18th C
Back to the 18th C school girls where we find Susan Sibbald approving of the menu offered in the dining room at Belvedere House on Lansdown hill, Bath. Apparently everyone ate well at this school: on Monday roast beef was served. Tuesday and Friday: roast shoulder of mutton. Wednesday: a round of beef. Thursday: boiled leg of mutton. Saturday: stewed beef and picled walnuts, a great favourite of the girls.
Twice a week "choke dogs" were on the menu. These were currant dumplings. On other days rice pudding followed the meat course. A few of the wealthy girls, including Susan and her new best friend, Sophy Templer, remained at table to enjoy a glass of port wine, an extra cost to their parents, while the rest of the pupils returned to the schoolroom.
In summer they remained there after the mid-day meal doing needlework until 4 p.m. when everyone donned walking shoes, bonnets, spencers or tippets and with three teachers supervising, left the school, walking in crocodile formation, two by two, up the hill and into the adjacent countryside above Landsdown, an area much frequented by Thomas Gainsborough who frequently rode his favourite horse up the hill and stayed to sketch the landscape.
Leaving the town behind them the girls were free to walk in small groups, the adults following some distance behind. They were all due back at school by 6 p.m for tea, although not everyone took the fashionable Chinese treat presumably, like port wine, it involved an additional cost. At 6.30 p.m. lessons had to be learned for the following day and when that was done, the girls were free to amuse themselves until suppertime.
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LIVING WITH MRS THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH IN THE CIRCUS, BATH, 18TH /21ST C By VIVIENNE RAE-ELLIS The following is a work in progress, to be published here in instalments. The manuscript has not been submitted to any publisher. References and bibliography will be published following the final chapter. 1) go to the Manuscript below right.. 2) Start from the top entry.. 3) Read down through the manuscript
The Circus
About Me
- Vivienne Rae-Ellis FRGS
- I am an ex-pat Tasmanian author who has lived in England since 1987. I have had eleven books published in seventeen editions by publishers who include Faber&Faber, Heinemann, Hamish Hamilton, Robert Hale, University Of Melbourne, University of Yale, Angus Robertson and the Australian Institute Of Aboriginal Studies. Subjects include biographies of three famous Australians: Trucanini, the last Aboriginal Tasmanian to live and die on the island; Louisa Anne Meredith, Australia's first resident female author, and George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of the Aborigines in the 1830's. Published work includes books for adults and for children based on the history of Australia; the paranormal;and Public Libraries.