Bath Abbey and authenticity

This chapter addresses the complexity of the term “authenticity” within heritage contexts and argues that replicas (counter-intuitively) can play an important role in preserving, enhancing and extending the authenticity of historic objects and surfaces. Explored within the context of changing conditions at Bath Abbey, United Kingdom, replicas are presented as artefacts through which the changed originals can be more deeply understood as authentic objects. Authenticity itself, though, is challenged as a wholly reliable or consistent concept; the value of Ruskin’s term “voicefulness” is introduced as a way of describing the intersection of artefact, its representation and personal experience.