Bath is an amazing city with something for everyone from Roman Ruins to excellent shopping malls, together with museums and an abbey. We stopped here for a couple of hours as part of our Orient Express experience (see opinion) and took a guided tour.
The Roman Baths are a must see. Built around a hot spring which still produces water at 46.5 degrees centigrade, the original Roman building was about 20 feet below the level of the pavement today and has been excavated to reveal a wealth of architecture. The principal feature is the Great Bath which is now open to the elements but which was roofed in Roman times. It is 70 feet long by 30 feet wide and 5 feet deep and is still fed from the spring via Roman plumbing. The original lead lining of the bath remains intact. The statues around the edge of the bath were added in the nineteenth century. There are many rooms to visit showing the various stages of bathing from saunas with underfloor heating to plunge pools. There are displays of archaeological findings discovered during the excavations including the carved head of Minerva and the Gorgon’s head.
Bath Abbey is a building in the Perpendicular Gothic style with a 162-foot high tower. Each of the two west front turrets is decorated with carvings of angels ascending and descending to and from heaven. There are so many windows in the Abbey that it is know locally as the lantern, because of it’s appearance from the surrounding hills during the evening service.
There are any museums in Bath including the Museum of Costume, which is housed in the Assembly Rooms. It traces fashion and dress from the Tudor times right up to modern day. Mind you its a bit strange seeing an outfit in a museum that you actually wore yourself! Other museums include the Postal Museum, the Book Museum, the Building of Bath Museum, the Holbourne Museum and the Victoria Art Gallery and Museum.
The architecture of Bath is Georgian splendour at it’s best and nowhere more so than The Crescent. It was built by John Wood the Younger in the 1770’s and comprises a sweep of 30 houses fronted by 114 massive Ionic columns. No 1 is now a World Heritage Building and has been restored and furnished in late 18th century style with the ‘lived in ‘ feeling of sewing put down and letters left unfinished. There is background music of the period and a kitchen museum of brass and pewter in the basement. Bath also has some lovely parks and gardens including the Sydney Gardens laid out as Bath’s equivalent of the Vauxhall gardens in London, described at the time as ‘the most spacious and beautiful Public Garden in the kingdom’. Jane Austen lived in Sydney Place on the south side of the gardens, with her parents, in her youth.
I have only visited Bath on a couple of occasions so far and never had the time to stay as long as I would like so it remains one of the places I must revisit to see the attractions that I have not yet had a chance to enjoy.
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