Druids, Freemasons and Frankenstein. The Darker Side of Bath, England

08/20/20 • 33 min

Bath is known for its ancient Roman spa, medieval abbey, and sweeping Georgian terraces. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site in Somerset in the south-west of England and visitors often come on a circular cultural trip that takes in Stonehenge and Stratford-on-Avon.

But it’s not all Jane Austen bonnets, Regency dresses, and afternoon tea — there is a darker and more interesting side of Bath if you escape the tourist traps and explore the layers beneath. In this episode, I talk about the city I currently call home.

How finding a map shop helped me discover a different side to Bath
Curse tablets for an ancient goddess
Angels and demons and the dead of Bath Abbey
The city of Frankenstein
Ley lines, Druids and Freemasons
Walking the Kennet and Avon canal
Finding home in Bath during the pandemic
Recommended restaurants, bars, pubs and coffee shops away from the tourist traps
Recommended books about or set in Bath

How finding a map shop helped me discover a different side to Bath

My husband, Jonathan, and I moved to Bath in 2015 and we bought a house high on the hill overlooking the valley in 2019. I can happily say that this is my city now, but for the first six months of living here, I thought we’d made a terrible mistake.

We were thinking about moving out of London in 2014 and we came to Bath one weekend to visit Jonathan’s cousin who was joining in the Jane Austen festival. Think period drama come to life for ten days of bonnets, regency dresses, and fans held over coy smiles. Many people love it but it’s my idea of hell! I decided that I couldn’t possibly live somewhere so twee and excessively moored in the past.

Panoramic view of the Royal Crescent, Bath, England. Photo licensed from BigStockPhoto

But a year later, we found ourselves living in a flat behind the Royal Crescent, the sweeping Georgian terrace so beloved by tourists doing architectural selfies. Jonathan had left his consulting job to join my creative business so we were free to move wherever we wanted, and Bath had a lot going for it. It’s an hour from both of my (long divorced) parents and we wanted to be in a city with easy train travel to London and to an airport — Bristol Airport is fantastic with destinations all over Europe (when not in a pandemic, of course!). I didn’t want to be in a city where I had a previous history. We considered Oxford, but it belongs to my university years, and I went to school in Bristol where my Mum now lives.

So we moved here in mid-2015... and quickly felt like we’d made a mistake.

There is a buzz in London that keeps everything revved up, it keeps the pulse racing and you walk faster to keep up with city life. It seems as if everyone is achieving more than you, faster than you. There is always so much to do and see and experience and you never have enough time to do it all.

Of course, we moved out of London because we wanted a slower pace, we wanted to be closer to nature and walk and cycle away from the city. But Bath felt so slow those first few months, and our choices were suddenly diminished by the smaller physical location. It took six months for that buzz to fade, an addiction that lessened with time. Now when I go back to London — at least in pre-pandemic times — I find it invigorating but tiring and I look forward to getting away again.

I also couldn’t identify with the Jane Austen bonnet side of Bath. I am not a ribbons and bonnets type of girl! So how could I find my home here in this place that seemed so perfect?

For me, it’s all about writing and my fiction is rooted in my sense of place. My Brooke and Daniel thrillers are all set in London, and my love for the city is clear in the books, in the words and thoughts of Jamie and Blake. I thought that perhaps if I could set a book in Bath, I would learn more about the place and find something to anchor myself. I could not believe the city was just sickly sweet Jane Austen nostalgia — there had to be more. There had to be a dark side.

I started writing in a local cafe and walked almost every weekday from our flat down through Margaret Buildings, a pedestrianized street near the Royal Crescent, around the Circus and on to the coffee shop. I would always stop and look in the window of Jonathan Potter’s antique map shop as I passed, fascinated by the lines on paper and vellum that represented the physical world.

Jonathan Potter Map Shop, Margaret Buildings, Bat...

