When Daniel our guide picked us up at Roseate Hotel, Bath, one of the fist questions he asked was typical “Where are you from?” When we responded, “Rochester”, his immediate response was “Henrietta”!! We were dumfounded! Then he pointed out our hotel is on Henrietta Street and the row of town houses extending up the hill were known as Henrietta with Henrietta Mews extending off through the row. The wife of the family that came into money was named Henietta and apparently she was the strong force. As their wealth grew they invested in land in US and founded the town of Henrietta, just outside Rochester. I will need to look up more details to verify and extend this story, but Daniel’s immediate response to Rochester and the adjacent town of Henrietta sure started out day off in a grand manner. 

He saw to it that we saw most of the sights of Bath from great vantage points and told us the legend of the founding of the town some time in BCE. He left us at lunch and we went on to tour the Roman Baths and make our way around town and back to the hotel. The baths have been the center of the city since its founding well before the Romans appeared. The Romans found the hot water a wonder in the cold wet land. They are the only hot springs in England! They built a complete set of baths with all the typical luxeries found in baths throughout the Empire only here they did not need to bring fuel to boil the water. After the Romans left, the baths were ignored for many years and fell into ruin. People still came to “take the waters” which are said to heal everything, but it wasn’t until the Victorian era that they were rebuilt for the use of the upper classes. Once again they fell into disuse and only recently have new baths been built to take advantage of the hot springs.

Today’s adventure was a tour of 1 Royal Crescent Museum which is located in an end unit of the huge crescent. It is fitted out with furnishing from the 1776 era and the family, represented in audio and videos, are going about living life in Bath. One son is an officer in the British Army on Long Island, the eldest is a wastrel gambling and drinking and the daughters are older teenagers entering society (17 and 19). We were intrigued with this structure since our home in Rochester for 17 years was a much smaller structure built along the same lines as the Royal Crescent including being very tall. This was a bucket list item for us for many years.

More tomorrow as we travel though the Cotswolds ending in Broadway at the Lygon Arms where we stayed 60 years ago on our Honeymoon.