Why are we obscuring the city's best view?
It's changed a bit since Miss Austen's day, of course. Until the late 19th century, the slopes of Beechen Cliff were grazed by horses and donkeys and much of it was treeless.
About a century ago, it was acquired by the corporation, who set about smartening it up. Inspired by the cliff walks at Bournemouth, they planted pines and rhododendrons. They created two viewing platforms with seats and installed a toposcope so that visitors could identify buildings and other features. They even toyed with the idea of building a cliff railway up to Alexandra Park.
The prospect from Beechen Cliff is one of the great urban panoramas, on a par with the view of Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat, and the only place that commands a view of the whole of the World Heritage Site.
But I suspect that most of the visitors who toil up Beechen Cliff are more than a little disappointed when they get there. The slopes below them, laid out with such care a century ago, are sadly neglected. Instead of pines and beech trees, ash and sycamore predominate, with brambles filling in the spaces in between.
The viewpoints now look out onto undergrowth, ivy grows over the toposcope, the steps to the summit get more uneven and dangerous every year.
I understand that the UNESCO team, who will shortly be visiting the city to assess its world heritage status, are aware of the state of Beechen Cliff. What they will make of it, should they decide to see it for themselves, is anyone's guess. The view from Beechen Cliff should be one of the city's top visitor attractions. Instead it's unloved and forgotten.
A fraction of the £200,000 that the council recently threw at a struggling art gallery could have been used to regenerate a panorama immortalised by the city's most famous resident. That such a supreme natural asset should be so neglected is a sad reflection on the priorities of the custodians of the World Heritage Site.
DR ANDREW SWIFT Minster Way Bath
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