Fascinating history of No 10, the Crescent
One of Bath’s most iconic addresses, briefly the residence of a Monty Python star, is the subject of a new book.
The terrace house built in 1771, part of which was purchased in 2017 by Basil Fawlty actor John Cleese, has been thoroughly researched by current resident John Walker and described in his new book: 10, The Royal Crescent: A house and its History.
He researched the book during the Covid-19 lockdowns, as he was among the clinically extremely vulnerable, who were advised to shield themselves and stay at home as much as possible.
John wondered who had lived in the house, one of the 30 that form one of Bath’s most iconic architectural masterpieces, when his house was featured in the Netflix series Bridgerton, as the residence of Viscount Bridgerton’s lover, opera singer Siena Rosso.
The result is a history similar in style to the BBC TV series, A House Through Time, detailing a host of intriguing people who dwelt there during 200 and more turbulent years, since it was built in 1771.
John first fell in love with the crescent in 1971 as he turned the corner from Brock Street and saw the curved street for the first time.
“I stopped, astounded by what I saw,” he said. “The stone shone in the afternoon sun, and, before it, the green grass gleamed.
“It was magical to have so much beauty and openness in the heart of a city, a sense of surprise that returns every time I turn into what is now my home territory.
“Later that evening, I first entered No. 10, a house whiter than its neighbours, for it had been recently cleaned, to enjoy a crowded, raucous party thrown by Charlie Ware, a London entrepreneur who had come to shake up a somewhat somnolent city and preserve some of its endangered buildings.”
John, 84, a former Fleet Street journalist, lives with wife Barbara and cat Boswell in an apartment on No 10’s third and fourth floors.
“I still enjoy the pleasure of opening my front door and seeing beautiful, open green space in front of me, with hardly any traffic to pollute the atmosphere,” said John.
John boasts of having discovered some fascinating stories about the house’s residents, beginning with the first, John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the few survivors, of The Black Hole of Calcutta.
No 10’s second most famous resident, celebrated with a plaque over the front door, was Frederic Harrison, the long-lived lawyer, writer, philosopher and great prophet of humanism, who once persuaded Karl Marx to swear on the Bible,
and advised George Eliot on the plots of her novels.
Others include Lady Harriet Jephson was a travel writer and water-colour artist, who, trapped in a German town at the outbreak of the First World War, went out on her balcony to sing Rule Britannia to the enemy.
John Cleese lived at No 14 the Royal Crescent before purchasing the basement flat at number 10 in 2017. According to his neighbour, the comic actor sold it and moved abroad before later purchasing another house in Bath.
The book costs £9.50, and can be bought from the publisher IPN, or directly from the author: j.walker1@ btinternet.com.