Monday 10 November 2014

Bath Assembly Rooms Revisited

Cue very deep American TV announcer voice: Last time. At Bath Assembly Rooms. 
  • Cut to image of girl getting off train in Bath and skipping down the street
  • Cut to image of CLOSED sign on door of Bath Assembly Rooms
  • Cut to image of woman at counter shaking head at girl asking for a scone
  • Cut to image of girl trudging back to train
  • Cut to image of sign saying TRAIN DELAYED FOR TWO HOURS, WHICH WILL SEEM LIKE TWO DAYS AS IT IS VERY COLD INDEED
  • Cut to image of girl weeping on shoulder of harassed train guard

Yes, this pretty much describes my previous visit to Bath Assembly Rooms. It wasn't what you would call a major success -  read the full tale of Bath Assembly Rooms woe.

But I decided that it was time to go back and give it another try, which is how we found ourselves back at Bath Assembly Rooms again today:



Bath Assembly Rooms

And I'm very glad that we did, because today we struck baked foodstuff gold. Yes indeed, today the cafe at Bath Assembly Rooms had cheese scones and sweet scones galore. The sweet scone was lovely - not fresh but very, very tasty indeed and fine-looking to boot:


Bath Assembly Room Scones

I had a slight moment of panic when the scone sidekick announced that he wasn't hungry enough for a scone and he'd have a bit of mine, which obviously wasn't alright at all. So I bought a Bath Bun as well, thinking I could maybe fend him off with that. We ended up sharing all of it, but the Bath Bun was a REVELATION. It was fresh as a daisy and very tasty indeed, so hurrah for the Bath Bun.



Bath bun
A Bath Bun

The second bit of success was that all of the Assembly Rooms were open - last year many of the rooms were closed for a function, which is fair enough really considering that the Assembly Rooms were built for functions in the first place. 

This year we had the run of the place - here's a rare sighting of the scone sidekick busting some Len Goodman-esque moves in the Tearoom (or at least I think that's what he's doing - maybe he was just telling me it was time to leave):


Tearoom at Bath Assembly Rooms

And here's the Ballroom, all set up for another recital of some sort:


These Assembly Rooms were built in 1769. The old Assembly Rooms were too small to accommodate the hordes that started descending on Bath during its Georgian heyday, as documented by Jane Austen. So John Wood the Elder and his son, helpfully known as John Wood the Younger, designed and built the Upper Assembly Rooms that are now in the care of the National Trust. But I went into great detail about all of this in my previous post so I won't repeat it all here.

Instead I shall end by raving about the city of Bath itself. It really is a fantastic place. You can visit the amazing Roman Baths, which should be on anyone's bucket list, and the Pump Room, which you can see below on the right, next door to Bath Abbey where a nice busker was doing a very passable version of Jolene.


Bath Abbey

If you're reading this thinking 'actually, I prefer it when things go completely wrong for her', then you're in luck - today I also tried to visit Bath Skyline, which is a set of footpaths that provide stunning views over the city. It didn't go according to plan - read about Bath Skyline.


Bath Assembly Rooms: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4.5 out of 5
Bath Bun: 5 out of 5


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