“Oh! Who can ever be tired of Bath?”

(Jane Austen – Northanger Abbey)

“It is a truth universally acknowledged” that if you put 3 ladies together, with time to dress up and chat, they will have fun, wherever they are.

I don’t see enough of my family, as my sister, Wendy, and dad live in Ireland and my brother in Suffolk. The same can be said of my friends. Living life on the road is great fun and I would not swap it, but I miss my friends when we are travelling. For this reason, it was great to find a weekend when me, Wendy and Mandy, a friend from Birmingham, could all meet up and visit Bath.

I spent a weekend with Mandy shortly before and she announced we were going into the city to buy material so we could make regency dresses. There were no regency events that we knew of, on the weekend we had planned to visit Bath, but she had the idea that we dress up anyway. She had already been and found jackets, which we could turn into Spencer jackets, from charity shops. So our first stop was her mum’s sheltered housing, where she pinned, chopped and sewed my jacket, making a far more professional job of it that I could ever have done.

We started the next day googling black Jesus and blond Jesus and printing pictures for the Sunday School (not something I find myself doing every day!) and then jumped on a bus to the Birmingham markets. The rag market in Birmingham is lovely. There was so much choice, and the prices were unbelievably low.  In fact, there was probably too much choice, as it took us 4 hours of wandering backwards and forwards amongst the stalls before we managed a decision. Mandy was adamant the pattern had to be in keeping with the period and any comments I made about it just being a bit of fun were met with a look. If a job is worth doing….. 

When we sat down for a late breakfast and, later, for a glass of prosecco, we were googling regency dress patterns and how to make a regency bonnet. A late bus home, found us back at Mandy’s mums, where we discovered she had nightdresses which were the perfect shape for our dresses. As an added bonus, she had made them and still had the pattern. In fact, if she was not even shorter than me, I would have probably been wearing her nightdress, with the material I had chosen layered over the top.

I broke the news to Wendy, wondering if she would suddenly decide she didn’t like Bath. I love dressing up, Wendy is not so keen. Maybe it dates back to her being the youngest child, when mum would dress her up – I remember Bo Peep, with a lamb on a lead for the village fete and her being made up to look like her spaniel for a local dog show. We had nothing so embarrassing planned, just a dress, a jacket and a bonnet on a busy Saturday, when no one else was dressed up. She quickly entered into the spirit of the occasion, and when I arrived in Ireland to visit a few weeks later we started making our bonnets, and reticules. Apparently, this is what they called handbags back when Jane Austen was visiting Bath. They were very small, and not at all practical, and we could buy one on Ebay for a reasonable price – but making our own was so much more fun.

By the time we all met up, we were very nearly, ready. Wendy had come over to England with a pile of flowers she had made for mine and Mandy’s hats, which needed to be sewn on. My dress needed to be turned up and the top layer fitted so it fell from the empire waistline. We made it to bed by midnight and set alarms for the next morning, ready to put our hair up in buns, create ringlets to frame our faces and don our outfits. 

Being a regency lady was hard work! After a photoshoot, and filling up with petrol, we headed to Bath.

Walking from our accommodation to the bus stop, we had lots of stares from passing motorists, and at the bus stop a family asked if we were attending an event. For the first time of many, we explained that no, we couldn’t make Regency week in September so we decided to have our own. Everyone was lovely. We got stopped multiple times by people asking to take our photos, or to pose with us. Our favourite was a gentleman who took off his cap, bowed and told us we looked lovely. 

We were asked which characters we identified with – much as I would love to say Emma, realistically me and Wendy are more Mrs Bennet, the Alison Steadman version of course. Mandy, with her cane, could pass as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, although as she could not be more different from her in personality.

If I was to choose a Jane Austen phrase to describe them, for Wendy it would be:

 “Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!”

And for Mandy:

“Her heart was made for love and kindness,”

We had afternoon tea, with prosecco, at the Jane Austen centre, which was delicious. Spent too much in the gift shop and chatted to the lovely gentleman in regency dress, greeting visitors. On the way out we were interviewed by a German radio station, asking whether Jane Austen’s stories are still relevant today. (Yes, in my opinion, the gap between the treatment of men compared to women is still far too wide, but that would be a whole other blog.) 

We promenaded through the town, to the Parade Gardens to see the celebratory book made of flowers. Like us, it was wilting a little in the heat, but was lovely all the same. After a cheeky cider at the café in the park (I’m not sure Jane would have done something so unladylike) we promenaded back through the city and, much to our surprise, started bumping into people dressed like us. There was a regency ball at the Guildhall and, suddenly, we were not the odd ones out. There were far more ladies than gentlemen however. No wonder Mrs Bennet was so desperate to make sure those gentlemen she did find, marry one of her daughters.

We all wanted to see The Royal Crescent. It was beautiful and we envied the sunbathers in the park, while we wilted in full length dresses but we preferred The Circus. A beautiful ring of Georgian houses with a lawn in the centre, on which are 5 huge plane trees. They date back to 1820 and are incredible

With the pubs filling up with hen parties and stag do’s, and our feet aching, we headed back to the bus, and out of town to the apartment we had rented for the night. 

It was so much fun, we are now planning Regency Week in Alton next year when we can hopefully learn some regency dances, do an embroidery workshop, have afternoon tea and maybe even get our husbands to come along: our very own Mr Darcys. 

Whatever events we take part in, I’m sure we’ll need new gowns because even though:

 “It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire… (Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.) 

Us ladies love an excuse to buy a new gown, and maybe a bonnet as well.