Placemaking Areas

BATH QUAYS NORTH

(Avon Street: Car Park, Coach Park and Bath College of Further Education)

HISTORICAL OUTLINE

Medieval Meadows

In the middle ages this area was covered by several meadow or pasture grounds lying between the city

wall and the Avon which were then held by the Monastery at Bath:

The Ambry: The most easterly of these grounds adjoined Southgate Street and St.Lawrence’s Bridge

and was known (with a variety of spelling) as the Amery, Ambry or Ambury, a name perhaps derived

from an isolated property in the north-east corner of the meadow by the South Gate (still marked by

Amery Lane) which is thought to have been the site of the Almonry where alms were dispensed at the

city’s entrance. On the west side, Ambry Mead was bounded by a battlemented wall with outer ditch

or ‘moat’ (sometimes later called ‘Fosse Ditch’) carrying the outfall of the Hot and Cross Bath

mineral springs from an opening in the city wall near Abbey Church House in a straight line to the

river near the end of Avon Street. This defensive outwork (probably built in the 12th century by King

Stephen who strengthened the city after the attack on Bath by the Bristolians) also marked the

boundary between the city’s southern suburb (later St.James’s parish) and its external manor (later

parish) of Walcot.

King’s Mead and St.John’s Mead: On the west side of the wall was a very large meadow known as

the King’s Mead, part of the King’s Barton or farm in Walcot, then also in the hands of the Prior of

Bath. In the 13th century a broad strip of ground along the west side of the Ambry wall as far as the

West Gate was separated from King’s Mead and granted to St.John’s Hospital in Bath. This strip was

therefore known as St.John’s Mead or Little King’s Mead.

Lying below the flood plain, these pasture grounds were typically subject to seasonal flooding, and

although the Ambry and St.John’s Mead were partly occupied by Orchards and Market Gardens, they

always remained open grazing, providing early spring grass in times of flood, or a convenient open

area for public events (e.g. King’s Mead, which was the muster ground of the Bath Regiment of

Militia in the 16th and17th centuries).

18th Century Development

1. Avon Street

In 1717 the St.John’s Hospital lands adjoining the city were leased to John Hobbs, a Bristol Merchant,

for building purposes - one of the earliest Georgian developments outside the city wall. By the late

1720s Beaufort Square and Kingsmead Square were completed by the architect John Strachan,

together with Avon Street, which was laid out on a roughly central line through St.John’s Mead

between Kingsmead Square and the river. It was also at this time, following the opening of the Avon

Navigation in 1727, that a riverside wharf was acquired by the Avon Navigation Company in the

south-east corner of the Ambry adjoining St.Lawrence’s Bridge. It was from the new town Quay,

completed in 1729 with warehousing, timber yards and houses designed by John Strachan, that most

of the imported materials for the Georgian building developments were supplied.

Although Avon Street was started as a fine row of houses with proper water supply and drainage (the

outfall ditch along the defensive wall appears to have been converted to a sewer at this time), it was

not built on arches like the grander Palladian buildings introduced soon after by John Wood, and

therefore subject to flooding. It is noticeable that the street was built in stages, the lowest near the

river being the last in the 1780s. At the bottom of Avon Street also a slip to the river was provided

which became a principal watering place for horses. As a result, the street became a busy

thoroughfare for the great wagons with their six-inch wide wheels drawn by teams of six and eight

horses.

Horses were also accommodated at the upper end of the Street, where an extensive block of stables

and carriage-houses known as ‘The Mews’ or ‘Fisher’s Mews’ (after the builder, Nathaniel Fisher)

was laid out in 1736 on the eastern side the Street, approximately on the site of the present main

College block. It later became known as ‘Pickwick Mews or Stables’ when most of it was in the

possession of the Pickwick family of the White Hart in Stall Street to house the numerous teams of

horses required for their famous stage-coach service.

This combination of commerce and unfavourable siting soon led to a decline in Avon Street, as noted

by John Wood as early as the 1750s: ‘Avon Street runs from Kingsmead Square Southward to the

River; it is thirty Feet broad, and contains fifty-one houses; which, from a regular and tolerable

Beginning, have fallen into an Irregularity and Meanness not worth describing.’

