Local Politics

In 1997, unionists lost control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history, with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland gaining the balance of power between nationalists and unionists. This position was confirmed in the council elections of 2001 and 2005. Since then it has had two Catholic mayors, one from the SDLP and one from Sinn Féin.

In the 2005 local government elections, the voters of Belfast elected 51 councillors to Belfast City Council from the following political parties: 15 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 14 Sinn Féin, 8 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 7 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 4 Alliance Party, 2 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), and 1 Independent (Frank McCoubrey).

Belfast has four UK parliamentary and Assembly constituencies - North Belfast, West Belfast, South Belfast and East Belfast. All four extend somewhat beyond the city boundaries into parts of Castlereagh, Lisburn and Newtownabbey districts. In 2003, they elected 7 Sinn Féin, 6 DUP, 5 UUP, 4 SDLP, 1 PUP, and 1 Alliance MLAs (members of the Northern Ireland Assembly). In the 2005 general election, they elected 2 DUP MPs, 1 SDLP MP, and 1 Sinn Féin MP.

Belfast is twinned with Nashville, Tennessee in the United States and Hefei in China.

Parks

The city has several public parks, the main one being Royal Victoria Park in the centre of the city. It was opened in 1830 and has an area of 150,000 m²[8]. Several events are held in the park every year, including the International Music Festival (a one-off Three Tenors concert took place in 2003), and it is favoured as a take-off site by hot air balloon companies. The park features a botanical garden, a large children’s play park, and sports facilities, including ones for crazy golf and lawn tennis. Much of its area is lawn; a notable feature is the way in which a ha-ha segregates it from the Royal Crescent, while giving the impression to a viewer from the Crescent of a greensward uninterrupted across the Park up to Royal Avenue.

Other parks in Bath include: Alexandra Park, which crowns a hill and overlooks the city; Sydney Gardens, known as a pleasure-garden in the 18th century; Henrietta Park; Hedgemead Park; and Alice Park. Jane Austen wrote of Sydney Gardens that “It would be pleasant to be near the Sydney Gardens. We could go into the Labyrinth everyday.” Alexandra, Alice and Henrietta parks were built into the growing city among the housing developments.

The oldest house in Bath is located at 4 North Parade Passage. The basement showcases remains of Roman, Saxon, and Medieval architecture. Presently, the building houses the restaurant Sally Lunn’s Buns, named after French refugee Sally Lunn, who moved into the house in 1685 and became famous baking oversized and delicious buns. Those buns are still baked and enjoyed to this day, over 300 years later.

Museum of East Asian Art

The 2004 remake of the film Vanity Fair was shot in Great Pulteney Street, and in August 2003 the Three Tenors sang at a special concert to mark the opening of the Thermae Bath Spa, a new hot water spring spa in Bath City Centre; however, as at (August 2005), the spa is not yet open

William Herschel Museum

The William Herschel Museum is a museum dedicated to the life and works of the famous astronomer, William Herschel. The museum is situated in Herschel’s former residence in Bath, England, where he manufactured telescopes and also discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, his most famous achievement, though he continued to make extensive contributions to the field of astronomy.

The museum currently opens at different times depending on the time of year, and is sometimes closed for repairs and so on. If you are travelling to Bath to see it, consult the link below for current opening times.

Thermae Bath Spa

Thermae Bath Spa is a multi-million pound development project in the city of Bath in Somerset.

One of the city’s main attractions is its famous hot spa water, which was the basis of the importance of Bath in the Roman period, and also of the development of Bath as the leading eighteenth and early nineteenth century health resort. However, the existing spa pools were closed in the 1970s as a result of the discovery of an infectious agent in one stratum of the aquifer. With the approach of the Year 2000, money from the lottery-funded Millennium Commission was made available towards a major project to reopen a safe commercial spa once more, and supplemented by funds from subscribers and from the local authority, Bath and North East Somerset. A new company, Thermae Bath Spa, was set up in the Netherlands to operate the new spa and allow tourists and residents to experience the natural spring waters.

The new spa is primarily sited in a new building on the site of the old swimming pool in Beau Street which manages to combine an ultra-modernist style with great sympathy for its Georgian surroundings; but there are a number of other aspects of the new development, including a refurbishment of the Cross Bath.
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St. Catherine’s Court

St Catherine’s Court is a Tudor manor house in a secluded valley north of Bath, England.

