Stone City
Venue: Newark Works, 2 Foundry Ln, Bath BA2 3DZ
Open 11am to 6pm 27 May to 10 June / 11am to 3pm on Sun 11 June
Fully accessible, see map for full details.
Low-lying plains and deep valleys saturated by thousands of years of floodwater create the foundation for Somerset’s fascinating geology. Bath was once a large basin filled by three natural springs. Fine particles of lime and calcium gradually settled and compacted, forming a perfect stone for the construction of the honey-coloured city we know today.
Bath stone was first quarried at least 2000 years ago, and its first heyday came with the Romans and the construction of the baths. Next came the Saxons and Normans who built with it, both by quarrying and re-using stone from the Roman settlements. The Georgian era brought about digging on an industrial scale when, in 1727, Ralph Allen laid a railway between the Combe Down quarries and the newly navigable River Avon. The industry continued to grow throughout the 19th Century and is quarried today in numerous places across north-east Somerset and Wiltshire.
Of course, the story of Bath has not always been so harmonious. Sitting abandoned for great lengths of time between various owners. The Ruin, an Anglo-Saxon poem by an unknown author, is thought to describe Bath in the 8th Century evoking the former glory of an ancient city and the crumbling present:
“This masonry is wondrous, broken by fate
Courtyard pavements were smashed; the work of giants is decaying.
The grasp of the earth possesses,
the mighty builders, perished and fallen,
until a hundred generations of people have departed.
Often this wall, lichen-grey and stained with red; experience one reign after another
Still the masonry endures in winds cut down.”
Danaik Watchtower, oil and pencil on wood, Archie Rogers (2022)
The monumental blocks which make up the streets below our feet tell of such rich history and has always had a profound impact on the style, taste, and visual practice of creative minds in Bath. This exhibition contains a selection of artistic interpretations for what Bath Stone means to them and their practice.
Exhibiting Artists:
Archie Rogers, Beatrix Haxby, Ben Coleman, Eve Harker, Helen Bruce, Jane Randfield, Jennie Regan, Lee Johnson, Lisa Wooding, Megan Hoyle, Pei-Yao Chang, Thomas Hill
Curator Archie Rogers
Curated by Archie Rogers
Archie Rogers is an artist and curator who grew up in Bath and graduated from the University of Brighton in 2022 with a degree in Fine Art Painting. His work explores the everyday experience, noticing beauty within seemingly ordinary things and paying homage to them; objects we touch, use, or arrange in space, our brief but powerful interactions with the natural world, human emotion, urban life, and craft.
instagram @ar.chie.art