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Crescent History
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Lawn Fund
The
History of
the Lawn Fund
By Stephen
Little From Issue 56 (spring 2005)
Original
deeds to each of the 30 houses in the Royal
Crescent contained a clause granting the owner
and his successors "the free use of the
whole area or space of void ground called or
intended to be called the Royal Crescent in
Common with other the owners and occupiers for
the time being of the Houses building and to be
built in the Royal Crescent". Another
clause required that the owner and his
successors "shall and will pay his and
their proportional share in Common with other
the owners and occupiers of Houses in the Royal
Crescent of forming and bounding in with neat
Iron Rails or pallisadoes the Grass plot
intended to be in front of the said Crescent and
of keeping the same in repair for ever
afterwards".
A
common fund has existed for such a purpose in
one form or another since at least 1825, from
when the RCS holds records of a meeting at which
Royal Crescent residents combined to pay for the
installation of additional gas lamps. Other
papers in its archive record the collection and
expenditure of funds on behalf of residents, in
the absence of a freehold owner of the Lawn, for
the maintenance of the Lawn and surrounding
railings and Ha-ha from 1830 onwards. These
funds were augmented by the sale of hay from the
Lawn cutting and the granting of grazing rights
for horses. As owners and/or residents had been
entitled by their title deeds to access to the
Lawn since the completion of the Crescent in
1775, it is assumed that some arrangements for
maintenance of the Lawn and its boundaries had
been in place since then.
At
some point, not recorded, the tasks of
collection of payments and administering the
maintenance were passed to a firm of local Bath
solicitors, now known as Thring Townsend, mainly
on a goodwill basis. In the 20th Century the
tasks were run almost single-handedly by a
partner in the firm, Mr R. Forrester, who owned
and lived in one of the Crescent houses, No. 25.
The passage of time brought problems with
further conversions of some of the houses into
flats and the difficulties of keeping track of
the ever-changing ownerships, as well as the
lack of funds for legal action to enforce
payments and the lack of any formal corporate
structure to set funding levels. But enough
residents continued to recognise their
responsibilities to fund basic and acceptable
standards of maintenance right through until the
middle of the 20th Century.
The
Royal Crescent Society was formed in 1973, when
concerned residents recognised the need to
improve the appearance of the Lawn and its
boundaries, which in the absence of an owner had
been neglected for some time. The Officers of
the RCS were then, as now, unpaid volunteers.
Annual General Meetings and Committee meetings
have been held continuously since 1974, and the
RCS has undertaken the administration of the
Lawn Fund, separately from its own funds, since
that date. This has been used to fund cutting
and general maintenance of the grass, litter
collection, weeding etc., all sub-contracted to
the Council's Parks Department, maintenance of
gates and their locks, distribution of keys to
residents, erection of notices, effecting
insurance of Lawn, railings and Ha-ha, and
arranging repairs when vehicles have breached
the railings.
The
Crescent Lawn Company Ltd (CLC)
Throughout
this time, ownership of the Lawn was uncertain
until the Society applied for title to the Lawn
by the Land Registry by virtue of their
stewardship over the years. The Land Registry
agreed the claim in principle but advised that
they could not grant title to the Society as an
unincorporated association, so the CLC was
created as a not-for-profit company in order to
hold the title on behalf, not of the Society,
but of Royal Crescent residents, and was granted
absolute title in 2003. Its stated object is
"to manage and maintain the Royal Crescent
Lawn its boundary railings and bases and the
Ha-ha wall structure for the benefit of the
general public".
The
Company applied to register as a charity, on the
grounds that it was preserving a vista for the
benefit of the wider public, in order to make
fund-raising easier for the major Railings and
Ha-ha Restoration project and to take advantage
of tax concessions. However this application was
refused, and an appeal was unsuccessful.
The
Future of the Lawn Fund
Now that the status of
the CLC has been finalised, it is proposed that
it would be appropriate for the Company to
administer the Lawn Fund. The Company currently
has very little money, but as owner and
maintainer of the Lawn needs to able to spend
whatever needs to be spent on the Lawn, even
though it will continue to be guided by the
wishes of the Society when doing so. Collection
of contributions would also be on a sounder
legal footing. It should be borne in mind
that:
-
the
CLC is a not-for-profit company.
