The Bath Panorama and Roger Hallett
a portrayal in oil paint and sculpture as seen from a hot air balloon
Roger Hallett was teaching on a painting holiday in Holland when he came upon the beutifully preserved Mesdag Panorama in Scheveningen. On that day, he determined to create a panorama of Bath, capturing the 360 degree view of the Georgian city as seen from a road circling Alexandra Park or Beechen Cliff as it is known locally.
The focal point of the Bath panorama was to be the basket of a hot air balloon some 50ft. above Alexandra Park. It was in this basket on the 14th of October, 1983, while making the studies of the panorama, that the story really begins.
Photographs taken from the balloon were pieced together to reproduce the view that was seen and squares were drawn over its entire area. This meant that the view could be interpreted by an artist to any ....... at all by making the squares of the dimensions to fit the canvas.

Most of the existing panoramas in the world are larger than that of Bath by perhaps 3 or 4 times the area. You have to remember that that was the mass entertainment media of the day when it was invented. It was the forerunner of the cinema and now, of television, and everybody would have gone for instance to see what it was like to be 'present' at a battle for example, or to live a deeply religious experience.

The Battle of Waterloo was painted after the event, and has been housed in its own Panorama building at Waterloo close to the site of the battle since it was painted, and is still on public display.
Mersday's Panorama of Scheveningen was neither a battle nor a religious theme, it was simply a beach scene with a small town famed only for its fishing. It was ordinary, but challenging in its own sight as the subject for an artist.

Panorama paintings encapsulate the spectator within the art work where nothing else is visible at the sides and the roof has a canopy which prevents any relationship to the outside world. Even the foreground becomes mixed with sculptured effects to give the feeling that you are actually 'there' ! For this reason the painting of Bath had to be at the very minimum of the dimensions that were chosen...
Length of canvas :70 meters Heigth of canvas : 7 meters Area of canvas : 490sq.meters


As it was not possible to find a studio of sufficient size to accomodate the canvas of the Bath panorama in its entirety; the room chosen was only capable of a quarter of its length presented on the arc of the complete circle. The heigth of 7 metres was governed by the roof trusses in this room and an arc constructed from which a quarter of the canvas could be hung and painted at any one time.
At each end of the arc was a 'spindle', one which housed the unpainted and virgin canvas which then hung on the arc and wound onto the second spindle when painted. This was done four times , winding on the canvas as one does the film in a camera until the whole work was completed.

Each quarter took a year to paint and the artist worked with a 'limited palette', that is just a few colours with their combinations.It was four years between the first few meters and the last few meters, and the colours had to match exactly without being able to be seen during that time.
Because it was envisaged that tourists would sometimes arrive by coach and such a vehicle can carry 60 people, it was necessary to make a viewing platform capable of this capacity at any one time. The painting had to be 10 meters from the spectator at the very minimum to have the effect of the 'all round view' that was wanted.


Creating the Panorama of Bath was a project that took the artist five years of work. It was first exhibited on London's South Banh for six months and later at the Thames Barrier in Woolwich for nearly ten years.
Views of the finished Bath panorama