2. The Ambry

After the Dissolution of the monastery in 1539, the King’s Barton and the Manor of Walcot, together

with the Ambry, passed through various hands, and from 1699 were all acquired by Robert Gay, a

London surgeon. It was he who made the first agreements for the Georgian development of the upper

part of the town with John Wood, but it was his daughter, Margaret Garrard who completed the

agreement in 1765 for the development of the Ambry with Henry Fisher, Thomas Jelly and Walter

Taylor. This led to the complete infill of the remaining open area with streets, including St.James’s

Parade (initially called Thomas Street), Wine Street and Peter Street (initially Queen Street or Lower

Queen Street) on the north side, and to the south, Somerset Street (initially Garrard Street), Corn

Street (linked to the Quay by a narrow passage called The Ambury), Back Street, and Little Corn

Street (initially Clarke’s Lane).

It was during this period also that St.Lawrence’s Bridge was replaced (in 1750) by the ‘Old Bridge’,

and the water-frontage of the Quay extended westward as far as the bottom of Avon Street. Since this

‘New Quay’, or ‘Narrow Quay’ as the extension came to be known, was little more than a line of

warehouses built along the riverside path, the original Quay subsequently acquired the prefix ‘Broad’.

3. King’s Mead.

During the next phase of building, from the 1770s to 1790s, development finally took place on the

Great King’s Mead, including Norfolk Crescent, Green Park and James Street. To this was added

Milk Street as a service road at the back of Avon Street, and a parallel line of housing, Kingsmead

Terrace.

19th Century

By the end of the 18th century the development of this area was complete and remained virtually

unchanged until the mid-20th century, characterised by two particular features:

1. The considerable number of ‘courts’ containing cramped high-density artisan dwellings which

appeared behind the main streets, occupied by a low-income population involved in the commercial

and industrial activities which increasingly characterised the area. Combined with its situation close to

the river, this feature promoted a high incidence of epidemic disease.

2. Isolation from the rest of the city. Access to Avon Street was only possible from Kingsmead Square

and along the waterfront. The boundary set by the former defensive wall on the east side of the Street

prevented a connection with Corn Street, the main entry from Southgate Street, which ended in a cul-

de-sac. Access from the west side was no better, as the only approach along James Street terminated

at Milk Street. Regarded as a ‘no-go’ area which became increasingly difficult to administer and

control, its poor reputation became even worse. In 1852 Avon Street was described as one of ‘..filth,

squalor and demoralisation, where poverty and crime lurk in miserable companionship, and where by

a perversion of language, they may be said to enjoy a kind of sanctuary free from the intrusion of

respectability’.

Continuous efforts were made to deal with this problem throughout the 19th century, one of the more

successful being an establishment equipped with wash-house, baths, and ironing/drying rooms set up

at the lower end of Milk Street by the Baths and Laundry Society, a voluntary organisation under the

aegis of the Corporation, ‘for promoting cleanliness of dress and person among the poor inhabitants

of Bath’.

Nevertheless, the area contained a significant number of local industries. From the outset, the streets

behind the Quay were always noted for their breweries, grain and fodder stores and massive

malthouses, while elsewhere there were various printworks, carriage works, saw-mills, stone yards

and, in Milk Street, a Clay Pipe manufactory. From as early as 1802 a series of small but influential

engineering works and foundries were established here, one of the last being the firm of Bowlers in

Corn Street. Throughout the century the Quay remained busy, particularly after the opening of the

Kennet & Avon canal in 1810, and during the 1830s provided a daily return passenger service to

Bristol by steam-boat, on the City of Bath, until the arrival of the GWR in the 1840s. During the later

part of the century it also became associated with the firm of Pickfords, Road Carriers, who occupied

premises on the Quay.