The manor of St Catherine belonged to the Prior of Bath in medieval times. It takes its name from the church of St Catherine beside the manor house, probably built as a private chapel for a Norman lord holding the manor from the priory. Around 1490 Prior John Cantlow built the present chancel of the church, leaving his portrait and coat of arms in the east window. He and his successor must have visited St Catherine’s Court, for when it was let in 1516, a room called the Prior’s Chamber was reserved to the priory. Probably Cantlow used the house as a retreat.

The tenants in 1516 were William Herford and his wife Alice, previously smallholders in St Catherine. They had no sons, so they arranged for the lease to descend first to their younger daughter Isabel, who married the priory steward Thomas Llewellyn. A lease of around 1536 shows that St Catherine’s Court was a substantial farm house when the Llewellyns lived there; it gives a full description. The entrance faced the church and led into a hall on the right-hand side. On the other side was a parlour with a bedchamber above.

Solsbury Hill

Solsbury Hill (in full, Little Solsbury Hill) is a small flat-topped hill above the village of Batheaston in Somerset, England, near the city of Bath. The top of the hill is ringed by the ramparts of an ancient hill fort. People protesting against the building of an A46 bypass road have recently cut a small maze into the hill.

Solsbury Hill is a possible location of the Battle of Mount Badon, which was fought between the Britons (under the legendary King Arthur) and the Saxons c.496 CE and which was mentioned by the chroniclers Gildas and Nennius.

“Solsbury Hill” is also the title of rock musician Peter Gabriel’s first solo single in 1977, reaching 13th and 68th positions on the UK and US record charts respectively.

It is sometimes misspelled as “Salisbury Hill", perhaps because of confusion with Salisbury Plain, a more well known plateau in southern England.

The Royal Crescent

The Royal Crescent is an exclusive residential road of 30 houses, laid out in an arc, in the city of Bath in England. It was designed by John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774. It is amongst the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the United Kingdom.

The houses in the Crescent are a mixture of tenures - most are privately owned but a substantial minority of the property is owned by a housing association. This must be some of England’s most exclusive social housing. Many of the houses in the Crescent have been split up into flats.

Number 1 Royal Crescent is a museum which exhibits how wealthy owners of the period might have furnished such a house.

The Royal Crescent Hotel occupies numbers 15 and 16 Royal Crescent.

The Royal Crescent is a popular location for the launch of hot air balloons, which takes place in the summer, typically early morning or late evening.
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Roman Baths

The Roman Baths are a tourist attraction and historical place of interest in the English city of Bath. (For Roman baths in general, see Thermae.) They are a very well preserved Roman site of public bathing, and have become a major tourist attraction.

History

The first shrine at the site of the springs was built by Celts, and dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva; however, the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town’s Roman name of Aquae Sulis (literally, “the waters of Sulis"). During the Roman occupation of Britain increasingly grand temples and bathing complexes were built, but after the Roman withdrawal these fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up. They were rediscovered in the 18th century and, as well as being a major archaeological find, they have from that time to the present been one of the city’s main attractions, though the water is now considered unsafe for bathing, due to its having passed through the still-functioning lead pipes constructed by the Romans. The Thermae Bath Spa project aims to eventually allow modern-day bathers to experience the waters for themselves.

River Avon

The River Avon is a river in the south west of England. In its lower reaches the river is navigable and known as the Avon Navigation. Because of a number of other River Avons in England, this river is often also known as the Lower Avon or Bristol Avon.

Course

The Avon rises near Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, runs east and then south through Wiltshire, then turns north-west through Bradford on Avon, Bath and Bristol and joins the Severn estuary at Avonmouth near Bristol. For much of its course, it marks the traditional boundary between Somerset and Gloucestershire.

In central Bristol, where the river is tidal, it is diverted from its original course onto the “New Cut", a channel dug between 1804 and 1809 at a cost of £600,000. The original course is held at a constant level by lock gates (designed by Brunel) and is known as the Floating Harbour. This gave the port an advantage by enabling shipping to stay afloat rather than grounding when the tide went down. Downstream of central Bristol the river passes through the deep Avon Gorge, spanned by Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge.
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Pulteney Bridge

Pulteney Bridge is a bridge that crosses the River Avon, located in Bath, England and completed in 1773. It was designed by Robert Adam and is one of only four bridges in the world with shops across the full span on both sides.

It is named after Frances Pulteney, heiress in 1767 of the Bathwick estate across the river from Bath. Bathwick was a simple village in a rural setting, but Frances’s husband William Johnstone Pulteney could see its potential. He made plans to create a new town, which would become a suburb to the historic city of Bath. First he needed a better river crossing than the existing ferry. Hence the bridge.

