The great unwashed

Elsewhere on this website l have mentioned the publication of a book which details the excavations undertaken by Wessex Archaeology on the Broad Quay riverbank beside Churchill Bridge.

Part of the excavation underway – library picture

The area was being re-shaped as part of a flood prevention scheme and this was a good time to investigate what evidence remained of the tenements, workshops, pubs and bath houses that formed a now lost riverside working class community.

The publication is written by the Project Director Cai Mason and l have received an invitation – which l can share with you all – from Wessex Archaeology’s Project Manager, Bruce Eaton.

It’s as follows:

“Dear Supporter,

To coincide with the release of our latest publication, Bath Quays Waterside: The Archaeology of Industry, Commerce and the Lives of the Poor in Bath’s Lost Quayside District by Cai Mason, we’d like to invite you to a free Webinar on Friday 27^th November at 1pm.

Cai’s webinar will be titled Cholera, miasma and the cleansing of the ‘great unwashed’: the surprising origins of an early Victorian public washhouse at Bath Quays Waterside and will be followed by a live Q&A. To register please visit: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4243540249802231055

The Bath Quays publication is available now from Oxbow books: https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/post-medieval/modern-industrial-archaeology/bath-quays-waterside.html

We hope you can join us. Please feel free to share the link with anyone who may be interested in attending.”