Editor Pick
Guildhall & Banqueting Room
- January 23, 2008
- Rated 4 of 5 by
zabelle from Portland, Connecticut
Designed by Thomas Baldwin and constructed in 1776 the Guildhall contains the Banqueting Room which is considered one of the finest Adams Rooms in the Country. The rooms can be visited on Mondays from 9am-5pm with a guide. We weren’t aware that visits are only on Monday but luckily that is when we visited.
Bruce who is one of the men who works here took us on a tour of the building. You need to be able to walk up stairs to see the Banqueting Room. It is a lovely Georgian Room with 3 magnificent London chrystal chandeliers. It has a minstrals gallery where the musicians used to play for social functions, Bruce told us that a previous guide explained the dents in the wood floor by saying that the musicians would get tipsy by the end of the evening and tip out of the very steep gallery onto the floor below.
At one end of the room there are portraits of King George III who Bruce thought we, as Americans, would be particularly interested in seeing as well as his Queen, Charlotte. Crazy George is the king who lost the American Colony. At the other end is a portrait of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. Around the rest of the room are other people important in 18th century Bath history. The room is painted a very pale green and has gold gilt pillars located every few feet and large windows giving it quite a light look. The room also has three Robert Adams Fireplaces and is very impressive.
We then went into the ante chamber where during a ball in the Banqueting Room the men would have retired to play cards and escape from the dancing. There was a copy of the famous Holbein Portrait of Henry VIII in the room known as the Aix-en-Provence Room.
From here we moved into the Victorian part of the building and the Council Chamber. This is so much more ornate and the colors are darker. The wood is all stained dark brown and the seats are a rich red though the walls are still a green color. There are portraits lining the wall. What I found interesting is that there are not enough seats to accommodate every council person if they all showed up, evidently this never happens.
If you are looking for records about your ancestors who were from Bath, this is where you are going to come. The Record Office is located here. Charters and deeds going back to a Charter from King Richard I in 1189, School and workhouse records and parish records. To find out exactly which records they hold visit their website at Bath Archives
Now for locals there are many reasons they might be visiting here since this is where births and deaths are registered, bus permits are obtained and where you get contractor or business permits.
From journal Bath, it's brilliant!