Abercrombie’s Plan for Bath

Having very kindly been lent a copy of Abercrombie’s Plan for Bath from 1945 (thanks to Will Sandry), I’ve been avidly reading some of the ideas for the re-organisation of the city from that time.  Due to extensive war damage, Professor Abercrombie was asked to submit (in 1943) “an outline for re-planning the city and its surroundings in years to come”. The eventual report ran to 114 pages with illustrations and identified many areas of the city for redevelopment (many coloured red or yellow on the first image below). Some of the findings were never implemented (for example, making what is now Weston Lane and Julian Rd the main arterial road north of the river or developing the meadows north and east of Bathampton for industry or building a new eastern exit road behind Kensington Place & Grosvenor Place) but Abercrombie did suggest the Batheaston Bypass and linked it to the A36!

Here are some images and tables from the book that caught my eye;

Redevelopment plan - central area

Historical growth of Bath

War damage in Bath in 1942

Bath population through the ages

Bath air raid damage table

Comparative employment analysis

Traffic analysis

Julian Rd proposed junction