Pulteney approached the brothers Robert and William Adam with his new town in mind, but Robert Adam then became involved in the design of the bridge. In his hands the simple construction envisaged by Pulteney became an elegant structure lined with shops. Adam had visited both Florence and Venice, where he would have seen the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte di Rialto. But Adam’s design more closely followed Andrea Palladio’s rejected design for the Rialto.
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Prior Park

Prior Park Landscape Garden is an 18th-century landscape garden, designed by the poet Alexander Pope and Capability Brown, and now owned by the National Trust. It is south of Bath, Somerset, England by Prior Park Road, and 3/4 mile (1.2 km) from the Kennet and Avon canal path.

Prior Park was created by local entrepreneur and philanthropist Ralph Allen from about 1734 until his death in 1764, with advice from both Pope and Brown. Allen became Mayor of Bath in 1742, having started off working in the post office. Much of the “Bath stone” so prevalent in Bath came from Allen’s limestone mines under Combe Down. In around 1742, Allen commissioned architect John Wood to build a mansion within the park, which is now owned by Prior Park College. William Warburton, Allen’s son-in-law, lived there for some time.

The 28 acre (113,000 m²) landscape garden is set in a dramatic site running down a small steep valley, with fine views of the city of Bath. Its many interesting features include a Palladian bridge, Gothic Temple, Grass Cabinet, Mrs Allen’s Grotto, and three lakes including the Serpentine Lake.

A 5-minute walk from the garden leads on to the Bath skyline, a 6 mile (10 km) circular walk around the city that encompasses woodlands, meadows, an Iron Age hill-fort, Roman settlements, 18th-century follies and spectacular views.

Lansdown Crescent

Lansdown Crescent is a well-known example of Georgian architecture in Bath, similar to the Royal Crescent. They were designed by John Palmer and constructed by a variety of builders between 1789 and 1793.
Lansdown Crescent comprises 20 houses, each originally having 4 floors together with servant quarters in the basement.

Arranged as a crescent these beautiful buildings have a fine view over Bath, being sited on Lansdown Hill near but higher than the Royal Crescent.

Kennet and Avon Canal

The Kennet and Avon Canal is a canal in southern England. It is joined to the Bristol Avon at Bath, and the Rivers Kennet and Thames at Reading. The canal is 57 miles (92 km) long, but together with the Avon Navigation and Kennet Navigation it totals 87 miles (140 km). In the Avon valley south-west of Bath, including the area shown in the image, the classic geographical example of a valley with all four forms of ground transport is found: road, rail, river, and the canal.

Designed by engineer John Rennie, construction of the canal started in 1794. The canal opened in 1810, with some impressive engineering feats, including a number of aqueducts, locks and pumping stations. The pumping stations, Claverton Pumping Station and Crofton Pumping Station, were needed because of water supply problems.

The opening of the Great Western Railway in 1841 relieved the canal of much of its traffic, and in 1846 the railway company took over the running of the canal, levying high tolls until the canal was hardly used. By the 1950s large portions of the canal were closed because of poor lock maintenance, and in 1956 the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust successfully petitioned against its legal closure. In 1963 the newly formed British Waterways took over the canal and began restoration work.

These 16 locks in a straight line at Caen Hill form part of the Devizes flight of 29 locks

In 1990 Queen Elizabeth II reopened the canal but, because of problems with pumping, the canal could be used only part-time until August 1, 1996 when new backpumps were installed at the Caen Hill flight of 29 locks at Devizes. The pumps raise water 235 feet (72 m) at a rate of 300,000 imperial gallons per hour (380 L/s). In October 1995 the Heritage Lottery Fund granted the project £25 million towards further structural improvements and maintenance.

The canal today is a popular heritage tourism destination, especially around the city of Bath, a popular cultural and historical tourist destination. The canal is also important for wildlife conservation. A notable feature of the canal is the large number of concrete bunkers known as pillboxes still visible along its length; these were built during World War II as part of the GHQ Line to defend against an expected German invasion.

The bridge today : Cleveland Bridge

The distinctive lodges of Cleveland Bridge are now restored to their former glory and are back in use as homes. One, however, remains a working premises. Sculptures by ceramic artist Peter Hayes are on display around the world but he still works from a studio below his gallery at lodge number 2. His techniques for creating a patina include burying half-completed pieces for a period of months in the river, where they absorb minerals from the water.