Prominent, however, above all else is the great abbey church, which rises in its midst, and challenges with its display of the last phase of Gothic the Palladian severity of the secular buildings. It is a complete and direct contradiction of that eighteenth-century Bath; but how nobly and effectively it stands forth from that sea of houses which is the picture presented by Bath, lying in its cuplike hollow beneath the great surrounding hills!

Castle Combe, North Wiltshire

“Go to Bath!” says the old contemptuous and derisive saying. “Certainly!” one might well reply. “By all means. Delighted.” And coming to it along the stately curve which the Great Western Railway makes between those lofty heights, what an inspiring picture the city presents! Bath is additionally famed for its Pickwickian associations, and stands sponsor for Bath chaps, Bath buns, and Bath Olivers. It takes no responsibility in the matter of “Bath bricks,” which intimate articles of domestic economy are in fact made at Bridgwater, and obtained their name no one knows when or how.

Of its other thousand and one architectural, literary, artistic and social glories and associations, I dare hint only guardedly in this small compass. Of the abbey church, let it suffice to say that its tower is not square in plan, and that the building in general has a somewhat singular history. Large though it be, it is but half the size of a Norman predecessor, begun but allowed to fall into decay. It was begun anew in 1495 by Bishop Oliver King, who dreamed a strange dream of angels ascending ladders and a voice exclaiming, “Let an olive establish the crown, and let a King restore the church.” He had proceeded as far as the west front when the Reformation ended his project, and the great building remained derelict for forty years. The work was resumed in 1572, and brought to a conclusion about 1609. Thus we have the unusual spectacle of a great abbey church chiefly of post-Reformation date. The odd reproduction in stone on the west front of Bishop Oliver King’s dream, representing angels climbing Jacob’s ladders, is more singular than beautiful.

Box and Corsham, respectively six and nine miles from Bath, to the east, along the old coach-road to London, are worth an excursion, for here you may see the quarries whence comes the fine-grained Bath stone. Box Tunnel, on the Great Western Railway, was considered a stupendous work in the early days of railways. It is nearly one and three-quarter miles long, and cost more than half a million sterling. Corsham Regis, to give that pretty village its full title, lies a little way off the main road, and is, of course, a place of stone-built houses and cottages, nearly all with some architectural merit. The old weavers’ cottages are still pointed out, the homes of a Flemish community of clothworkers in Elizabethan times. One may also obtain glimpses of Corsham Court, a noble mansion amid gardens rich in enormous yew hedges. It is the seat of Lord Methuen, and was originally built in 1582 by one Smythe, who grew rich in farming the Customs dues. The Elizabethan south front remains. But what will more immediately compel the tourist’s admiration is the Hungerford Almshouse, a quaintly beautiful composition, the gift of Lady Hungerford in 1672. It is one of the finest among the post-Reformation almshouses, with curious mingling of debased Gothic and elaborate Renaissance details over the projecting porch, among whose florid sculptures will be noticed the crossed sickles and wheatsheaf badge of the Hungerfords, who have long since died out of the land.

Corsham is pretty, but one of the prettiest villages in England will be found some four miles north at Castle Combe, in a profound valley through which flows the Box Brook. The castle of Castle Combe has disappeared. It stood somewhere on the lofty wooded heights that tower above the secluded village. No modern house varies the peaceful old cottage architecture of the street, which follows the windings of the brook; and the old church and roofed-in market-cross complete the picture of a village unaltered since the spacious times of Good Queen Bess.

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