The Museum building has had a surprising number and variety of different uses throughout its 250 years.

Built by Richard Scrace senior in 1776-77 as a Real Tennis court, it opened for play on Monday 15 September 1777:

Real Tennis is closer to modern-day Squash; it has complicated rules which are explained here by the International Real Tennis Professionals Association. Real Tennis continues to be played today, a promotional video can be viewed here.

The building is a rare example of a Georgian-period court, and is Listed Grade II for its architecture and social significance: See the ‘Historic England’ listing

It is a simple rectangular structure with high windows. Look up and you can see the trace of the sills of the original, long windows. You can also see (on a line just above the door, which was inserted in the 1970s) the marks of a narrow external walkway: this enabled a man to climb up a ladder and open and close shutters across the windows. The entrance to the Tennis-court was from the Morford Street side, and the changing rooms were the room that we now use to display “Mr Bowler’s Office”.

Richard Scrace was an optimistic entrepreneur who also ran a Riding School (the building at right-angles to the Museum, leading down to Julian Road). He borrowed a huge amount of money (the equivalent of more than £1m today) to build the tennis- court, but struggled to re-pay the mortgage. It did not make anywhere near enough money and, after only 8 months, he cut his losses and put it up for sale in 1778.

1780: Mr Mucklow from “James-street Tennis-court, London” took it over but he did not advertise, so we can assume tennis was a failure for him as it had been for Scrace.

And so the building soon began to be used for a succession of other purposes.

1790s: The Royal Bath Volunteers use it for exercise and military drill, and it is also hired for a boxing match, advertised as “The Art of Sparring”.

1810: Mr James Sadler shows off his “most magnificent” Hot Air Balloon at the Tennis-court – it must have been very exciting to see a man fly high up in the sky.

1813: The New Equestrian Circus takes up temporary residence, with a troop of horsemen, acrobats, slack-rope and tight-rope walkers, and comedy turns.

1816: The Girls’ Free School takes on the building, having moved from Grove Street. There were 400 pupils. Although their advertisement makes the most of the education and accomplishments taught, in fact it was more like a workhouse than a school and the girls were engaged in pin-making.

1825: The school stays until 1825 when the building is again up for sale.

1830s: It is used for meetings of the Bath Political Union and rallies addressed by John Arthur Roebuck (1802-1879), the fiery radical MP for Bath from 1832 to 1847: wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arthur_Roebuck

The editor of the Bath Chronicle & Weekly Gazette doesn’t approve of these rabble- rousing meetings and there are disparaging references to the ‘kind of people who go to the Tennis-court’ as a shorthand for political radicals.

1868: After a gap of 30 years with no references to the building in the Bath Chronicle, it is purchased by brewers Smallbone & Ashley and run as the Morford Brewery, “family ales”. They put in the mezzanine floor, supported on cast iron columns. They are bought-out by the Bath Brewery in about 1889.

1894: Lotor lease the building from the Brewery for the manufacture of washing powder, remaining there for about 50 years until the Second World War.

1937: There is a terrible fire at the Lotor factory on 13 April: “Building enveloped in mass of seething flames”.

It is miraculous that it did not burn down to the ground since a sub-tenant, Mr Cantello, occupies the mezzanine floor for manufacturing floor polish, and these very flammable ingredients burn furiously; he also stores white spirit in the basement but this is un-touched. There would also have been a lot of paper and cardboard for packaging the soap powder. A burn mark from the fire is visible on a beam in the Museum shop.

1949: W.H. Smith (Bath) Ltd, Trunk Manufacturers, take on the building which they name Camden Works, making typewriter cases and carrier cases.

1971/72: The “Sack of Bath”, when many Georgian-period properties in the city are demolished. On the east side of Morford Street, only numbers 30, 33 and 34 (properties north of our building) are left standing after demolitions for new housing.

1973: Another lucky escape when, surrounded by rubble, the building is Listed at Grade II as an emergency ‘spot listing’ and saved – despite the then Bath City Council’s Architect asserting that it lacks 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”

1978: The founders of the Museum of Bath at Work, led by Russell Frears, have been storing the J.B. Bowler collection for several years while searching for suitable premises to open a museum of industrial history. They negotiate with the City Council to lease the building, and the Museum opens to the public in 1978.

For more stories and history along the time line please see this series of articles