Balls and Ordinaries for the Bath Race-goers of 1817

In the press, following the race meeting of 1817, it was reported that:

"The ordinaries were well attended; on Wednesday at York House and at the White Hart on Thursday".

Ordinaries were fixed-price menus laid on for the race-goers. The York House Hotel was in George Street. The building still exists and is still, in part, a hotel. In its heyday, it was one of the country's premier coaching inns.

The White Hart was another huge coaching inn in Stall Street near the Pump Room.

It was further reported that:

"The Ball at the Kingston Rooms on Thursday evening was more numerously attended than any other similar occasion since the first year of the revival of these races."

Racing had restarted in 1811 following a hiatus driven by the financial collapse of 1793 when a fall in property values had driven many businesses and banks into bankruptcy and concerns over the likely outcome of the continental wars.

The Kinston Rooms were the original Lower Rooms situated on the parades. The site is now known as Bog Island. Their name at this time was based on their being part of the estate of the Dukes of Kingston, which had been inherited by Charles Medows, who changed his name to Pierrepont in 1796. In 1806 he was created the first Earl Manvers.

Racing tragedy

Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 14 July 1825

"At the late Lancaster Races, Sir P Musgrave's colt, on pulling up after the third heat for £50 on Tuesday, was found to be a dreadful state, the near hind-foot from the fetlock joint

hanging on merely by a little skin in the front, and the pastern bone and small pastern joint shivered to atoms. The rider found little failure in action about half a mile from home, but the extent of the fracture was not perceptible until he was in the act of pulling up, when within half a neck. The poor animal was immediately put out of his misery."

Sir P Musgrave was Sir Philip Musgrave MP. The Musgraves had been established in Cumberland since the thirteenth. Latterly, this Member’s grandfather Sir Philip Musgrave known as "Mussy" had sat as MP for Westmorland. Philip Musgrave stood for election first at Carlisle in March 1816, where he was described as the ‘young fox hunting baronet’ known for being a devotee of the turf and was attacked as an interloper. [1]

1. http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1820-1832/member/musgrave-sir-philip-1794-1827