170 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



Copyright. 



"Country Life, 



THE NORTH COLLEGE. 



Copyright. 



THE SOUTH COLLEGE. 



"Country Life.' 



Copyright 



THE CARRIAGE DRIVE. 



1 Cuu/ury L.IJC." 



mnrri'd. In 1745 hi s enthu- 

 siasm led him to form a corps 

 of Bath City Volunteers at 

 liis own expense. He very 

 so >n rose to be Deputy- Post- 

 master, and, having long been 

 convinced of the fatuity of 

 a postal arrangement which 

 might send a. letter from Bath 

 to Worcester round by way of 

 London, he set himself to 

 devise a system of cross- 

 country posts, which were 

 officially approved. His 

 scheme was adopted in April, 

 1720. Allen at once became a 

 "farmer" of these posts, and 

 it is stated that from 1720 

 up to 1764, when he died, his 

 profits on the business were 

 not less than ,12,000 a year. 

 He also turned his attention 

 to the development of the rich 

 mineral resources of Bath, 

 and, by opening quarries at 

 Combe Down, became a great 

 employer of labour, and very 

 popular in the locality. Thus 

 did Ralph Allen make himself 

 so prominent a man in the 

 West of England that he was 

 known as the " Man of Bath." 

 Once he was Mayor of the 

 city ; but he seems always to 

 have ruled the affairs of the 

 municipality, and there is 

 a caricature representing 

 him as the "One-headed 

 Corporation." 



Ten years after Mr. Allen 

 had introduced his cross- 

 country posts he set about the 

 work of building his splendid 

 mansion out of the stone which 

 he quarried. His lotty ideas 

 confounded the architect, John 

 Wood, to whose taste Bath 

 owes so much, but he was able 

 to carry them out in the form 

 in which we see them to-day. 

 Here he enjoyed his leisure in 

 beautifying the place and in 

 laying out and planting the 

 grounds. He had another house 

 at Bathampton, and he built 

 that picturesque tower known 

 as "Sham Castle," which 

 stands on a hill south-east of 

 Bath. 



We have so far seen only 

 one side of Ralph Allen's 

 character that of the shrewd 

 man of business. But the 

 prosperous postmaster was 

 filled with the spirit of muni- 

 ficence, and hefreely disbursed 

 of his plenty for the alleviation 

 of the distressed. It is said 

 that he never expended less 

 than 1,000 a year in charity, 

 and he did mu:h for the Bath 

 Hospital, and encased St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital in 

 London with stone. He was 

 greatly esteemed by all his 

 contemporaries, and Prior 



