Prior Park Research Articles

Remedial works to ornamental ponds within a historic park in the UK

Prior Park is a historic landscaped garden situated in Bath, UK, funded in the eighteenth century by Ralph Allen and designed by the poet Alexander Pope and the landscape architect ‘Capability’ Brown. The gardens include the Palladian Bridge and three man-made lakes, two formed by embankments and the third by a weir situated beneath the bridge. Following decades of decline, the National Trust was gifted the park in 1993 and has since set to restore the park to its former glory. This paper focuses on the restoration of the lakes and describes how overflow spillway capacities from the lakes were increased to allow floodwater to pass safely downstream. It also describes how the embankments were repaired and strengthened without impacting on the vision of the park set by the original architects. The engineering works included reinforcement of grass turf with geotextiles, using stilling basins hidden in chambers below the embankments and restoration of a cascade feature to one of the dams.

Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity by Janine BARCHAS (review)

BARCHAS, Janine. Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.336 pp. S24.95 paperback. Austen scholars may have spent few minutes--or hours--exploring the What Jane Saw website (http://www.whatjanesaw.org) over its launch weekend in May of 2013. Two hundred years after Jane Austen attended an art exhibit at the British Institution in London on May 23, 1813, an e-gallery became accessible, recreating the first retrospective of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The site is notable for its emphasis on how the works in the show, as well as the individuals they depict, might have influenced Austen's writings. The site is equally notable for its incredibly meticulous research, led by principal investigator and author Janine Barchas. Meticulous will also inevitably be the word most often used to describe Janine Barchas's latest book. The research that has informed Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity is abundant and careful, making this fascinating and fresh take on Austen studies. Much like the What Jane Saw website, the book starts from the contention that Austen was well aware of and sensitive to the news and newsmakers of her day, and that the realities of her specific historical moment influence aspects of her novels. The book opens by pitching Austen's long-standing reputation for timelessness and transparency against more recent work that seeks to elucidate the historical specificity of her work(l). Problematizing that long-held idea of Austen's timelessness, Barchas explains how the pull of celebrity culture combines with Austen's tendency, noted by several other scholars, to bestow her characters with names of families notable for politics. This allows Austen to exercise playfulness in her cheeky reappropriation of those names. For instance, in her sixth chapter, Persuasion's Battle of the Books: Baronetage versus Navy List, Barchas discusses the inversion of names in Persuasion by which Austen gives names of baronets to her naval characters and names of naval heroes to her landowners. Rather than label this merely as joke, Barchas interprets this name play as suggestive of a stalemate between hostilities in the novel: land versus sea; baronetage versus navy list; old versus new (253). These kinds of insights make Barchas's scrupulously researched book an engaging, intriguing read, and bring Austen's cleverness more sharply into focus. In addition to discussing the implications of names in Persuasion, Barchas explores issues ranging from Austen's promiscuity in her borrowings across the political spectrum to ironies of geography in Northanger Abbey to the Hell-Fire Club resonance of the name Dashwood. In each of her explorations, she provides wealth of painstakingly researched detail. The implications of these details are sure to provide Austen scholars with more texture to their arguments. Chapter two, Mapping Northanger Abbey to Find 'Old Allen' of Prior provides an example of the fruits of Barchas's research. In this chapter, Barchas provides background for the surname Allen, arguing that in Austen's day it would have conjured associations with low-born entrepreneur Ralph Allen. Ralph Allen's enormous wealth could be seen in his mansion at Prior Park, of interest because of the Allens that appear in Northanger Abbey. In this novel, John Thorpe talks to Catherine Morland about the Mr. Allen with whom she stays in Bath, and their conversation transpires in carriage slowly making its way around the perimeter of Prior Park. In other words, Thorpe is eying what he thinks will be his future home if he marries Catherine, whom he assumes will inherit the Allens' wealth. …

Anti-Catholicism in Bath from 1820 to 1870

This paper challenges the idea that harmonious relations prevailed amongst Bath's various religious denominations during the ‘Age of Reform’, from the 1820s to the 1860s. It reveals instead that the public expression of anti-Catholic opinion was a regular feature of the city's political scene in this period. An anti-Catholic ‘crusade’, directed against such local targets as Prior Park and Downside colleges, and ‘Popery’ in general, was sustained by a variety of local organizations and national organizations that had branches in Bath, as well as prominent Tory activists resident in the city. Many Irish-born evangelical clergymen played a prominent role in this crusade. It is not surprising, given the prominence of Irish clergymen in Bath's anti-Catholic movement, that protests against the state endowment of Maynooth College were popular with the city's anti-Popery activists; furthermore, several proselytizing organizations whose principal aim was the conversion of Ireland's Catholics to the Protestant faith had a permanent base in Bath. The perceived iniquitous effects of ‘Popery’ in Ireland formed part of the anti-Catholic crusade's propaganda message. While the anti-Popery cause appealed particularly to the city's Church of England community, with many of its clergymen and prominent lay Anglicans to the fore of the anti-Catholic agitation, it attracted support from all sections of Protestant society.