-
any
resident is eligible to become a member by
guaranteeing to pay £1 in the event of the
Company's dissolution.
-
the
Articles do not allow the payment of any
dividend to members.
-
the
Articles do not allow any director to
receive financial or other benefit as a
director.
-
the
Society will continue to guide the Company's
actions.
The
Railings & Ha-ha Restoration Fund
It
is also proposed that the CLC should administer
the Appeal Fund, since the Heritage Lottery Fund
(HLF) insisted that it was the CLC, as an
incorporated body and owner of the Lawn, rather
than the Society which should be named as the
partner with B&NES as recipient of the grant
for the Restoration. It will therefore be the
CLC which the HLF expects to pay the Crescent's
share when the time comes. The Appeal Fund is
kept in a separate account and it is not
proposed to change that.
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Royal Crescent History
A
Brief History of the Railings
By Jenny Hardisty
From Issue 53 (spring 2004)
My
previous articles (see Issues 51 and 52)
concerned the Lawn, the Ha-ha and the
"paddock" beyond the ha‑ha.
Finally, I propose to tell you a little of the
history of the railings themselves. As in my
previous articles, the information is gleaned
from the records of the "Committee for the
Improvement of the
Royal Crescent"
set up in 1825 by six residents of the Crescent.
As
we know from the sample Indenture of Release
dated
20
December 1766,
it was incumbent on each owner of the 30 houses
which comprise the
Royal Crescent
,
to create "iron rails or pallisadoes"
to enclose the Lawn. However, by 1836 these
original railings were in such a bad state of
repair that it was deemed necessary to replace
them altogether. The firm of Edward Lye and Sons
were contracted to supply and erect wrought iron
railings to run from
Brock
Street
to Marlborough Buildings. The specification also
included the erection of 155 yards of the
original railings across the top of the Ha-ha.
Indeed J. Newman's lithograph dated 1850 shows
such railings across the top of the Ha-ha. It is
not possible to say when they were removed;
probably during one of the 3 periods when our
records are missing, as there no further mention
of them. Their removal must have improved the
appearance of the Lawn considerably as it was
then once again possible to enjoy an
uninterrupted view from the houses, across the
Lawn to the paddock and the Royal Victoria Park
beyond. Indeed the idea of an uninterrupted view
fulfils the purpose of a Ha-ha to give a
view from manicured Lawn to fields of pasture
beyond.
Unfortunately
the provision of the new railings was by no
means the end of the story They required
painting regularly every three years. In 1843
they were painted green, in 1892 they were
maroon and in 1896 a chocolate brown. These are
the only years when the colour is specified in
the records. Railings in Georgian times were
often painted dark blue or dark green. I had
understood that railings were nearly always
painted black after the death of Queen Victoria,
but 1 have recently been told that this is not
necessarily so.
Apart
from regular painting, the gates, locks and
stone bases frequently needed attention. In the
years covered by our records (1825 to 1899 with
3 gaps of several years unaccounted for) the
locks were dismantled and repaired 12 times and
all were replaced in 1893. New or extra keys
were provided 4 times. The stone bases were
repaired twelve times, and the railings
themselves repaired, renewed or 'set upright`
eight times. Exactly what happened in 1871 that
caused the need for the bases needing repairs
and the railings setting upright, is not
explained. It is a relatively frequent
occurrence nowadays; bad driving of one type or
another destroys the railings, but in the days
of horse and carriage???
As
you can imagine, maintenance of railings, stone
bases, gates and locks, not to mention the
continual repainting meant that there was a
considerable demand on the financial resources
available to. the Committee. No wonder the
Treasurer made such careful records of the
payment from each house each year.
When
our new railings are installed they will be
painted black (in keeping with all the
surrounding railings). Thankfully, with the
improved paint formulas of this century, they
will no longer need to be repainted every 3
years as in Victorian times.
