Bath House Hotel

Bath House Hotel Tel:01271 866859

Runnacleave Road, Ilfracombe, Devon, EX34 8AR

History

The Bath House Hotel is part of what used to be known as the Runnacleave hotel and is a good example of a large gothic revival building using local materials.

It was gothic architecture that rose to dominance during the Victorian period, going hand-in-hand with the Victorian revival of the church and popular religion. This return to favour of Gothic architecture was known as the Gothic Revival. This concept caught on and Gothic architecture, which had originally been the architecture of castles, palaces and churches became the benchmark for Victorian buildings of all varieties, from shops to houses, civic buildings and of course churches. It is Victorian Gothic Revival architecture which is the most common feature of Ilfracombe’s buildings and streets as the prominence of the style coincided with the town's expansion in the 19th century.

The Runnacleave hotel had over 150 bedrooms and was very popular with the Victorians not least because of the Tunnels Beaches opposite. During the Second World War the Runnacleave was the Regimental HQ of the 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters).

It was in Ilfracombe in 1856 that Marian Evans awoke from her sleep with an idea for a work of fiction - and even its title, 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton.' And thus it was, with Scenes of Clerical Life, that the writing career of George Eliot began. As Eliot pondered the fate of her complicated clerics, her lover, George Lewes, scoured the rock-pools and beaches of the north Devon coast collecting shells, seaweed and rocks. The mid-Victorian fascination with the natural world, a combination of romanticism and pre-emptive Darwinian geology, made the Ilfracombe coastline even more attractive. Other well-heeled visitors to the town's elegant high street and steep terraced houses were Henry Williamson, author of the Devonian epic Tarkar the Otter, as well as Charles Kingsley, author of that other West Country staple Westward Ho! Not far up the coast, the "Little Switzerland" of Lyton and Lynmouth could boast Shelley, Wordsworth and Coleridge among its more celebrated guests.

With traces of settlement stretching back to the iron age, the coastal port emerged from a fishing village into a holiday resort in the early 1800s. A series of improvements by the leading landowner, the Earl of Bath, the temperate climate, beautiful views and town's easy bathing locations made Ilfracombe an increasingly sought after resort.

Aside from the intellectuals, Ilfracombe became a favourite resting place for colonial retirees. Discharged from the sugar plantations, silver mines, and railways of the Empire, the backbone of the colonial adventure made their way along the north Devon coast. With the arrival of the railway in 1874, they were joined in increasing numbers by slightly more 2nd class tourists. The working class of southern Wales migrated en masse to coastal resorts across the Bristol channel: Weston-super-Mare, Minehead, and Ilfracombe. As a tourist location, Ilfracombe reached its apogee in the years following the first world war as rising real incomes and more extensive holidays secured it unprecedented visitor numbers.

Ilfracombe has a new £4.5 million arts and entertainment complex that has replaced the now demolished Victoria Pavilion theatre and is part of North Devon District Council's regeneration programme for the town.

The boom in surfing along the north Devon coast has secured a younger, cooler visitor profile complete with VW Campers, surfer fashion and expendable incomes. The town has gained an impressive port development, a new civic centre, and a stylish restaurant developed by nearby resident and famous artist Damien Hirst.

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