ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORY FOR GREEN STREET

Constructed in 1716 Green Street, which gets its name from being built on the old, Abbey Bowling Green is one of the oldest streets in Bath and has much of the character of a medieval street, with houses differing in height and width as well as in elaboration of adornment.

The south side is dominated by the tall and narrow front of No 14 with its elaborate first and second floor windows, of which there are three to each tier.

Probably its most famous resident was one Dr William Oliver who gave his name to the Bath Oliver Biscuit which he actually prescribed for patients at the Mineral Water Hospital where he was chief physician from its inception in 1740.
Oliver died not long after inventing the biscuit but left the recipe along with 10 sacks of finest wheaten flour and One Hundred Pounds to his coachman, John Atkins who apparently opened a bakery at No 13 Green Street and went on to make his fortune.

The ubiquous biscuit was so famous that by 1800 some 80,000 a day were being baked, the business was expanded by his successor one James Fortt who kept the recipe and also made his fortune.
However the last Bath factory making Bath Oliver's closed in 1963 and the biscuits are now made in Reading with the true recipe of this fermented biscuit probably long lost but never less still sold and enjoyed worldwide with a reference to Fortt's on the packet.

So famous became these biscuits, a late 19th century Punch cartoon even depicted a Dingy Bohemian stating “I want a Bath Oliver” with his Immaculate Servitor replying “My name is not Oliver Sir”!

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