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Royal Crescent History
The History of
the Ha-ha
By Jenny Hardisty
From Issue 52 (winter 2003)
it
is a regular feature of all the 'Crescents' and
many of the 'Places' in
Bath
that the frontage overlooks a grassed area,
which is a substitute for a front garden. In the
case of the
Royal Crescent
this grassed area of Lawn extends towards The
Royal Victoria Park. The Ha-ha was built to
delineate between the private grassed area and
the public park, thus providing an uninterrupted
view. it is believed that the Royal Crescent
Ha-ha
is one of the very few urban Ha-has remaining in
the country.
The
Ha-ha was built simply to separate the private
Lawn from the public park and hence the wall
acts merely as a facing wall rather than a
revetment, and is not therefore required to hold
back a great weight of soil.
Archaeological investigations have shown that
when first built, the centre of the ditch was
about one metre deeper that at present, and much
more of the wall was exposed. Unfortunately the
bottom of the ditch was of clay and the
accumulated rainwater was unable to drain away.
This situation was plainly unacceptable and
relatively soon after its formation the ditch
was partially filled in. During investigations
by Wessex Archaeology a few years ago late
eighteenth and early nineteenth-century
bottle-glass and pottery was found amongst the
infill which bears out this theory and also
helps to date the construction of the Ha-ha. The
base of the wall exposed during the
archaeological investigations showed it to be in
sound condition as it has been protected in the
intervening years by being buried. The top of
the wall is not horizontal, as one might expect,
but higher at the east and west ends than at the
centre.
Exhaustive
searches have been made to demonstrate whether
or not the building of the Ha-ha is contemporary
with the building of the
Royal Crescent
.
No documentation has been discovered to confirm
this belief and early lithographs and engravings
have proved unreliable. For example Watt's
engraving dated 1794 shows the Ha-ha in situ,
but that of Nattes dated 1804 does not show
it at all. However the late eighteenth-century
glass and pottery found by the archaeologists
amongst the infill in the bottom of the ditch
indicate the approximate date.
What is certain is that the area in
front of the Crescent was designated for the
enjoyment of the residents of the
Royal Crescent
and to improve the vista from the residences. In
a sample Indenture
of Release dated
20
December 1766
the new owner had to undertake that no buildings
of any kind, nor plants, shrubs or trees of any
kind were built or planted on the Lawn. The new
owner had to create 'iron rails or pallisadoes'
to enclose the Lawn, and tanks under the Lawn to
collect water for the use of the houses in the
Royal Crescent
.
This being the case it is reasonable to suppose
the delineation between the Lawn and
Public
Park
had to be marked in some way if the Lawn was raised to
accommodate the water storage tanks. How better
to achieve this than to create a raised Lawn and
Ha-ha? In the event the water storage tanks
never were installed.
Maintenance, based on voluntary donations and
contributions from residents, has been carried
out since 1825. Records of the 'Committee for
Improving the Royal Crescent Lawn' exist for the
years 1825 to 1899 and these have been perused
as to the maintenance of the Ha-ha wall. The
following extracts have been taken from these:
1843
repairs were carried out;
1848
repairs and fixing stones at the East and West
ends;
1849
in April and November repairing, pointing and
replacing stones;
1855
repairing and pointing wall;
1885
repairing the wall;
1888
deepening the ditch;
1892
more repairs and;
1897
extensive repairs were carried out viz replacing
sixty-eight defective stones, rebuilding 300
feet of wall in different places, point the
whole of 470 feet with coal ash mortar together
with clearing out the ditch and levelling the
sloping bank (all this at a cost of only £22.16s.0d).
It
is now well over two hundred years since the
Ha-ha
was built and we all know what a sad state it is
now in. Roll on the day when work starts to
restore the wall and redefine the ditch to a
more acceptable state.
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Royal Crescent History
The
Royal Crescent Committee and their Paddock
By Jenny Hardisty
From Issue 51 (autumn 2003)
The
Royal Crescent Society is lucky enough to hold
the records of the precursor of their Society.
The records run, with three gaps of several
years each, from 1825 to 1899. Originally six
Gentlemen residents formed "A Committee for
Improving the
Royal Crescent". To support our application
for permission to restore the Ha-ha and railings
I have recently been delving Into the records
and thought you may be interested to learn of
some of the work and problems the original
Committee dealt with over the years.
