L&T Archive 1998-2003

Beechen Cliff Walk

I found an old print of a view of Bath from Beechen Cliff on-line. It's the wrong end of the nineteenth century, but it's the best that I can do- at least it give s an idea of the height andscope of the famous walk when Catherine is educated into the niceties of judging a picturesque view.

"In the present instance, she confessed and lamented her want of knowledge, declared that she would give anything in the world to be able to draw; and a lecture on the picturesque immediately followed, in which his instructions were so clear that she soon began to see beauty in everything admired by him, and her attention was so earnest that he became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste. He talked of foregrounds, distances, and second distances--side-screens and perspectives--lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape."

I'd like to find something closer to the time period, mainly because Henry's description of The picturesque is entirely in agreement with William Gilpin's... and Catherine's reaction to Bath is also completley in agreement. Gilpin wasn't keen on town views , or views from the top of a hill , and if memory serves, was particularly cruel about views like this. Nevertheless, despite his admonition, they continued to be published-and bought. You can buy modern postcards of the same view.

Messages In This Thread

MT Places in and around Bath- Wick Rocks
Beechen Cliff Walk
Claverton Down
Blaise Castle
Lansdown Hill
So it is! I never noticed!
The picturesque