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Selected text from:-
'A Celebration of Bath Academy of Art at Corsham'
edited by Derek Pope
"...describes the establishment of this unique residential art school based at Corsham Court from 1946 - 1986, after which it was merged to make a larger institution in Bath. With original contributions and recollections of many ex-students and staff who recount memories of Corsham and the effects of living and working in such a particular environment..."
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From a transcripted interview featured in the book, Clifford Ellis was asked,
"How did you get to Corsham, how did you come to go there?".
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"It was one of those flukes which doesn't occur very often. I had been offered a job which was always thought of as a key job in my profession and it seemed a shame to abandon what we had started in Bath so it was a matter of finding somewhere in Bath with a bit more space than we had got then at Sydney Place and I realised that as people were beginning to come back from the war, anything that could be used as housing was going to be used as housing. Then it occurred to me that if we were going to be a residential art college we could do that just as well outside Bath as in it, so I made a mental note of likely places and Corsham Court was top of the list. I telephoned Lord Methuen and asked him what he was going to do when he got rid of the convalescent hospital from Corsham Court and he said he wished he knew, so we arranged to meet the next day and in those few hours of optimism when the war ended, the whole thing was fixed up in something like a week. It couldn't have been done earlier and it couldn't have been done later. So we offered ourselves as a place for students to come the following September, and they came, and we started".
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The book was first published in 1997 ISBN: 095317770X.
Copies of the book are still available to buy and now at a discounted price
please contact Margaret Pope via Chris Waltho for details
A digital copy of the book is below, it is the only definitive insight on BAA:-
A Celebration of Bath Academy of Art by Derek Pope  (34MB)
Derek Pope died peacefully at home on Saturday the 1st of February 2003.
He was associated with the Academy as a student, lecturer and Principal from 1950 - 1985.
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