Well on trying to work out the Roman burials around Bath, I went off-piste down another rabbit hole, but all to do with the Lansdown and getting muddled over saints.
It starts with a pub called the Brathwayte, just by a golf course and Bath Racecourse. Across the road from the pub is a farmhouse that still has parts of Lawrence Chapel in its front facade. Also not so far from here a well called St. Alpege Well.
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| Chapel Farmhouse, Lansdown |
Here for a start is a sketch found in Bath in Times of the timbered roof of the hall in 1895. On the other side of the Brathwayte are two large untidy mounds in a small plot, they are presumed to be Bronze Age barrows. Behind the pub is Lansdown Downs, with other barrows scattered across the land there, badly depleted, though because of farming. I wrote about something dug up by some work on the racecourse here. A shaft of a worked pillar had emerged and I told the driver he should report it to Bath Archaeology officer, whether he did or not I do not know, though I also emailed but got no reply.
But apart from St. Lawrence (AD 225 to 258) there was also a St. Alpege well in the neighbourhood. Alphege was much more interesting as he had been born in the village of Weston below the downs. He had an illustrious career in the work of the church but met a terrible death which you can find in the Wiki below.
Ælfheah of Canterbury - Wikipedia
Ælfheah (c. 953 – 19 April 1012), more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey.
He was stoned to death by the Vikings at Greenwich, though his Viking friend tried to stop the killing. The Viking was called Thorkell the Tall, his intervention came to nothing, having offered everything he had, except for his ship and the wretched Alpege was finished off by an axe blow to his head by another Viking. But Thorkull changed sides because of the brutality, and went over to Cnut's side.
More information here on St.Alphege from 2008
Ah, I get it now. I'll have a look for that building - it looks really interesting. It is the Blathwayte Arms, btw, but I think they have changed the name now.
ReplyDeleteP.S. The family which lived at nearby Brockham End who I used to hang around with were the Lawrences. Lawrence of Lucknow the was the first baronet.
DeleteToo many the's.
DeleteBrockham End is interesting, though you can't find many houses about Tom. I looked up the Lucknow Lawrence. Lucknow comes from a place where a battle (the siege of Lucknow) was fought in India in the 19th century.
ReplyDelete