Who knew that plasticine was invented in Bath?! 'Though Plasticine would become best known as a children’s play material, William Harbutt first concocted it as a serious tool for his adult sculpture students: clay could be hard to work and dried too quickly. So he began experimenting in a makeshift laboratory set up in the basement of the Alfred Street family home. And in 1897 he came up with the winning formula... He patented his recipe in 1899 and, after a period of laborious domestic production involving grooved wooden butter pats to shape the slabs, Harbutt soon geared up to industrial processing in an old flour mill at the Grange, High Street, Bathampton' (here).