Combe Down

Combe Down and Bathampton Down Quarries (grid reference ST761625) make up a 6.22 hectare (15.37 acre) Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Bath and North East Somerset, England, important for its bat population. The disused quarries date from the 17th and 18th centuries and were the source of Bath stone for the city of Bath and elsewhere in the UK. A five-year project to stabilise the quarry workings was largely completed by November 2009.

Prior Park College is a mixed Roman Catholic public school for both day and boarding students. Situated on a hill overlooking the city of Bath, Somerset, in southwest England, Prior Park has been designated by Historic England as a Grade I listed building.The adjoining 57-acre (23 ha) Prior Park Landscape Garden was donated by Prior Park to the National Trust. The Prior Foundation consists of Prior Park College, the Paragon Junior School (Bath) and Prior Park School Gibraltar.

Prior Park is a Neo-Palladian house that was designed by John Wood, the Elder, and built in the 1730s and 1740s for Ralph Allen on a hill overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building. The house was built in part to demonstrate the properties of Bath stone as a building material. The design followed work by Andrea Palladio and was influenced by drawings originally made by Colen Campbell for Wanstead House in Essex as well as the twelve sided plan form of the Roman theatre (of which the house's natural setting reminded Wood). The main block had 15 bays and each of the wings 17 bays each. The surrounding parkland had been laid out in 1100 but following the purchase of the land by Allen 11.3 hectares (28 acres) were established as a landscape garden. Features in the garden include a bridge covered by Palladian arches, which is also Grade I listed. Following Allen's death the estate passed down through his family. In 1828, Bishop Baines bought it for use as a Roman Catholic College. The house was then extended and a chapel and gymnasium built by Henry Goodridge. The house is now used by Prior Park College and the surrounding parkland owned by the National Trust.

Combe Down Tunnel is on the now-closed Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway main line, between Midford and Bath Green Park railway station, below high ground and the southern suburbs of Bath, England, emerging below the southern slopes of Combe Down village. Opened in 1874, this 1,829-yard (1,672 m) long disused railway tunnel was once the UK's longest without intermediate ventilation. The tunnel now forms part of the £1.8 million Two Tunnels Greenway walking and cycling path opened on 6 April 2013 and is the longest cycling tunnel in Britain. Its custodian is Wessex Water.

Prior Park Landscape Garden surrounding the Prior Park estate south of Bath, Somerset, England, was designed in the 18th century by the poet Alexander Pope and the landscape gardener Capability Brown, and is now owned by the National Trust. The garden was influential in defining the style known as the "English landscape garden" in continental Europe. The garden is Grade I listed in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.Around 1100 the site was part of a deer park set out by the Bishop of Bath and Wells John of Tours. In 1720s it was bought by Ralph Allen and landscaped to complement his new house. Further development was undertaken after the house became a seminary and then a Roman Catholic grammar school (which later became Prior Park College). In the 1990s 11.3 hectares (28 acres) of the park and pleasure grounds were acquired by the National Trust and a large scale restoration undertaken. Features of Prior Park Landscape Garden include a Palladian architecture bridge, lake and ancillary buildings.

Tucking Mill is a small hamlet within the parish of Monkton Combe, Somerset, England. It lies on Midford Brook and was a key point on the now disused Somerset Coal Canal. It is at the southern end of the Two Tunnels Greenway which follows the disused railway trackbed of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway from East Twerton through the Bath suburb of Oldfield Park to the Devonshire Tunnel, emerging into Lyncombe Vale before entering the Combe Down Tunnel, and then coming out to cross Tucking Mill Viaduct into Midford.There is also a small reservoir, which is now a fishery for the disabled.

The Anglican Bath Abbey Cemetery, officially dedicated as the Cemetery of St Peter and St Paul (the patron saints that Bath Abbey is dedicated to), was laid out by noted cemetery designer and landscape architect John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843) between 1843 and 1844 on a picturesque hillside site overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. The cemetery was consecrated on 30 January 1844. It was a private Anglican cemetery financed by W. J. Broderick, Rector of Bath Abbey. The layout is a mixture of formal and informal arranged along a central avenue. It features a mortuary chapel, designed by Bath City Architect G. P. Manners in the then fashionable Norman Revival architectural style.

