In the book by Brian Rayfield the original “Sally Lunn” building plays a small but vital part.  To recap the book has two parallel time streams: Penny and Edward Peverell are existing in a world of the 1st Civil War c 1645 while John Townsend and Judith Ransom live their lives in the present day. Places such as Peverell House and Sally Lunn’s in the City of Bath, that exist in both time streams, enable Penny and John to meet, make physical [very physical!] contact and love each other across the centuries.

In this short piece I give a potted history of the pie shop/bakery that became ‘Sally Lunns’ and where Penny and John meet up. 

The lower levels of the site date back to Roman times and it appears to have been used for baking and cooking – possibly in association with the nearby Roman Baths.  After the Roman age passes a medieval Benedictine monastery dominated the area with the site being a refectory or dormitory.  Again, times changed. Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the Abbey Cathedral survived but the surrounding buildings were redeveloped.  A three story timber framed house was built as part of what became Lilliput Alley in1622 and is soon being recorded as a bakery and pie shop. In my book ‘Exchange of Love’ John comes back to Penny’s time to comfort her when she is seeking refuge from her husband Edward.

During this period “tourists” were already coming to Bath for its hot springs and other less healthy amusements such as gambling and whoring. As John mentions, one off-putting aspect of Bath streets at the time would have been copious deposits of horses’ dung and flies in the narrow streets and lanes.  Eating ‘on the hoof’ would have been far from pleasant!

Sometime after Penny and Edward’s time Sally Lunn arrives and the Bath bun is born.  Later still, during the early 1700 ‘s, much of ancient and medieval Bath was swept away during the redevelopment into a fashionable spa town.  As part of this much of the town was levelled for genteel walking between the Squares and Crescents we see today. Apart from the Abbey, one of the few buildings to survive was the current Sally Lunns.  With the street outside raised slightly above first floor level [you need to step down to enter] the bakery area of Sally Lunns became effectively a cellar.

In 1670 a book, ‘The Queen-Like Closet’ by  Hannah Woolley, gives a good insight of the food generally available to more well off people like Penny and Edward.  It is unlikely that Sally Lunn would have sold elaborate dishes such as Pond Pie as it was presumably a baking and pie shop but bread, pies, pasties and the like would have been sold to ‘take out’ or ‘eat in’ (no VAT!).  In addition street traders like the real Sally Lunn would be selling these items from baskets to ‘tourists’ of the time. 

For a full account of the history of Sally Lunns I can recommend their website.   Better still pay them a visit and view the cellar museum before trying a bun in a far more salubrious atmosphere than John and Penny would have experienced.