Bath, Abbey 1925

St Swithin's Parish Church, Walcot, Bath

This is the parish church of my ancestor, William Ennever, who was baptised here on July 28, 1793. William was a carman and moved to London in 1816 where he married Elizabeth Wade in 1839. William's brother Joseph was involved in a forgery gang from Birmingham and was captured in 1807 whilst trying to pass off forged £1 notes at a shop in Bath. He was tried and executed at Ilchester on April 22 , 1807 and is buried at an unknown spot at Weston Church. William himself was involved in crime in 1850 where he was convicted of theft at a London address and sentenced to 7 years at Dartmoor. There is another Ennever family living at Charlcombe around 1820 who ran the now lost pub, The Manage Horse on Croft Street. A Joseph Ennever sold some land to William Beckford around this time and left a large amount of money to his daughter Cecelia in 1833. Any information on Ennevers living in Bath at this time would be most grateful.

Southgate Hotel

My Great Great Grandparents were William and Elizabeth Pratt.
In the 1880s William and his family had lived and worked on the Longleat Estate, William was the Head Gardener at that time.
In 1891 they moved to Bath, and sadly William died there in 1892, and on his death certificate it stated that he died at 24 Southgate Street.
Further sadness followed when son Arthur Reginald also died, he was only 14.
Thanks to the Bath Post Office Directories of 1895 I was able to establish that the address was the Southgate Hotel and the Proprietor is stated as William's wife Elizabeth.
The Southgate Hotel can be seen on photo ref 52994 on the right hand side looking up Southgate Street, the first building is the public house The Full Moon, then Dorchester St intersects, the next building is no 26, in 1895 was named Bright William & Son Chemist ,followed by no 25 The Refreshment Rooms, and next door is no 24, Southgate Hotel. The hotel is identifiable if one looks closely, it juts out slightly after the the long building that housed nos 25-26, it's also taller than the buildings either side, the windows are of a shape that gave the hotel a lot of character.
So the Pratt family had contributed their bit to the now long gone Southgate St, by providing a roof over the heads of those who chose to stay at The Southgate Hotel, and have left me with a story to tell my family and a photo for them to see.

Where have the trees gone?

Does anyone know when the trees were felled? I have found a slightly later photo around the turn of the century and this has the trees still. Today there are none, although I think those on Laura Place are still there. If anyone knows about this, I'd love to hear from you: moretrees@live.co.uk

Architectural notes

As a former resident of Bath I recall that this building was not particularly liked. In 1959 the hotel was demolished and a block of 33 flats at 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor level with shops at the ground floor was built. The quality of building work and the amenities of the building was exceptional and included electric underfloor heating beneath parquet floors in the main living room and an air extractor system to bathrooms and kitchens without external windows. The two side wings of the property housed lifts serving the three floors and also included very convenient rubbish chutes. There was also an entryphone system - a relatively new concept in Britain at that time. The rooms in the flats were well proportioned with 9' ceilings and large sash windows.

Because of the underlying geology of the area it was necessary to construct a deep and strong platform several metres below street level over which were constructed vertically doubled basements for the overlying shops. The lower basement of one of the shops was immediately above the outflow from the Hot Spring on the opposite side of Stall Street and an interesting side effect of this was that during the long and severe winter of 1962/63 the building was the only one in the immediate area which did not have its water supply frozen. Other local residents had to draw water on a daily basis from a stand pipe adjacent to the building on the corner of Stall Street and Cheap Street. I rented a bed-sitting room flat in the centrefront at first floor level that winter with a view of Bath Abbey identical to that enjoyed by thousands of guests in the rooms over the Grand Pump Room Hotel's portico.

A 19th century marriage at Widcombe Church

James Cholmeley Russell, the barrister, financier, property developer and Welsh railway entrepreneur married Eleanor Catherine Broome at Widcombe parish church on April 26th 1893. She was the daughter of the late Rev Frederick Broome, formerly rector of Kenley, Shropshire and Catherine Elizabeth Broome. The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend Canon C H Cholmeley, rector of Beaconsfield church from 1885 until his death in 1895. Russell thus continued the tradition of being married by a cleric from his mother's side of the family

Russell was a key shareholder of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways company from which the Welsh Highland Railway Company ultimately emerged.

See more at http://jamescholmeleyrussell.blogspot.com