Victorian era

The Victorian era is recalled in Bath through buildings and civic memory that do not quite align: the Church of St. Michael with St. Paul was built just before Queen Victoria came to the throne, and the city’s art gallery is described as an example of Victorian pomp. Yet Bath’s many tributes to the Queen commemorate a monarch who avoided the city throughout her reign.

Historical Setting

The Church of St. Michael with St. Paul stands where Broad Street meets Walcot Street, near the Podium and the Post Office. Built just before Queen Victoria’s accession, it marks the approach of the era in the city’s architectural landscape. Its position and design give the historical reference a tangible setting, even as its architecture sits awkwardly among Bath’s Georgian and mock-Georgian buildings.

Architecture and the Victorian City

The church’s slender south front follows the tapered ground it occupies, and is said to have been inspired by Salisbury Cathedral. Its narrow lancet windows, buttresses, and pinnacles contrast with the surrounding pediments and columns. The building’s stone was cleaned after a century and a half of grime, bringing its color into harmony with its neighbors without resolving the architectural mismatch.

The art gallery offers a different expression of the era. Its great gallery is some fifty feet high, with a glazed arched roof, maroon walls, ornate gilt frames, and a copy of the Parthenon frieze running around the walls. The room is judged large enough for a ballroom and described as a fine example of Victorian pomp. Its scale makes the era present not only as a date in the city’s history but as an imposing public interior.

Queen Victoria and Bath

Bath commemorates Queen Victoria generously: her name appears in the names of a park, a bridge, several streets, a pub, a burger bar, and the art gallery. The abundance is ironic because she shunned the city for the whole of her reign. Before becoming Queen, she had visited briefly as a young girl; while standing on a hotel balcony, she reportedly overheard a remark about her ankles and was deeply offended. Bath was thereafter struck from her visiting list. The era’s civic memory thus preserves both the public honor attached to the monarch and the private slight that kept her away.