There
must have been some grumbling amongst the
Residents about the inadequate street lighting
because the first thing the Committee arranged
was the purchase of ten extra "Bat's
Wing" gas lamps and poles. These were
placed between the existing lamps, and the Gas
Company generally supplied two extra lamps free
of charge, which were placed at each extremity.
Each house paid £2.10s.0d per year for the gas
and for the lamps to be painted and re-glazed as
necessary. This charge stayed the same for 22
years, when it was argued the Gas Company was
only maintaining their own lamps, and not the
privately purchased ones, and the charge was
reduced to £2.0s.Od per house.
On
29th June 1854
a meeting of the Inhabitants of The Crescent was called
to discuss the advisability of renting the field
between the Royal Crescent Lawn and the Park.
This field was called the Marlborough Buildings
Paddock. This Idea was agreed to unanimously and
arrangements were started to rent the Field from
the owners, the Royal Victoria Park. It had been
hoped the take over the Field at Michaelmas, but
the tenant, Mrs Saltford declared that "she
could not surrender possession without receiving
compensation for the crop of grass for the
remainder of the year". This was not
forthcoming and so after a year's delay a formal
Agreement was drawn up in 1855 between Mr. Keating
of behalf of the residents of
Royal Crescent
and Jacob Smith acting for the Royal Victoria
Park Committee. The Agreement ensured that the
field would be kept as pasturage for sheep, and
not altered in any way, was not mown more than
once a year and the crop removed, with three
loads of good rotten dung spread for every load
of hay removed. The iron railings, fences and
hedges maintained. No horses or horned cattle
allowed. A rental of £20 per annum was to be
paid.
From
the ensuing bills from then only I believe the
east and west sides of the field were bounded by
iron railings, and a hedge ran along the south
side. The north side edged by the wall and
Ha-ha.
All
went well, the rentals being paid regularly by
the Committee. In the first two years no less
than ten loads of rubbish were removed, and in
1872 ten loads of manure were spread. But in
November 1876 Mr Ostler had to write on behalf
of the Royal Victoria Park Committee to Mr
Raymond Barker of 17 Royal Crescent (then the
Hon. Sec. of the Committee) to draw attention to
the dilapidated condition of the hedge of the
Royal Crescent Field, requesting that he will
"at his earliest convenience give the
necessary instructions for planting and renewing
the same." This letter had some effect and
"young thorn” were planted. However the
following February another letter arrived from
Mr Ostler complaining of the dilapidated state
of the hedge, and repeated in May, this time
sternly reminding Mr Barker of the terms of the
Agreement which. specified he kept the iron
railings, hedge and fences in a satisfactory
condition. So in May Jesse Hayward of 34
Belvedere charged £6 for altering and providing
new rails and base bars, repairs to bases,
straighten and repair several bars at the east
end, and 3 new bars at the west end, and to
repaint all the new work.
In
April 1884 Mr Henderson of
9 Royal Crescent
wrote to Mr Stone, the new Hon. Sec., stating
that he "had observed nine boys playing on
the Lawn field. Something should be done to stop
this." Sounds familiar?
At
some time the Field was sub‑let to William
Cornish of 13 Cheap Street, as he wrote giving
notice to quit the Field In March 1888. No doubt
this prompted the meeting of the residents to
discuss the desirability of continuing to rent
the field. They agreed unanimously to continue
for two reasons, firstly they could have some
degree of control over it and secondly they made
a small profit by its sub-letting, which
defrayed cost of maintenance. In 1888 Mr George
Pyatt, Dairyman and Farmer, of Bath Park Farm
Dairy in the Royal Victoria Park saying that he
had heard that Mr Cornish was giving up the
field and saying that he would like to rent it.
A
letter arrived from Thomas Hays of 8 Marlborough
Buildings in which he complained about the
neglected state of the field, particularly about
the "nettles which were spreading over the
pasture adjoining the quick". Also a pair
of oak posts and repairs to the iron gate cost
£3.12.0, on top of more repairs to the
railings. Luckily the Committee were able to
have the rental reduced from £20 to £16 per
annum, which would have helped balance the
books.
