Only months after the River Avon gave up some of its murky secrets – in a flood relief dredge that discovered stolen cars, countless bikes and scores of supermarket trolleys – they’ve been uncovering a little of the city’s commercial and industrial past on the river bank.
It’s where Britannia Construction are working on
putting in the footings for a new single-arch bridge that will open up a much more user-friendly north-south river crossing for cyclists and pedestrians and of course link into the Western Riverside residential development currently being built by Crest Nicholson.
It was the developers who invited some of us over to take a look at some of the ‘finds’ uncovered while those bridge foundations were being dug.
Bottles and ceramic pots that would have carried everything from tonic water to cosmetics with a few nasties like disinfectant and embrocation thrown in.
The old bridge, of course, was a route into the Destructor Incinerator Plant where much of Bath’s rubbish was burned. Bottles and pots may have been lost along the way.
There to take a pick through one boxful of goodies were two local independent councillors representing Westmoreland Ward – June Player and Colin Blackburn – and from the web-based Bath Heritage Watchdog – www.bathheritagewatchdog.org – Patrick Hutton and Jim Warren.
All of this being filmed by Alastair Rzeznicki of the Bath-based Sunflower Creative Agency – sunflowernewsroom.com – who are providing a video diary of the whole riverside development for Crest Nicholson.
On hand to tell the Virtual Museum more was the Project Manager for Britannia Construction – Kevin Sanderson-Duckett.
