Book Review: Bath – I Walked Every Street, by Andrew ‘Able’ Lawrence
From walking the workhouse burial ground to exploring the quirky Dover Place in Snowhill and from the grandeur of The Paragon a ‘Georgian gem’ to the quiet rural greenery of St Mary’s churchyard in Upper Swainswick, I Walked Every Street, by Andrew ‘Able’ Lawrence is a love letter to Bath and its environs.
The Bath author has spent years literally walking every street, road and footpath and charting his thoughts and observations including poems to illustrate his connections and emotions with some of the evocative places in the city of many faces. Visitors will only see the Georgian crescents, Pulteney Bridge and perhaps the ruins of the Roman baths, but for Bathonians the city is so much more. And Andrew or rather Able as he is known has certainly explored areas which many residents will never have ventured.
So why do it? Well we all enjoy a walk but this is on another level as in his own words, “I bought a street map and coloured in each street after I’d walked it…” this after having previously as he puts it,…”always enjoyed diverting from direct routes from A to B within the city to explore side streets and back alleys.” And as he did so he wrote poems which punctuate the text and photographs.
What is it draws me to the streets,
Asking the Victorian terraces,
The Edwardian workers’ homes,
The post-war estates?
It is the hints of hidden lives,
The glimpses through windows,
The imagined views from attics
Where one sits lonely in the day
Or the friendless night.
And who hasn’t wandered past a house lit up on Christmas Eve and looked in on a family dressing their tree, or a summer barbecue on a patio where the unknown residents clink glasses with faces which seem familiar and whose stories you’d like to know.
Neatly divided into sections the book is comprehensive in including some of the oddities locals will know such as the horse trough on The Hollow or the Old Lock Up on Mill Lane. Certainly for anyone who loves the city and enjoys a lyrical description of the sights, sounds and lost histories of Bath this is a unique and brilliant work.
Harry Mottram
Bath – I Walked Every Street, by Andrew ‘Able’ Lawrence, softback in full colour, at £14.99, is available from Brown Dog Books https://www.browndogbooks.uk/products/bath-i-walked-every-street-andrew-abel-lawrence
And I’ve noticed also from Blackwells https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Bath-I-Walked-Every-Street-by-Andrew-Lawrence/9781839526541
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