WALCOT STREET

HISTORY

TIMELINE

c.60 AD Aquae Sulis building started

1317 Edward III grants charter for a market in Bath - the site of which is in Walcot Street

c.1680 Ladymead House is built (may be the oldest surviving house in bath)

1805 Penitentiary opens at Ladymead House.

1829 Front gardens in Ladymead (north end of Walcot Street) removed for road widening

1880 First horse drawn tram service

1901 Electric traction trams

1939 Last tram 6th May

1948 First Bath International Festival

1965 Colin Buchanan tunnel proposal. Chatham Row blighted by the threat of being bulldozed.

1970 First Other Festival.

1973 Beaufort Hotel opens (now the Hilton)

1978 Tunnel idea abandoned

1981 First Fringe Festival

1989 Hat and Feather Yard excavation begins. for remains of Roman settlement

1990 The Library and the Podium shopping centre opens

1997 First Walcot Nation Day

2000 First Walcot Nation Exhibition

Ladymead House is located in a tranquil, rural setting.

A painting of Ladymead house from this time (c.1680) shows the house facing the river, set within a formal walled garden. The geometrical garden is terraced down to the river with a canal running west to east, dividing the formal area from what is presumed to have been the fruit and vegetable plot. This painting is an insight into the appearance of one of the larger Walcot Street properties. Ladymead House has been extended over the years, first with a Georgian addition to the north and secondly a Victorian chapel in 1845.

The chapel was converted into two floors of accommodation in late 20th century. In the early 19th century the building housed the Bath Penitentiary whose purpose was to accommodate"young girls thrown destitute on the world and deprived of honest means of support". It was a charitable venture aimed at rehabilitation through training the girls for work as servants. The site also housed the Lock Hospital, an isolation ward for VD sufferers.

The house later became a Regional Health Authority home until 1977 and is now sheltered accommodation for the elderly. The original 17th century oil painting can be seen in the permanent collection of The Victoria Art Gallery, Bath.