Pump Room, The:

The Pump RoomThe Pump Room overlooks the Roman Baths and it remains an elegant place to have tea, but in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey:

“With more than usual eagerness did Catherine hasten to the pump-room the next day, secure within herself of seeing Mr. Tilney there before the morning were over, and ready to meet him with a smile; but no smile was demanded—Mr. Tilney did not appear. Every creature in Bath, except himself, was to be seen in the room at different periods of the fashionable hours; crowds of people were every moment passing in and out, up the steps and down; people whom nobody cared about, and nobody wanted to see; and he only was absent. ‘What a delightful place Bath is,’ said Mrs. Allen as they sat down near the great clock, after parading the room till they were tired; ‘and how pleasant it would be if we had any acquaintance here.’

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