20th century

With the increase in motorised transport after WWI, trade on the Quay began to decline, and when the

Bath Corporation Act was passed in 1925 to ease traffic flow in the city, the opportunity was taken to

redevelop the whole Avon Street Area. Work on the Avon Street Improvements began in 1932 with

the extension of James Street eastwards, to a junction with Westgate Buildings and St. James’s

Parade, followed by the clearance of the area between Avon Street and Peter Street and along Narrow

Quay.

However, the outbreak of WWII prevented any further work, and these areas were to remain open

wasteland until development could resume in the late 1960s with the building of the new Technical

College. Although included in the Abercrombie Scheme of 1945, none of its proposals were put into

effect, and the only new structures to appear were the Labour Exchange at the top of Milk Street (built

1937), together with ‘Kingsmead Flats’ (now ‘Riverside Gardens’, formerly the site of the

Corporation Stone Yard in Cat and Dog Lane), and various temporary buildings on the open ground

in Avon Street, including a wartime canteen and Thomas Best’s enormous war-surplus store.

However, the war did provide further opportunities for clearance, as much of the remaining buildings

in Avon Street and Peter Street had been damaged beyond repair during the air raid on Bath in 1942.

The last area to be cleared was the Quay. Although many businesses continued to operate on the Quay

after the war, the quayside itself was little used by the 1920s (except from time to time by a travelling

funfair) and served as a car park until completely demolished in the 1970s for the new Churchill

bridge, carpark, and riverside ring road. All of these were built above flood level to link the already

raised levels of Green Park East and Southgate Street.

MAP REGRESSION

1. From Joseph Gilmore’s map, The City of Bath, of 1694.

Here the medieval wall between the Ambry and Little King’s Mead is still shown in

existence, although it had long ceased to have any defensive significance.

2. From John Wood’s map, A Plan of Bath in Somerset, of 1735.

The colours shown here represent the different ownerships in the area during this period, i.e:

blue: St.John’s Hospital, Bath (Walcot Parish).

green: Gay/Rivers estate (Walcot Parish).

brown: Gay/Rivers estate (St.James’s Parish).

pink: Avon Navigation Company.

grey: City corporation property, including a few freeholds.

yellow: Duke of Kingston estate (St.James’s Parish).

The circular building in the north-west corner of the Ambry was the intended site of the new

General Hospital or Mineral Water Hospital, eventually built in Upper Borough Walls.

Below are two contemporary maps showing the progressive development of Avon Street.

3. From Thomas Thorpe’s A Plan of the Parish of Walcot in the County of Somerset, 1740.

4. From A New and Correct Plan of the City of Bath and places adjacent, published by Taylor and

Meyler, 1750-1751.

5. From A New Plan of the City of Bath, published by Leake and Taylor, c.1770.

6. From Harcourt Masters’ Plan of the City of Bath, 1795.

Shown here is the development

of the Ambry soon after

completion, with the original

street names.

Also appearing for the first time

is ‘The Mews’ in Avon Street,

and Milk Street and James

Street in Kings Mead.

The map below shows the whole

of the development area in its

final form.

7. From Cotterell & Spackman’s MS plan of water supply in Bath (sheets 17/18/19), 1852-1853.

8. From the OS 1:500 maps of Bath (sheets XIV.5.14/19), 1885.

9. From the OS 1:2,500 map of Bath (1904 edition), sheet XIV.5.

10. From the OS 1:2,500 map of Bath (1936 edition), sheet XIV.5. [annotated in 1942 to show air

raid damage]

The colour key attached to this map shows how much of the study area was destroyed in April 1942:

RED – Totally Destroyed

BLUE – So Badly Damaged that Demolition is Necessary

GREEN – Seriously Damaged but capable of Repair. Still Usable

GAMBOGE YELLOW – Evacuated or to be Evacuated. Pending Repair

BURNT SIENNA – General Damage – Slight

PAYNES GRAY – General Damage – Glass Only

Areas demolished by the 1925 Act are shown blanked out, the ‘Temporary Canteen’ area.

11. From Abercrombie’s ‘A Plan for Bath’, 1945.

12. From the OS 1:1250 maps of Bath, 1952.