The overall theme park experience: A visitor satisfaction tracking study

The theme park industry has experienced steady growth for many years, and it has developed into a global phenomenon. Monitoring visitor satisfaction is critical to help ensure a satisfying overall experience, customer value, and repeat visits. Here, we examine ten years of customer satisfaction tracking data collected at a major US theme park. The study focuses on identifying significant factors influencing customer evaluation of and satisfaction with the overall theme park experience. The key findings reveal that visitors evaluate the theme park primarily on overall park experience and value, park food quality, value, and variety, and park cleanliness and atmosphere. Satisfaction with the total cost of the park visit is primarily predicted by perceptions of the admission price/value, general enjoyment, and customer expectations of the experience. Additional findings concerning the important role of expectations and prior park experiences in visitor satisfaction are detailed.

Pope and Prior Park: A study in landscape and literature

Introduction Prior Park is an important and early example of a surviving, small-scale, eighteenth-century landscape, the seat at Bath of Ralph Allen (1693-1764), owner of the stone quarries from which Bath was built. It reflects the hand of Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and later Sanderson Miller (1716-1780) and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-1783). This paper exarnines Alexander Pope's involvement at Prior Park, and in doing so reassesses the garden as of national importance. Completed around 1742, approximately one year before Pope's death, it was the last garden that he was involved with, and it is here that he put into practice his theories on gardening from 1713, the summation of his experience. The thesis is that Prior Park, whilst containing emblematic and iconographic meaning, expresses at the same time a Romantic character that was not fulfJled to such an extent elsewhere by this date and as a consequence it is also argued that Pope's theories, as expressed at his own garden at Twickenham (with Sherborne Castle landscape as the catalyst), were inmlensely influential on the work of William Kent and that Kent developed no theories of his own — that is to say, the influence is from Pope to Kent and not vice versa as convention maintains.

Old Prior Park—The Final Years, 1843–1856

Prior Park, the stately home on the outskirts of Bath, was built for Ralph Allen, a famous citizen of that city, during the years 1735–1742. In 1830, when the estate had passed through many hands, and was in a very neglected state, it was bought by the Vicar-Apostolic of the Western District, Bishop Peter Baines, for £22,000. It was the bishop's intention to establish there a seminary, a boarding school and eventually, a Catholic University which would vie with Oxford and Cambridge. But things had gone sadly wrong. When Baines died in July, 1843, the establishment was in debt to the extent of some £40,000, with less than half the places in the school and the seminary occupied.

One View of a Town: Prior Park and the City of Bath

Previous articleNext article No AccessOne View of a Town: Prior Park and the City of BathVaughan HartVaughan Hart Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Res Volume 17-18Spring-Autumn 1989 Published in association with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/RESvn1ms20166818 Views: 12Total views on this site Copyright 1989 President and Fellows of Harvard CollegePDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Media Effectiveness in a Malaysian Park System

Abstract The effectiveness of three media formats (guides, booklets, and signs) were compared for use on a nature trail at Kinabalu Park, Malaysia. Based on a multiple-choice, cognitive test taken by 1,194 visitors, the guide treatment scores were significantly higher than the other media treatments. There was no difference between booklet and sign treatments, and all the media treatments scored higher than the control group (F 3,1190 = 173.76, α = .05). A second experiment compared only booklet and sign media. There was still no difference in effectiveness (Paired t test, t = 0.22, df = 566, p □ .05). The first language and educational backgrounds of visitors influenced media effectiveness. However, age, sex, residence, interest level, prior knowledge, and prior park visitation did not influence the relatively great effectiveness of the guide treatment. Other factors, such as cost, time, and numbers served, may justify use of media formats other than guides.

Prior Park and Bishop Baines

Prior Park and Bishop Baines

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article:More Lay Thoughts of a Dean. By William Ralph Inge. (London: Putnam's. Pp. 320; 7/6.)The Third Spiritual Alphabet. By Fray Francisco de Osuna.A History of Prior Park College and its Founder, Bishop Brines. By J. S. Roche, B.A.The Franciscans. By Alexandre Masseron.The Hogarth Letters. No. I: A Letter to Madan Blanchard. By E. M. Forster.English Village Schools. By Marjorie Wise.A History of the Popes. By Fernand Hayward.De Sacramentis: Vol. 1. De Sacramentis in genere. De Brptismo, De Confirmatione.My Russian Venture. By Mrs. Cecil Chesterton.The Satin Slipper; or The Worst is not the Surest. By Paul Claudel.A Sheed and Ward Anthology: Fifty Books in One.The Lay‐Brother: A Short Account of the Life and Status of a Dominican Lay‐Brother. By Fr. H.‐D. Noble, O.P.On the Nightmare. By Ernest Jones, M.D.Theology. A Monthly Journal of Historic Christianity.Tail Waggers. Described by A. Croxton Smith.

Ralph Allen of Prior Park

Ralph Allen of Prior Park

At Prior Park

At Prior Park