Chasing Jane, Chapter Six: Over the River Avon

Not far from Sally Lunn's lies the site of the Lower Rooms. Anyone who's read anything about Georgian England knows about the Lower Rooms. The Lower Rooms were one of THE places to see and be seen. There was dancing and tea and card playing. A "slow" night was 1000 people in attendance.

The Lower Rooms were, I assume, called that because they were in the lower part of the town near the river. The building no longer stands, a pub having taken its place after the original building was destroyed. I feel some disappointment about this. I'm sure it must have been magnificent!

There is a railing along one side of the road. The narrator tells me to follow this railing until I come to the bridge crossing the river Avon. Before I get to the bridge, however, I take a look back and this is what I see... a gorgeous park in the Georgian style and beyond it, the city of Bath glowing in the sun. Breathtaking.

I continue along the river, noting the barges drifting lazily. When I come back, I'm definitely going to have to take a barge tour. That's all there is to it!

Finally I arrive at the bridge. Apparently, it is unique in that the town planners allowed shops to be built on the bridge itself. Trinket shops, chocolate bars, flower stalls, clothing stores, and cafes line either side of the bridge. It doesn't even feel like a bridge. More like a Georgian strip mall with buses running up the middle. I have to admit to a slight feeling of claustrophobia. According my narrator, it was worse in Jane Austen's day. Hard to imagine.

I survive the bridge and arrive at Laura Place. Laura Place was

the Georgian equivalent of the West Hills of Portland. The creme de la creme of high society lived there. It was the place Jane Austen herself most desired to live. I can certainly see why.

The street is wide and lined with trees, a fountain

gracing the centre. The stately Georgian townhouses creating a sense of elegance and civility. Oh, yes, indeed. I can see them clearly, those ladies with their bonnets and silk skirts swishing along the pavement (sidewalk). The gentlemen raising their hats and bowing over their silver knobbed canes in greeting. No wonder Jane Austen wished so much to live here.

But Jane Austen never lived in Laura place. Her family could not afford it, her father being a retired minister with the yearly income of £600.

Instead, they lived in Alexander Place, just around the corner. Still a nice place, but not quite as upper class as Laura Place. They lived there 3 1/2 years, spending money left and right until they realized their savings were beginning to dwindle. Then they moved to a flat closer in to the city centre and much less expensive.

It's sort of sad, really, the thought that Jane Austen so wished to live in this magnificent place and yet her writings never brought her the financial rewards during her lifetime to afford such a place for herself and her family. Instead she was eventually reduced to living in abject poverty in the very worst part of town along with her mother and sister.

What would she have thought if she'd known what her little stories would one day become? How much the world would love her tales of hope and romance. The world of Georgian England may have been a more gentile place than today's world, but for women without a man willing and able to see to their comfort, it was a dark and terrible place.

I feel unbelievably grateful that I live in an age where a woman's comfort is not dependant on the charity of her relations or even complete strangers, but where a woman can decide for herself what sort of life she wants and can create such a life for herself.

With a sigh I turn from Laura Place and cross back over the River Avon, following the route Jane and her sister, Cassandra, walked many times. Though Jane and Cassandra probably never walked these streets in trainers! I wince a bit as I stumble over a cobblestone. I don't know how they managed without them!

As I reenter the city centre, I am beginning to realize that my earlier vision of a quiet, peaceful afternoon was a little optimistic. Hordes of camera toting tourists are cramming the streets. I don't know where on earth all these people came from. They certainly didn't get off the train with me. Bracing myself, I wade into the insanity that is Bath on a Bank Holiday afternoon....