(PS – that’s not me!)
I am sure l have been a ‘pain in the neck’ to many over the years and – just recently – it’s a figurative condition l have experienced personally on a more physical and very real level.
A scan just below my ears revealed my head-supporting vertebrae are showing the effects of the passage of time – turning me into an ancient ruin worthy of a two-star listing!
So it’s been suggested l have a cortisone injection – to relieve the inflammation creating the discomfort. So l am off to the Spire Hospital in Bristol – later today – to see if this procedure helps.
Can’t say l am exactly looking forward to the experience but – if it helps – it’s a tunnel with light at the other end.
Yesterday – on my wanderings – l passed the One Stop Shop in Manvers Street where a temporary police desk is in operation.
The area where a more permanent police ‘station’ is being installed is currently screened off but is expected to be operational come April.
I had to collect a parcel from the Post Office depot and passed a cute little Georgian building in the lee of Bath Spa station.
I have no idea of its history but see it was given an environmental award in 1994 by the Bath Conservation and Advisory Committee!
Can anyone help identify it?
Elsewhere, what was the entrance to the Garfunkels restaurant, is putting the Empire Hotel to shame.
While the same neighbourhood effect is being produced by what used to be the Tourist Information Centre in Abbey Courtyard.
While the church had been hoping for enough funds to turn it into a refectory – during its Footprint Project – there was no cash to spare.
As landlords, l hope B&NES will sort out a use for it soon as it spoils the look of the square.
One final mention of my weekend break in Edinburgh. If only we had a transport system like this linking with Bristol Airport!
Clean, efficient, regular trams that whisk you and your luggage into the city.
Costing a fortune l know but – thinking long term – it could also link Bristol to Bath and serve both cities.
You don’t even need overhead lines these days. They charge when they stop to let people on or off.
Here’s an update on this story – regarding the mystery Georgian house by the Post Office depot.
Penny Williamson has sent me the following:
Hello Richard
As I am sure someone has told you by now, the building is No.1 Railway Place, now known as ‘Ralph Allen House’.
Historic England, as unhelpful as ever, list it thus:
HISTORY: Part of the railway-associated development of this area; the building possesses a distinctive and transitional façade, articulated by the unusual Neoclassical device of four rusticated pilasters; the entrance porch shows the influence of the Italianate style. Built c1840.
They also say it is part of the Post Office Service Centre – which it isn’t, it’s privately rented out, but I don’t know who the landlord is (maybe that is the PO). When they say ‘built c1840’, this means they don’t know that either – which they should, there will be a record in the Guildhall Archives, Bath building was very well recorded.
I am sure you have seen this before, but I always rather liked its eccentricity (Royal Hotel Bridge)! Although, sadly, your building is just out of sight.
I had an injection into a joint suffering with impingement due to swelling andhad a miraculous, almost instantaneous and lasting cure. Hope your outcome is similar.
Re your picture of the house by the station, not sure if it helps but it is pictured in Peter & Ruth Coard’s book ‘Vanishing Bath’ (page 39) which was first published in 1973. He was Head of Art at the City of Bath Technical School in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and he and his wife made it their mission to draw, and thereby record for posterity, any of Bath’s iconic Georgian architecture which was then under threat from redevelopment. This place must have been ’lined up’ for demolition at the time for them to have drawn it but, mercifully, it obviously survived – unlike so many other victims of the shameful ‘Sack of Bath’. The book says nothing about it – simply describing it as ‘Bleak House’ (in quotes) Railway Place, 17 June 71 (Ref 1088)’. Not sure who has the originals of their work: Bath Preservation Trust, perhaps?