How finding a map shop helped me discover a different side to Bath
Curse tablets for an ancient goddess
Angels and demons and the dead of Bath Abbey
The city of Frankenstein
Ley lines, Druids and Freemasons
Walking the Kennet and Avon canal
Finding home in Bath during the pandemic
Recommended restaurants, bars, pubs and coffee shops away from the tourist traps
Recommended books about or set in Bath

How finding a map shop helped me discover a different side to Bath

Panoramic view of the Royal Crescent, Bath, England. Photo licensed from BigStockPhoto

So we moved here in mid-2015... and quickly felt like we’d made a mistake.

I also couldn’t identify with the Jane Austen bonnet side of Bath. I am not a ribbons and bonnets type of girl! So how could I find my home here in this place that seemed so perfect?

Jonathan Potter Map Shop, Margaret Buildings, Bat...

Previous Episode

Finding Beauty In The Ordinary. A Different Side Of Poland With Ben Aitken

In this wide-ranging interview with Ben Aitken, we talk about challenging cultural stereotypes, identifying as the ‘Other,’ and how to find beauty in the ordinary, as well as thoughts on where to visit and what to eat and drink when visiting Poland.

Ben Aitken is a freelance writer, playwright, and the author of three travel books. Today, we’re talking about his book, A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland.

Show notes

The relationship between the UK and Poland and how that changed while Ben lived there during the referendum
How travel can change attitudes
Finding beauty in the ordinary
Recommendations for food, drink, and places to consider visiting in Poland
The joy of travel without planning
The possibility of a return to more local travel in the wake of the pandemic
Why Ben chooses unusual trips like taking coach tours with the elderly as he writes about in his latest book, The Gran Tour
Recommended books about Poland

You can find Ben Aitken at BenAitken.com

Transcript of the interview

Jo: Ben Aitken is a freelance writer, playwright, and the author of three travel books. Today, we’re talking about his book, A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland. Welcome, Ben.

Ben: Hello, there. Good day. I should say good day because I’m down under. I’m locked down under.

Jo: Locked down under indeed. But you are a Brit.

Let’s just start with the question of why Poland and what sparked that trip in the first place?

Ben: What sparked that trip? Curiosity. It was a bit of an Alice in Wonderland-style adventure down an unusual Eastern rabbit hole. Of course, a lot of Poles had moved to the UK since 2004 so there was a new relationship with the country and a lot of the coverage of the country and the people was limited, sometimes negative.

I’m always in the mood to challenge the received wisdom and go on an adventure and hopefully return with a bigger picture and a bit more understanding.

Jo: We get a lot of international listeners to the show who might not understand how Polish people are part of life in the UK. You and I both being British. I live in Bath in the Southwest, we have a Polish supermarket, generally, a lot of British people will know Polish people. But to anyone listening who might not understand how our culture works. Explain a bit more about why, a few years ago, people started coming here.

Ben: In 2004 Poland, along with a few other countries in that part of the continent, joined the European Union, which enabled its people to work and live in any of the 27 member states of the European Union. And an awful lot of them, perhaps over a million, it’s difficult to know exactly, chose to come, and live, and work, and study, and bring up children in the UK. And that’s a significant number.

Polish is now the second most spoken language in the UK, and that happened quite quickly and it was quite exciting, to be honest, but other people reacted in a different way to the migration, as I’m sure you know, and as I’m sure people can understand. It doesn’t always strike people as a good thing or a progressive thing. But for me, it is those things. It is good and it is progressive, and it just gave me new things to consider doing and new places to consider looking at.

Jo: And I guess we should also say we’re recording this in June 2020. Because I read it quite recently, going through that at a time of Brexit is kind of crazy. Officially, Britain has left the EU now although, of course, you wrote the book over that period, didn’t you?

Ben: Yes, that was an interesting element of the year and the narrative and the journey. I knew that Britain was about to have a referendum. I didn’t expect the result would be that Britain would be leaving the European Union. That happened about a quarter of the way into my year in Poland and it did alter things a little bit.

