A Tale of Two Cities

We are currently living in a "small" English village of around 3000 people called Saltford, about half way between the cities of Bath and Bristol. It is a bit hard for Australians to get their heads around, but these two cities are only about 12 miles apart, centre to centre. They would both be easily contained within the limits of metropolitan Adelaide.

It is almost difficult to imagine two cities so close and yet so different. For a start, Bristol is much larger; around 500,000 people live there, compared to around 80,000 in Bath. But even if you only saw the city centres, you couldn't possibly miss the difference.

Bath is old. There are bits of Bath that you can wander around, on a grey day, and not really be aware that anything has changed in 150 years. A fair number of the streets in the city centre are too marrow for cars, so no-one has bothered to bitumise them; they are still cobbled / flagged. The buildings are still in pretty much the original 19th century condition. There are still street vendors in Union Street who sell clothing, jewellery, hot food and some quite good water-colours of the city from hand-carts.

On a slight digression, owning property in England is a bit of a mine-field. The reason is that if anyone happens to think your property represents anything at all about any age other than the immediate present, they will mention it to local government and your property will be listed. This is a bit like heritage listing in Australia, with one crucial difference; in Australia, perhaps one property in a thousand is heritage listed. In England, it seems that about two properties in three are. Once your house is listed, you must maintain it in the condition in which it was listed; there are hefty fines for failing to do so.

Now, you are probably thinking that sounds really nice; it means there are lots of period houses around and the feel of olde worlde England is preserved. That is true. But you really feel for some people. For instance, we have passed through a number of villages where a lot of the houses have thatched roofs. Real river-reed thatch. We saw this and thought, "Hey, how cute, they must be really old roofs!" Not so. Thatch roofs only last about 20 years, less if you happen to get some very wet years. These people have to have their roofs replaced every 20 years or so, and it ain't cheap to get a roof re-thatched. Fifty years ago, they could have just chucked it in and put a tile or even tin roof on, but they didn't, and now their houses are listed with thatched roofs. They have no choice but to keep on getting the roof re-thatched.

I mention this because the entire city centre of Bath is now listed. No property owner is allowed to change the (at least outward) aspect of the property they own. It means the Bath city centre is just beautiful, but I don't want to own property there.

It also means that a lot of the flats we looked at in Bath were in these stunning old Georgian townhouses that have been divided up in flats. They can be really, really attractive properties. They have lovely exteriors, all finished in Bath Stone, and are usually all nicely updated with all the mod cons inside.

Anyway, here are some pictures of lovely, olde worlde Bath, such as my poor camera is able to capture:








I have higher-resolution copies of these, if anyone wants to see detail.

In contrast, Bristol is big, and largely new. I think a lot of the difference is because Bristol was quite heavily bombed in WWII. This rather gave them a license to redevelop, since there wasn't a lot left to preserve. This is at least true of most of the bits I've seen; I am told there are some nicer, older bits that have been preserved, too. At least most of the city centre is new and shiny. I don't have a lot of pictures of it, because it's not all that interesting. The best I can come up with is this, which is on a footbridge over the central quay:

You just can't imagine seeing this in Bath; it really wouldn't work. It wouldn't fit with the city's character. In Bristol, it kind of fits. Bristol is, I think, the only city in England that I have seen which has roads of more than one lane in each direction near the city centre (out of London, Reading, Bath and Bristol). It has flashy, modern buildings with walls made out of glass. It has Tesco's. None of these are to be found in Bath, and on the whole it is probably a nicer city for it. At least nicer to visit; living there might be a pain.

Bristol does have some nice bits. Temple Meads railway station is a lovely old Victorian building, now largely taken up with the Empire and Commonwealth Museum (the new railway station is next door, and frankly looks to date from about the same period to me). The Cathedral (formerly Bristol Abbey) is also stunning; I will get some photos up once I finish stitching together some panoramas. A lot of the river-front is also very nice; lots of cobbled walk-says with old-fashioned cast-iron bollards. Lots of boats on the river, this far down, too; Bristol has a reasonable ferry service. On a side note, I discovered recently that the river Avon I can see from my front garden is, in fact, one of no fewer than seven rivers in England and Scotland to bear this name. *Shrug*

On reflection, I'm not really sure why anyone would want to live in either city. There are dozens of villages within half-hour drive of the centre of each city, all with nice little communities and stunning countryside. Village life for me!