The seventh and last of a series of articles tracing the fascinating and varied history
of the building the Museum now occupies
The war is over and Bath is recovering and re-building. The Assembly Rooms, less than five minutes from the Museum, had a direct hit during the Bath Blitz of April 1942 and, further along Julian Road, St Andrew’s Church was gutted and subsequently had to be demolished. There is a photograph of children playing on a bomb site in Julian Road in 1950 on Bath In Time here
The former tennis-court building has presumably stood empty since Lotor Soap Factory closed down during the war. In 1949 (2 July) the Bath Chronicle reports a planning application for ‘change of use’ which is approved. The former Lotor Works in Morford Street is to be used by a manufacturer of typewriter cases and carrier cases. This is W.H. Smith (Bath) Ltd Trunk Manufacturers, Camden Works, and they first appear in the Bath Directory in 1952 and remain in business for 20 years.
In the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s, bombed-out houses were demolished and new housing started to be built. But much other Georgian-period housing was also demolished, as was the case in many other towns and cities. Some of Bath’s late 18th and early 19th century housing was in a terrible condition – they were slums – with one outside lavatory shared by numerous households crowded into courts. But other of the same date could – many people felt – have been improved and brought up to modern sanitation and heating standards. This was the period known as ‘The Sack of Bath’.
Adam Fergusson’s book (1973) was polemical and drew national attention to similar situations in other historic cities such as Portsmouth, Worcester, and Plymouth. The Peter Coard collection of drawings on Bath In Time here shows what was in the process of being lost in Bath. Fergusson’s book is powerful because of the colour photographs by Lord Snowdon which can be viewed on Bath In Time here including several of the tennis-court building.
In the 1972/73 Bath Directory, no occupant is listed in the Camden Works, and none are listed in Morford Street. On the east side (our side), only numbers 30, 33 and 34 – properties north of Davis’s Place – were left standing after demolition of the rest of the east side for building new ‘Council’ flats. Davis’s Place was a narrow entry leading to an enclosed ‘court’ and ran W-E, just north of the Tennis-court building. It disappeared in the early 1970s when the flats were built. The buildings in Davis’s Place were doubtless insanitary slums and very little light reached this court.
At the last moment, the historical importance and architectural uniqueness of the Camden Works building was realised, and it was spot-Listed Grade II in 1973. This was despite Bath City Council’s Architect asserting that it “lacked the glamour of Hampton Court” and that, rather than preserve it:
“the needs of history would be better served by putting up a plaque on the spot”
Bath City Council took on the freehold of the building.
In 1974 Bath Arts Workshop – the precursor of the Natural Theatre Company – was interested in the building as a potential community arts centre. They took survey photographs with the intention of approaching Bath City Council to discuss how they could acquire it.
The photograph is © Bath Arts Workshop and shows someone from BAW at the rear of the building – which is in a truly shocking state of disrepair (even though it is only a few years since Smiths left). Bath Arts Workshop decided instead on premises in Walcot Street – we hosted their excellent exhibition about the Workshop’s 50-year history in 2019.
Meanwhile the founders of the Museum of Bath at Work (Kenneth Hudson, Dr Marianna Clark and industrial designer Russell Frears), had rescued the complete contents of J.B. Bowler’s mineral water factory, workshops and offices in 1969 – the building, on the corner of Corn Street and Ambury, was demolished in 1972. Russell Frears meticulously photographed every item in situ before it was touched, so that it could eventually be displayed exactly as it had been in Bowler’s premises.
They stored the Bowler collection and the thousands of photographs for several years while searching for suitable large premises to house it in its entirety and open a museum. This was a period when industrial history and archaeology was a growing area of academic interest. The three founders successfully negotiated with Bath City Council to lease the Camden Works building, Bath Industrial Heritage Trust was formed in 1978, becoming a registered charity in 1988, and the Museum (The Camden Works Museum, as it was known initially) opened to the public in 1978.
I would like to thank and acknowledge the work of Stuart Burroughs, Director of the Museum, and current and past volunteers who have researched so much of the history of the building – some of it done before the internet! My primary – and simple – method for this series of articles was to go to British Newspapers online (available on Find My Past) and use the search terms ‘tennis’ and ‘Morford’. So anyone wanting to follow up the references can easily do the same.
Ann Cullis November 2024
Full series:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Building complete timeline can be viewed here