n the late 1700s, the Royal Crescent in Bath was the place to be seen. “In the season, on a Sunday, it is crowded with fashionables of every rank,” observed the writer Pierce Egan. “With the addition of the splendid barouche [a horse-drawn carriage], dashing curricle [another type of horse-drawn carriage], elegant tandem [two horses], gentlemen on horseback [more horses]... the Royal Crescent strongly reminds the spectator of Hyde Park, Rotten Row [the bridle path in Hyde Park] and Kensington Gardens.”
Before long, Jane Austen, who lived in the city in the early 1800s, would have the Thorpe and Allen families in her novel, Northanger Abbey, “hasten(ing) away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of better company”.
The Grade I listed Crescent, which was the first of its…