MDDM Ch.21 the Octagon

[JL]

jbor :
>213.5 "Met this Herschel fella at the Octagon Chapel" Herschel, as we know,
>was the one who officially discovered Uranus. He visited England in 1755 as
>oboist in the Hanoverian Guards band; in 1766 he became an organist and
>music teacher at Bath.


i spent several schoolyears within a hundred yards or so of the octagon.
in those days (mid-1970s) it was a sadly neglected dump but a couple of
hundred years earlier it was the favoured place of worship for visitors
to the fair city. quite likely then that a tourist might strike up
conversation with the organist there.

not really a building, incidentally, more like a roofed courtyard or
'hollow centre' between buildings, lit from above (but even i can't
stretch to analogy with a rifle barrel). frequented by Jane Austen in
her time and featured, i believe, in _Northanger Abbey_ and/or _Persuasion_.
it has now been converted to a gallery and museum of the Royal Photographic
Society.

another west-of-england public service announcement.

JL
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  climbing up on solsbury hill
  i could see the city lights.
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