When Ralph Allen built Prior Park mansion in the 1740s he established a formal garden with advice from the poet Alexander Pope and this is shown in the famous Walker engraving of 1750. Together with statuary and walks around the garden a circular ‘Bason’ pool can be seen which at the time lay at the northern extent of Allen’s estate below the house. This was about halfway up the pasture from the existing lakes and Palladian bridge which were constructed in the 1750s when the land and then farm at the foot of the valley was acquired. It is possible that ‘Capability’ Brown was involved in these later developments bringing the English landscape garden style to Prior Park but resulting in the removal of the Bason to create a clear view down the hill.
The excavation by National Trust and Bath and Counties Archaeology Society (BACAS) volunteers during the Festival of Archaeology in July 2023 found remains of the dam wall for the Bason pool; a possible later cascade which then took the spring water that had fed the pool down to the lower lakes; and parts of the buried water culvert network on the hillside.
Further work is planned for next year to discover more of the Bason wall, pool, cascade and culverts of the gardenSurveys and excavation in the pasture during March and July 2024 at Prior Park Landscape Garden, Bath, by volunteers from the National Trust Archaeology Team and the Bath and Counties Archaeological Society has revealed some stunning results. The back edge of a dam which held back the 100ft diameter bason of water shown on the 1752 engraving by Anthony Walker was excavated last year for a length of 35m. The bason, conceived by the architect John Wood, was the focal point for the first phase of the garden created by Ralph Allen in 1740. Guided by last year’s previous discoveries and geophysics results, this year we have revealed the full width of the dam to be 3m, tapering
to 1m at its east end and therefore a substantial structure.
Part of a cascade below the dam shown on a 1758 painting by Thomas Robins was
discovered last year. This year we have uncovered more of what remains of the cascade and established that it was built after the dam and bason. Both the dam and bason were gone by 1760 following the creation of three lakes and a Palladian Bridge lower down the valley.
Arguably the most exciting discovery was a stone water culvert of 18c arched design with the same dimensions as the outlet culvert located at the bottom of the pasture in 1993. This culvert under the dam wall may have been constructed at the same time as the dam but then later extended down the hill when the lakes were created..
The report is now available for download.