Even so, the renovations were inadequate. It was enlarged in 1751, a new portico was added in 1786, and a new frontage was constructed in 1791. The original Pump Room, erected in 1706, quickly became too small for the increasing numbers of visitors. Ralph Allen contributed much of his personal fortune to Bath’s rebuilding, and Beau Nash organized Bath’s social life and balls, bringing in musicians from London, exerting his influence as a dandy, and becoming a leader of fashion. Developer John Wood followed the Palladian concept of the architectural ideal, constructing magnificent squares, parades, and buildings out of softly-hued, beautiful honey-coloured Bath stone. Three men – Ralph Allen, post master John Wood, architect and Beau Nash, fashion and social arbiter – contributed to this up and coming city’s popularity with the leisure classes. During mid-18th to early 19th century, Bath’s population exploded from 2,000 to 38,000, becoming the eighth largest city in England by 1801. In 1708, Thomas Harrison built the Bath Assembly House, for which the public paid fees to dance and gamble. Since Roman times, Bath’s hot mineral springs have pumped a quarter of a million gallons of spring water a day at a steady temperature of 49°c. The Comforts of Bath, Rowlandson, The Pump Room, 1798 In 1678 a single woman named Celia Fiennes journeyed to Bath and wrote in her journal: Please enjoy the reviews of Jane’s contemporaries and predecessors:

In honor of Austenprose’s coverage of Northanger Abbey for the month of October, I have gathered observations about the Pump Room that were placed online from periodicals and journals of Jane Austen’s time. Gentle readers, before you continue please be aware that this post features a series of vignettes and memories from people who wrote their recollections about the historic Pump Room in Bath, so prominently mentioned in Northanger Abbey during Catherine Morland’s visits there with her benefactors, the Allens.

Allen as they sat down near the great clock, after parading the room till they were tired “and how pleasant it would be if we had any acquaintance here.” Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey Chapter IV “What a delightful place Bath is,” said Mrs. Every creature in Bath, except himself, was to be seen in the room at different periods of the fashionable hours crowds of people were every moment passing in and out, up the steps and down people whom nobody cared about, and nobody wanted to see and he only was absent. Tilney there before the morning were over, and ready to meet him with a smile – but no smile was demanded – Mr. With more than usual eagerness did Catherine hasten to the Pump-room the next day, secure within herself of seeing Mr.

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