=--"Empire Hotel," "Pulteney Hotel,"
"York House Family Hotel," "Royal Station Hotel," "Railway
Hotel," "Waldron's Private Hotel," etc.
=Alternative Route.=--Train from Waterloo. South-Western Railway.
Bath, one of the largest towns in Somersetshire, is beautifully situated
on the Avon in a wooded valley in the north-east of the county. The city
is of great antiquity, and was one of the most powerful Roman stations,
being at the intersection of two very important roads,--the Fosse Way,
which extended from the coast of Devonshire to the north-east coast of
Lincolnshire, and the Via Julia, the great road between London and
Wales. The story of the British king Bladud and his connection with Bath
is immortalised in the _Pickwick Papers_, but is more or less legendary;
however, as to the greatness of the city during the Roman occupation
there is ample evidence. Even in those times the great natural feature
of the place was its mineral waters, and in the first century the Romans
built some luxurious baths there, and now the extensive remains have
made the place notable. The Saxons quaintly named the city _Akeman
Ceaster_, or town of invalids.
In the original Abbey Church took place the coronation of King Edgar as
King of England by the famous St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
This church stands on the site of the old conventual church, on the spot
where once stood the Roman temple of Minerva. It was rebuilt in the
fifteenth century by Bishop Oliver King, and completed by Bishop
Montague at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
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