This was my third ‘park’ in as many days but the three were all very different and I ended my weekend with the quickest – but perhaps most energetic – of the visits. Sadly, the glory days of Prior Park house are now long behind it, and it has been an educational establishment of some kind since the 1920s (currently a mixed boarding school), so this does not feature as part of a visit here. It is a beautiful building, however, and occupies pole position at the top of the hill, looking down on its landscaped grounds, so it is a striking addition to any photos you might want to take from the bottom of the slopes.
Without access to the house, a visit to Prior Park Landscape Garden is very much a simple ‘walk in the park’, albeit one that delivers views to die for. The main focus of the views is the covered Palladian bridge, one of only four that still exist (including NT-owned bridges at Stowe and Stourhead, plus another at Wilton House near Salisbury). The lakes and dams surrounding the bridge have recently undergone major construction works so I have delayed my visit to Prior Park a couple of times, making sure that the orange barriers and tapes were long gone and no longer interrupting the view. I am sure you’ll agree from my pics that it was worth the wait.
I do have one rather large gripe about Prior Park, which is its accessibility. It does not have a public car park and advises visitors to get a bus out of Bath city centre – either the local bus or the hop-on-hop-off tour bus. This would be perfectly convenient if your visit began in Bath city centre. However, if – like me – you try to visit it from outside Bath, you come a cropper straight away as you will have to catch a Park + Ride bus into the centre and then another bus out again. The Odd Down P+R is not all that far from Prior Park but the buses take an alternative route down into the city. I wonder if the Trust has tried to negotiate something with the council so that the P+R bus goes past Prior Park and can set down anyone wanting to visit? It would certainly make visiting a lot easier!
My own situation was further complicated by the fact that it was the Bath Half Marathon on Sunday so most of the city was closed to traffic and the local buses weren’t running past Prior Park anyway. This left us in a tricky position, and we ended up parking at Odd Down and ordering an Uber to the gardens and back. This was still quicker than catching two buses, especially on a Sunday when fewer services run. While waiting for our return Uber, no fewer than four cars arrived at Prior Park looking for the car park and having to be told by the volunteers that they would have to drive up the hill and look for street parking wherever they could find it along Claverton Down Road (which was already logjammed due to the marathon road closures!). So, getting to one’s walk in the park is certainly no ‘walk in the park’!
Once we finally got to Prior Park and embarked on our walk, I found myself in some difficulty as to what to say about the visit. On one hand, the effort required to get there rather demands more than what the garden offers to its visitors, which is simply a walk from the top of the hill, down to the Palladian Bridge and bottom lakes and then back up the other side (or in fact out at the bottom gate to return to Bath city if this is where you started). On the other hand, however, I wouldn’t have missed that view for the world as it is truly stunning, with the backdrop of Bath city beyond the garden’s key features. We had a lovely sunny day so the city was positively glowing below us. We took advantage of a bench just in front of the college’s fence and I have to say I have rarely drunk a cup of tea with such a beautiful scene laid out in front of me.
The house at Prior Park was owned by Ralph Allen (1693-1764) who should perhaps be known as Mr Bath thanks to the contribution of his stone quarries to the construction of the honey-coloured buildings of the city. Born in Cornwall, he came to Bath as a young man and never left, later making his first fortune as the town’s postmaster and his development of national postal routes, before cashing in on the quarrying business too. Along with John Wood the Elder and John Wood the Younger – the architects who designed the Royal Crescent, the Circle and many of Bath’s other beautiful terraces – he was instrumental in creating what became the most popular spa town and tourist destination of the Georgian era.
Allen began building the house at Prior Park in the 1730s although it was not finished until 1754. The landscape garden was created in several phases from 1734 to around 1764. There is a suggestion that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown had some input into the grounds, being paid £60 in 1764 to provide ‘plans’, but no one knows what these plans were and whether they were followed. There used to be many more features in the gardens, including a grotto, a Gothic temple, a pineapple house and a thatched cottage. According to an information board near the icehouse, the thatched cottage could be rebuilt at some point. For now, though, the only solid feature that remains in the landscape is the Palladian bridge.
The Trust came into possession of the garden’s 11 hectares in 1993, by which time they had deteriorated due to lack of attention. The landscape was reopened to the public in 1996 and the Trust continues to make improvements, having previously restored the bridge as well as embarking on the more recent renovations of the historic dams.
Despite the transport headaches, I can strongly recommend Prior Park to anyone who appreciates a stunning view and a picturesque stroll in the country, as long as they don’t mind a gradient. And I will sign off with the hope that the young boarders at Prior Park College appreciate what they have on their doorstep and occasionally look up from their phones to take in the scenery around them. They don’t know how lucky they are.
Highlights: The Palladian Bridge; a view and a half
Refreshments: Redbush tea
Purchase(s): Bath Skyline guidebook (it gives detail on Bath and its surroundings – including a page on Prior Park – and includes two guided walks, one of the city itself and another 6-mile route around the skyline)
Companion(s): Sarah
National Trust Challenge 