Prior to the referendum, the Polish people had responded to me exclusively positively. After the referendum, less exclusively positively, because the way that that result was interpreted rightly or wrongly was that the Polish people were no longer welcome in the UK because it was interpreted that the UK wa...

Next Episode

History As A Fine Art. Victorian London With David Morrell

If you look below the surface of an ancient city, you can travel through time and find its deeper layers. In this episode, David Morrell talks about how he researched Victorian London for his historical mysteries about Thomas De Quincey, and how he brought to light the “chasms and sunless abysses” of the first British serial killer.

David Morrell is the multi-award-winning and many times bestselling author of over 30 books, as well as short stories, essays, comics, and collaborations that have sold millions of copies and are available in many different languages. He has a Ph.D. in American literature and was a professor of literature at the University of Iowa. His novel First Blood became the Rambo franchise, but today we’re talking about the Thomas De Quincey historical mysteries set in Victorian London. The first in the series is Murder as a Fine Art.

Show notes

Time travel through book research as a way of dealing with grief
Thomas De Quincy, addiction and the unconscious
How De Quincy invented the true crime genre
Finding inspiration in mid-Victorian London
Famous locations that inspire David’s work

You can find David Morrell at DavidMorrell.net

Header photo: St Pancras Station, finished in 1868 and abandoned by the 1960s. After much lobbying, it was restored to its glorious Victorian self and re-opened in 2007. It is one of my favorite stations in London!

Transcript of the interview

Jo: David Morrell is the multi-award-winning and many times bestselling author of over 30 books, as well as short stories, essays, comics, and collaborations that have sold millions of copies and are available in many different languages. He has a Ph.D. in American literature and was a professor of literature at the University of Iowa. His novel First Blood became the Rambo franchise, but today we’re talking about the Thomas De Quincey historical mysteries set in Victorian London. The first in the series is Murder as a Fine Art.

Welcome, David.

David: It’s nice to chat with you. We’ve known each other quite a few years now, and it’s always fun despite the distance. It’s fun to have the opportunity to get together and chat.

J.F. Penn with David Morrell at Thrillerfest NYC, 2017

Jo: Indeed.

What first drew you to historical London?

Because you don’t live anywhere near here. What was the idea behind the De Quincey books?

David: If people are curious, I live in the United States in a state called New Mexico. And since we’re talking about travel you’d be surprised how many people in the United States do not know that New Mexico is a state in the United States. I remember sending away to The Museum of Modern Art in New York for something, I think it was a Christmas card. And they said, ‘Well, we don’t ship to a foreign country.’ And we said, ‘Well, what you mean?’ And she said, ‘Well, you know, New Mexico is a foreign country.’ ‘Well, no, it is not a foreign country and this is our zip code for mailing.’ And they had to go to a supervisor who finally said, ‘You know what? I think New Mexico is in the Union.’

Jo: That’s brilliant!

David: So, there you are. And New Mexico gets featured a lot in movies and westerns particularly. A classic movie like Silverado was filmed near here, for example.

I’ve always been interested in the Victorians and I’m from Canada, so I share an interest in the UK and because we’re all in the Commonwealth. And the short version is that my granddaughter Natalie died in 2009 from a rare bone cancer. And our son had died years earlier from the same rare bone cancer and my wife and I, and of course, our daughter, whose child it was, we were devastated.

I happened to see a film called Creation about Charles Darwin’s breakdown when he was writing On the Origin of Species. And the breakdown was because his favorite daughter had died. In the midst of the movie, somebody shows up to explain his breakdown by saying, ‘You know, Charles, there are people like Thomas De Quincey who maintain that we can be controlled by thoughts and emotions we don’t know we have.’

This sounded so much like Freud that I wondered if the movie was making it up because it was set in the 1850s, and Freud’s at the turn of the century. It turned out that De Quince...