Midford Castle is a folly castle in the village of Midford, and the parish of Southstoke 3 miles (5 km) south of Bath, Somerset, England. The castle was built in 1775 for Henry Disney Roebuck from designs by John Carter in the shape of the "clubs" symbol used in playing cards (♣). It has been suggested, originally in a magazine article in 1899, that he asked for the clubs design to represent an ace of clubs because he had obtained the money for the castle from gambling on a card game, but this is unlikely, as the porch which creates the "stem" of the symbol was added later. It is more likely that the layout was taken from an article which had been published in Builder's Magazine in 1774. The house has a sub triangular or trefoil plan formed by 3 semi-circular towers conjoined in a gothic style. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.In 1810, the castle was bought by one of the Conollys of Castletown House in County Kildare, who added the porch (said to give the clubs symbol its stalk) and built the nearby stables and chapel, known as the priory. The latter fell into disrepair after the last of the Conollys sold the house in 1901.Soon after 1810 Kingham Field, which was part of the estate, was operating as a stone quarry similar to the nearby Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines. William Smith, who became known as "Father of English Geology", proposed conveying the stone by a railway down to Tucking Mill where it would be sawn by machinery, and then loaded on to canal barges and transported via the Somerset Coal Canal and the Kennet and Avon Canal to Bath and London. In April 1814, Smith mortgaged the remainder of his estate to Charles Conolly who then controlled the railway and probably extended it to his Vinegar Down Quarry. The scheme failed and in 1819 Conolly had Smith committed to the King's Bench Prison for debt and took over the sawmill and Smith's house at Tucking Mill.Michael Fenwick Briggs and his wife Isabel (better known by her pen name of Isabel Colegate) bought Midford in 1961 and carried out extensive renovation work; which included incorporating the chapel into the garden as a picturesque ruin.In July 2007, the castle was sold to actor Nicolas Cage for £5 million. Cage sold the castle in 2009.The castle is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England. The castle grounds also include the Grade II listed archway with lodge and screen wall, a pair of gatepiers and gates, and the Grade II* listed group of the stables, old chapel, walls enclosing the stable yard, coach house and greenhouse. The priory 500 yards to the north east of the castle is Grade II listed.

Ralph Allen School in Combe Down, Bath, England, is a co-educational, comprehensive secondary school with academy status. Located on the south-eastern edge of Bath, the school educates 11 to 18-year-olds from Bath and the surrounding area.

St Thomas à Becket Church is a parish church of Widcombe in Bath, Somerset southwest England, and is one of a number of churches named after Thomas Becket. It is a Grade II* listed building.

Widcombe Manor is a grade I listed Georgian house in Widcombe, Bath, England, built in 1656 and then rebuilt in 1727 for Philip Bennet the local MP. The crest of the Bennet family can be seen surmounting the two pedestals at the entrance gates. The manor is located on Church Street adjacent to St Thomas à Becket Church. The house has a south-facing front which is in its original condition. In around 1850, the west front was altered and now includes a bay window and stone balconies at the first floor windows. The fountain in front of the house is Italian and thought to date from the 15th century. It was installed in its present position in the early twentieth century. It is also Grade I listed.The house was home to Horace Annesley Vachell who based his novel Golden House on the property.From 1955, it was the home to the entrepreneur and inventor Jeremy Fry. Princess Margaret and Tony Armstrong-Jones were frequent visitors, and it was the location of the 1972 Widcombe Manor Festival at which Hawkwind were scheduled to play.The façade was closely replicated on a South Australian home by Hennessey Builders in 2000.

Crowe Hall is a Georgian house in Widcombe, Bath, Somerset, England. It is a Grade II listed building, and the gardens are on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.The house was built around 1760 for a Brigadier Crowe. It has since had a succession of owners who each adapted and renovated the building and grounds. A serious fire in 1926 destroyed much of the fabric and further restoration was required. The house is surrounded by several hectares of sloping terraced gardens, below Prior Park, which include a rock garden and grotto.