Bladdered and Buns

And other observations from a busy week

Friday evening and not a single word written this week so I was seriously thinking I might have to miss a post and had my excuses at the ready. Last weekend we had a fabulous couple of days away in the beautiful city of Bath visiting my stepson. The sun shone, we walked miles, we ate some great food, visited an art gallery and my head was spinning with ideas for at least four maybe five different things I could write about. But then we came home, and the week has disappeared in a frenzy of activity. I have had a lovely lunch out with a dear friend in Piccadilly and a quick visit to another exhibition (Brazil! Brazil! The Birth of Modernism at the Royal Academy); I met my uncle and cousin who came up to visit my Mum; spent an afternoon with my granddaughter and went with another friend to see the Bridget Jones film… which I can highly recommend if you want a good laugh and a feel good movie. Hugh Grant was hilarious much improved with age, and I think we could all benefit from being a bit more like Bridget! (Dancing, singing and swearing a whole lot more since you ask. ‘Fuckwit’ might just be my latest favourite expression when thinking about a certain world leader!) The weather has also stayed dry and bright, so roses were pruned, and pots were cleared, washed and refilled in the garden.

And then to top it all we spent an entire day on ‘operation declutter’. I would like to tell you we are getting on top of it all, but we are definitely at the stage where everything looks far worse than when we started. But we are on a mission, and it will get done.

I also did some plumbing. Inspired by an episode of Stacey Solomon’s “Sort Your Life Out” I took apart the plughole in our kitchen sink… I mean, who even knew? Just be grateful I didn’t take a photograph, but when removing the build up of disgusting gunk, the sealant connecting the plughole to the pipework also came away. Stewart’s reaction was ‘Great, now we need a plumber’… mine was ‘Nah, it will be on YouTube’. One tube of silicon sealant later together with a caulking gun and I have reassembled and resealed the plumbing on our kitchen sink which so far appears not to be leaking. I hope you are impressed because I certainly am!

The legendary King Bladud with his equally legendary pig

Anyway, let’s return to Bath and the story of its founding by Bladud, a legendary king of the Britons, whose name I misheard as ‘Bladdered’ which amused me far more than it probably should. The young prince Bladud was sent off to be educated in Athens, where he contracted leprosy. On his return to Briton he was outcast from society and took up employment as a swineherd in Swainswick, about two miles from what later became Bath. Sadly before long his pigs also started to develop leprosy. His pigs however, liked to wallow in the nearby warm muddy waters produced by the hot springs, where they rooted for acorns, and Bladud noticed that quite miraculously these pigs were cured of their skin condition. Bladud then followed his herd, rolled around in the mud and also found himself cured of leprosy claiming the hot spring waters had healing powers. As a result he returned to society where he took up his rightful position as prince and later the ninth king of the Britons. He established a settlement around the springs so that others might benefit from the healing waters. He also happened to be father to King Lear, who we know to be fictional, so it does rather cast a shadow of doubt over the whole story. But despite that, it is an excellent story and later we know that the Romans caught onto the idea of the healing waters and built the town of Aquae Sulis around the hot springs which eventually became the popular Georgian spa town of Bath.

Knowing we were going to Bath I was keen to try a famous delicacy the Bath Bun. A Bath Bun, not dissimilar to a Chelsea bun is a fruited bun made from an enriched dough, sometimes with a lump of sugar baked into the base, coated with a sticky wash and a sprinkle of crushed loaf sugar. There are regional variations of these fruit buns made all over the country and indeed we have our own version here in Cambridge, the much acclaimed Fitzbillie’s bun but it was an authentic Bath bun that I sought. Apparently they were introduced by Dr William Oliver in the eighteenth century who prescribed them to his patients as a nourishing treat after they came to receive the healing powers of the waters. It wasn’t long before he realised this probably wasn’t a great idea when he saw his patients rapidly gaining weight, and he started to prescribe them hard dry biscuits instead, what we now know as the Bath Oliver. The buns however have stuck around.

Jane Austen even gives them a mention in a letter where she describes “disordering my stomach with Bath Buns” which the Georgians liked to eat warm, split and slavered in butter.

This is where things started to get confusing because on our hunt for a genuine Bath Bun we were also hearing about the very famous Sally Lunn Bath Bun, which as it turns out although also made from an enriched dough, is not a fruit bun but more like a brioche and over twice the size of the sweet fruit version. Of course as with all great traditions it also comes with a story. Apparently a young Huguenot woman called Solange Luyon, fled France in 1680 in fear for her life. She settled in the town of Bath where she found work in a bakery in Lilliput Lane. She introduced her recipe for the enriched Festival bread of her homeland, which became very popular with the locals, who unable to pronounce her name anglicised it to Sally Lunn.

The recreated kitchen of the Lilliput Lane bakery with a basket of Sally Lunns

The recipe for her Sally Lunn buns was lost during the 1800s but apparently during renovations of the old house in the 1930s Sally’s secret recipe was rediscovered in a cupboard. The owner of the building, one of the oldest surviving buildings in Bath, then opened the current tea rooms which serve the buns in a range of both sweet and savoury dishes. There is much debate whether Sally Lunn actually existed, and another story suggests the name is a corruption of ‘solei lune’ the name given to the French sun and moon cake.

A Bath breakfast fit for a bladdered king!

Whatever the truth we ended up sampling the Sally Lunn buns for lunch where we had them with a delicious range of savoury toppings. We enjoyed them so much we also bought one to bring home with us and we enjoyed it spread with cinnamon butter and served with fruit for breakfast on Monday morning. They really are enormous, and a single bun was plenty for two of us. However we didn’t get to sample the fruit buns during our weekend away, but it seems like an excellent excuse to go back to Bath another time.

And should you find yourself visiting this beautiful city I can wholeheartedly recommend the Mayor of Bath’s Honorary Guides who conduct guided walking tours of the city every day. They last about two hours and take in all the famous sights from the Pump rooms and Abbey to the famous Royal Crescent. I’m not sure you get to pick your guide, but we were led by Adrian who gave a wonderful entertaining mix of history and folklore.