The Year Of The Pageant: An Akeman Press Walk

Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott are the founders of Akeman Press and the leading historians on the city of Bath.

Join us in the bookshop (9:30am) on the first weekend of December for stollen, mince pies and coffee before we head off on a walk at 10am. The walk will last approximately 2 hours and finish with further refreshments at the bookshop.

The Year of the Pageant looks at Bath in 1909, a year which saw the birth of the welfare state, the dawn of mass motoring and Bleriot’s epoch-making flight across the Channel. Political crisis at Westminster was accompanied by a deep and growing recession, with millions of men thrown out of work, while over all hung the threat of German invasion and an escalating arms race. Closer to home, the battle to save Bath Street from the developers marked the birth of the Bath preservation movement.

The year was marked by strikes, riots, suffragette rallies, battles in the council chamber – but above all by the birth of Bath as a heritage tourism destination, with a spectacular historical pageant attracting visitors from across the globe.

Join Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott for a walk evoking the sights and sounds of a remarkable year – with a seasonal emphasis on how Christmas was celebrated in those heady days before the First World War.