The novelist remembers the Somerset city as a hodgepodge of styles and classes where tolerance and prejudice coexistedGeorgian Bath was built within a century, and a lot of it disappeared inside a decade - the 1960s - when I was born. Calton Road and many rows of listed buildings were still coming down when I was learning to walk, and the Ballance Street flats going up, but the Brussellisation of the city was something I grew to love, something I associate with the freedom to roam I enjoyed as a kid. Bath always had a violent side, but my parents weren´t overprotective. I walked to Beechen Cliff comp every day with my friend Rachid, and the route took us through all the architectural ages of man - the Corn Market, the Roman baths, the abbey, Southgate shopping centre (demolished 20 years ago) and, in the shadow of the cliff itself, the `hencoop` houses of Holloway, which architectural historians sneered at, but where other friends lived happily. Continue reading...
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