Preparations

So we have paid tribute to the people who died in the Bath Blitz, and tribute to the buildings that were destroyed. But this does not in any way excuse the depredations of the 1960s and 1970s, which is what Adam's book is all about. Nor was the 1960s destruction, and the terrible buildings that followed, at all necessary: in Warsaw, Cracow or Leipzig they build in replica and there is nothing wrong with that. There is no reason why (but we are being idealistic here) the worst of Bath's '60s buildings could not be demolished and replaced by the buildings that Adam is mourning in his book. The picture today shows preparations on the site of the Beaufort Hotel, now the Hilton, and shows that 'they' could just as easily have built terrace housing or in any case something more sympathetic than what they got: here.