In
1890 advertisements went into several local
papers and directories declaring "To be let
from 25 March the Royal Crescent Field Apply
Stone, King & Co, Solicitors,
Bath
." George Pyatt was successful
in renting the field, but in July 1893 he sent a
letter to Mr Stone enclosing £9.0.0 for the
March rental, "with thanks for kindly
waiting his convenience. This has been a very
expensive summer to all of the keepers of stock,
and has kept me doing little else but paying for
cattle foods"
In March 1897 a meeting of the Residents was
called. The funds were £14 in debt as Mr Pyatt
has not paid his rent for eighteen months. It
was feared he was in an insolvent state and
unable to pay his arrears. However, it was
unanimously agreed not to give up the field but
"to continue control over it and so prevent
it being used for football or other undesirable
purposes". (0h, if they could just see it
now!) It was agreed that Mr Pyatt should be
given notice to quit and another tenant sought.
Not
only had Mr Pyatt failed to pay his rent, but he
had built a hayrick in front of
No. 30 Royal Crescent
.
Letters of complaint about this were received
oddly from numbers 4, 5, 6 and 9 the far
side of the Crescent. No. 9 also adding he had
"scared away a dozen juvenile trespassers
this morning" and suggests a notice board
be erected as this would "minimise
trespassing, but nothing will entirely stop it
until the gaps in the hedge are repaired
News
about Mr Pyatt's financial difficulties
travelled to Frank Shackell, of 6 Margaret
Buildings who wrote to the effect that he had
heard that the field probably be let, and would
be glad to learn of the terms. But in September
a new tenant was decided on ‑ Mr Alexander
Wyatt of
3
St James Street,
St
James Square
,
Butcher. An Agreement was drawn up whereby he
was to keep all fences, walls and gates in good
repair, not to plough, mow more than once a
year, not to stack hay or fodder, to manure, cut
out weeds, remove molehills and ant banks, and
to keep sheep and up to two horses at a time,
but no horned cattle.
Mr
Pyatt gave up the field on
29
September 1897.
In fact he sold up completely on 18 August, the
Catalogue for which shows 19 dairy cows, a two-year-old
bull, two strong cart horses, two useful cobs,
carts, Wagons, Implements, Dairy utensils and
effects, a Rick of exceptionally prime Meadow
Hay, an important Milk Round and about a hundred
lots of household furniture.
In
February of 1.898, the Headmistress of the Bath
College Junior and Preparatory School at 20
Portland Place wrote to Mr Stone that she had in
her charge "fifteen tiny boys aged five and
nine taught by Governesses". Anxious to
find a field in which they can play during the
summer she asks if there was any chance of
hiring a portion of the field for this purpose.
She had searched all round and can find no other
level ground for these small boys. As an extra
inducement for a favourable reply she adds that
the grandson of Mr Henderson of
No. 9 Royal Crescent
attends her school. Records do not show the
result of this plea. Perhaps is was positive, as
in April of the same year Mr Henderson wrote
that the boys had stopped playing in the lower
field and thanks Mr Stone for mending the hedge.
However,
this state of affairs was not to last and in
desperation Mr Adolphus Murckhardt at No. 6
wrote expressing his belief that "nothing
short of an unclimbable fence on the side of the
Royal Crescent Field will effectually put a stop
to the trespass nuisance, adding that the cost
of this ought to be met by the
Corporation". (I think he would have
approved of chain link fencing.)
Our
detailed records end here. There is only one
more document dated
29 September 1905
recording an Agreement between am Charles
Mercer Adam of 26 Royal. Crescent (Agent for the
Owners and Occupiers of the houses in
Royal Crescent
)
and Robert Preston Jones of 6 Margaret
Buildings, Butcher to let the pasture known a
Royal Crescent Field lately in the occupation of
Henry Gould at £18 per annum (this was
increased to £30 in 1921). He was allowed to
keep his mowing machine and tool houses on the
premises and stack hay from the pasture only in
the south west corner. Again he was only allowed
to keep sheep and up to two horses at a time but
no horned cattle.
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