Wednesday 14th October at 18.30 (doors 18.00)
Museum of Bath at Work
Tickets £10, pay on the door, cash or card

This year’s lecture, kindly sponsored by Cross Manufacturing, explores Bath’s planning and urban design decisions of the late 1960s, focusing on the area immediately around the Museum – Morford Street, Julian Road and Ballance Street.
Amy Frost takes us through the post-war context of Bath’s plans for housing, the Council’s ambitions for improvement of housing conditions, and how the Tennis Court building had a very narrow escape.

Museum building in the 1970s

Adam Fergusson’s book The Sack of Bath (1973) drew national attention to the 18th and early 19th century buildings being demolished in the city, with photographs by Lord Snowdon of desolate rubble-strewn spaces.  But we should not dismiss what was built in place of those Georgian terraced houses: the Ballance Street flats were designed to exemplary high standards in line with the Parker Morris guidelines for room size, layout, storage and natural light.  This lecture will consider both sides of the 1970s debates about heritage versus development.

Dr Amy Frost is Senior Curator at Bath Preservation Trust and lectures in architecture and heritage at University of Bath and Bath Spa University.
The Cross Lecture was established by the Museum to celebrate the contribution of Michael Cross, the first Chairman of Bath Industrial Heritage Trust.  The annual lectures in memory of the late Mr Cross began in 1994, so have been running for more than 30 years.