O

£500,000

EW

Walcot Buildings

O.I.E.O

01225 471 14 4 The Apartment Company March.indd 3

O.I.E.O

£425,000

Georgian · Grade I Listed · First Floor Apartment · Close to Henrietta Park · Central Location · Short level walk into the centre · Two double bedrooms · Approx. 726 Sq Ft.

Crescent Lane

£280,000

O.I.E.O

£430,000

G IN M N O SO

Portland Place

EW

Vane Street

O.I.E.O

£325,000

Georgian apartment · Grade II Listed · Two bedrooms · Top floor apartment · Stunning views · Pretty and well-kept communal areas · Resident Parking Permit · Close to all Amenities · Parks and Museum on doorstep · Approx. 523 Sq Ft

LD SO TC S

Modern build apartment · Two double bedrooms · Open plan living · Large terrace · High specification · Sought after location · Private gated parking space · Approx. 745 Sq Ft

CO

Georgian · Grade II Listed · Three bedrooms · Private outside space · Stylish kitchen · Level walk into city centre · Close to M4 and Bristol · Approx. 744 Sq. Ft

SALES

Henrietta Street

N

LD SO TC S

First floor apartment · High ceilings · Large drawing room · Contemporary kitchen · Two double bedrooms · Stunning communal areas · Excellent views · Two bathrooms · Easy access to the M4 · Approx. 1138 Sq Ft

N

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Great Pulteney Street

£220,000

Georgian · Grade II Listed · Central location · Two good bedrooms · Fabulous city views · Modern kitchen · Approx. 452 Sq Ft

£290,000

Grade I listed · Georgian apartment · Prestigious central location · Second floor · Large double bedroom · Well maintained communal area · Dual aspect windows · Approx. 689 Sq Ft

N

O.I.E.O

O.I.E.O

EW

Grosvenor Place

O.I.E.O

£200,000

Georgian · Second floor · Period features · Stylish kitchen · On-street parking · IN NEED OF STRUCTURAL WORK – not immediate or urgent · Approx. 904 Sq Ft · CASH BUYERS ONLY

LETTINGS

01225 303 870

sales@theapartmentcompany.co.uk

21/02/2020 09:27

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H IG H H IS N FI

1D Camden Crescent

£1,500 pcm

Unfurnished · Two double bedrooms · One single bedroom/study · Panoramic south facing views over the city · Permit parking · Council tax band D · EPC rating C

T D LE EE R AG

Cleveland Walk

£2,300 pcm

EW

Waterfront House

£1,300 pcm

Furnished · Spacious double bedroom · Luxury bathroom and shower en-Suite · Courtyard · Permit parking · Available now · No Students, Pets or Children · EPC rating E

T D LE EE R AG

Unfurnished · Three double bedrooms · Fabulous city views · Quiet location · Council tax band · Private parking space · EPC rating E

N

Royal Crescent

AL TR N N TIO E A C C LO

Cavendish Lodge

£1,200 pcm

Furnished · Two double bedrooms · Lift access and allocated parking · Riverside views · Available 15th February 2020 · Council tax band D · EPC rating C

£1,250 pcm

Courtyard apartment · Two bedrooms · Allocated parking for one car · Redecorated throughout · Council Tax Band: C · Available now · EPC rating C

T D LE EE R AG

£1,650 pcm

Furnished option · Three double bedrooms · Communal gardens · Lift access · Allocated parking space · Council tax band G · EPC rating C

N

Sydney Place

Park Street

£1,150 pcm

Unfurnished · Two double bedrooms · New carpets throughout · Second floor apartment · Residents parking permit · Council tax band C · EPC rating C

EW

Crescent Lane

£1,050 pcm

Unfurnished · Garden apartment · Period features · Available 7th March 2020 · Council tax band B · Allocated parking space · EPC rating D

Marlborough Buildings

£1,000 pcm

Unfurnished · Large master bedroom · Fabulous location · Available now · Residents parking permit · Council tax band C · EPC rating D

www.theapartmentcompany.co.uk

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