The Royal Crescent.......

Things You May Not Know About The Royal Crescent:-

In 1766 John Wood the Younger took a lease on land from Sir Benet Garrard to build "good stone messuages in a workmanlike manner".

Building began in 1767 and all the houses were occupied by 1778.

There are 30 houses in a crescent 538 feet across.

The facade is decorated with 114 giant order Ionic columns, i.e. the columns extend over two floors.

The columns are 2' 6" in diameter and 22' 6" high

From pavement to parapet the building is 47 feet high, or 5 feet higher than the Circus

The original roof was stone.

Today eight houses are each occupied by one "family" (though two of those make one unit!)

There were plans in 1945 to turn it into civic offices

It took 18 years to get the tourist buses and coaches banned from the Crescent

At the peak over 600 buses and coaches a week were logged using the Crescent between 8am and 8pm and the greatest number in one hour being 25

In addition to normal traffic load, approximately 9,000 tons of coach traffic was using the Crescent per week before the ban.

During the war and up to 1956 the lawn was a "cabbage plot" with 72 allotments.

Take away the modern day mode of transport, and in your minds eye you could whisk yourself away to a time of horse drawn carriages in a split second.
If I could time travel, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to go back to those halcyon days. Halcyon days, I guess that would depend on your position on the social ladder............
Move forward from the late 1700's to the present day and nothing much has changed except the size of the gap between the haves and the have not's.
While I had the camera on the tripod I took a few images in mono, the best of which I've added as an extra photo.
I hope you like my royal crescent images.

j