BATH with Sally - City Secrets

14/05/2023

05/05/2022

Took this trio on a tour on the busy Bank Holiday Monday recently. It makes such a difference when the weather is kind. They've allowed me to post this great selfie taken at The Roman Baths before I took them on my tour....
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29/09/2020

It's so nice to be back roaming the streets of Bath again after such a long break and - despite many shop closures - not all the changes in the city are bad ones........
Trying out my new 'outdoor' visor designed by EdwardChudleigh.com, I took these two couples from London on a City Secrets Tour starting and finishing in Laura Place, and how lovely it was to see the fountain adorned by a gorgeous floral display! It had just been installed by students from The Bath Flower School who apparently wanted to choose somewhere iconic to put it whilst being able to keep a safe distance from passers-by as they were doing it.
It would be quite refreshing to nice to see a display like this for every season. :-)

10/05/2020

BATH'S PEREGRINE FALCONS
Since 2006, when the Hawk and Owl Trust put up a special nesting box on St John's Church, 38 Peregrine Falcons have successfully fledged in Bath.
At this time of year, a live we**am captures everything 24/7, and this makes for fascinating viewing at the moment........
On 23rd April, four chicks (known as eyases) hatched, and now - at 16 days old - they are getting big and boisterous! The best time to watch them is early morning when the nest is in full sun and you're more likely to see them being fed. Click on the link here:
https://hawkandowltrust.org/web-cam-live/bath-1
The fastest bird on earth, Peregrines can reach speeds of 247mph whilst diving for food. Not even a Formula One car can match that!
But life in Britain was not so good for Peregrine Falcons during WW2: numbers of these feathered stealth missiles plummeted when the War Office had them shot to prevent them killing the messengers going to and from the Front Line.
The messengers? They were pigeons. A Peregrine's favourite food.
Now, although they historically nested in cliffs, most Peregrine Falcons are city dwellers and at last their future seems secure.
I guess this is not such good news for pigeons. 😕

23/12/2019

Wishing all you lovely Bath City Secrets followers a joyful and peaceful Christmas, and a healthy and Happy New Year.
Thank you for all the encouraging Likes in 2019, and to those of you who were able to do my walking tours.
This photo of me was taken in February at the 1815 Cleveland Pools which - as you will know by now! - is my favourite 'secret' of all. I swam here as a child and have connected with hundreds of former swimmers who did the same, including 100 year-old Margery Cadwalleder whom we put in the Bath Chronicle, courtesy of . Sadly she died before we got her story on film, but we were at least able to tell her that the Pools will be restored for future generations, with National Lottery Heritage funding, after a 14 year campaign.
If you want to read more about the project, see on Facebook or click thru' to the website here: www.clevelandpools.org.uk
See you next year! 😊

06/12/2019

The "Deep Lock" in Bath's Widcombe Basin was created in 1976 when these houses were demolished to make way for Rossiter Road. Locks 8 and 9 were merged, creating the second deepest lock in the country, at 5.92m deep!
(The deepest lock in the UK is Tuel Lane Lock on the Rochdale Canal in West Yorkshire, at 6m deep).
Little does this swan know the depth of the water below him when he's dipping down for food !
Look closely and you'll spot a heron too....

15/10/2019

A very special glimpse of a Bath cabbie standing by the Laura Place fountain in the 1960s......
This came to me recently from a lady called Sue Moffet who says this gentleman is her step-grandfather Abraham Jacobs. Taken in about 1962, Sue thinks he is probably wearing his official Taxi cab jacket.
Behind him are the blackened buildings of Henrietta Street, a common sight in Bath before the big clean-up operation undertaken on all the 'Bathstone' buildings in the 1970s.
Read more about the fountain, and its unfortunate recent damage, on Richard Wyatt's Bath Newseum website here:
https://bathnewseum.com/2016/03/30/is-it-the-end-for-the-laura-place-fountain/

22/07/2019

Cathie from Bath, came on tour with friends Pat and Paloma. She says: "Sally is a delightful tour guide, friendly, fun and full of fascinating details about her city, which that she effortlessly shares - pitch perfectly! If you want to know where the peregrines secretly roost, soak up Bath's history from the Romans to the Georgians to WW2, Sally knows how to bring these extraordinary times to life as you walk the streets with her."
This little tour came about from one of my BATH CITY SECRETS slide-show talks to a group of Bath residents. I seem to be doing more talks than tours these days but I absolutely love doing both and the great thing is that they each promote the other so if you belong to a club of any sort in Bath which needs a speaker at meetings, do let me know. Thank you. :-)