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Buildings and architecture of Bath

Coordinates: 51°22′N 2°21′W / 51.367°N 2.350°W / 51.367; -2.350
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City of Bath
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Aerial view over northern Bath from a hot air balloon. The famous Royal Crescent is in the centre.
CriteriaCultural: i, ii, iv
Reference428
Inscription1987 (11th Session)

Bath is a city in Somerset, in the south west of England. All significant stages of the history of England are represented within the city, from the Roman Baths (including their significant Celtic presence), to Bath Abbey and the Royal Crescent, to Thermae Bath Spa in the 2000s.

Most of Bath's buildings are made from the local golden-coloured Bath Stone. The dominant architectural style is Georgian,[1] which evolved from the Palladian revival style that became popular during the early 18th century. During the 18th century became a fashionable and popular spa and social centre based initially around the hot springs, which led to a demand for substantial houses and guest houses. The key architects John Wood the elder and his son John Wood the younger laid out many of the squares and crescents which give the city it's current plan.

The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987 largely due to it architectural history,[2] which has helped it to become a major tourist destination.

Celtic and Roman

Photograph of the Baths showing a rectangular area of greenish water surrounded by yellow stone buildings with pillars. In the background is the tower of the abbey.
The Great Bath at the Roman Baths. The entire structure above the level of the pillar bases is a later reconstruction.

There are many Roman archaeological sites throughout the central area of the city, but most of them are around 15 feet (4.6 m) below the present city street level.

The Roman Baths were built around hot springs, the only ones naturally occurring in the United Kingdom,[3] during the Roman occupation of Britain in AD 43. Verbal tradition,[4] and some archaeological evidence, suggests the main spring was treated as a shrine by the Celts.[5] It was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva; however, the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town's Roman name of Aquae Sulis (literally, "the waters of Sulis").[6] Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the Sacred Spring by archaeologists.[7] These curse tablets were written in Latin, and usually laid curses on people by whom the writer felt they had been wronged. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he would write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the Goddess Sulis Minerva.

Foundation piles and an irregular stone chamber lined with lead still remain.[8][9] The temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.[3] During the Roman occupation of Britain, and possibly on the instructions of Emperor Claudius,[10] engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted building,[5] which housed the calidarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath).[11] All the stonework above the level of the baths is from more recent periods.[2][12]

The city was given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century.[13] After the Roman withdrawal in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up.[14]

Post-Roman and Saxon

The Anglo-Saxons called the town Baðum, Baðan or Baðon, meaning "at the baths," and this was the source of the present name.[15] In 675, Osric, King of the Hwicce, set up a monastic house at Bath, probably using the walled area as its precinct.[16] The Anglo-Saxon poem known as The Ruin may describe the appearance of the Roman site about this time. King Offa of Mercia gained control of this monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, which was dedicated to St. Peter.[17] By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern had been lost and Bath had become a royal possession, with King Alfred laying out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct.[18]

Norman, Medieval, Tudor and Stuart

Yellow stone building with large arched windows and a tower.
Bath Abbey From The Roman Baths Gallery

King William Rufus granted the city to a royal physician, John of Tours, who became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath in 1088.[19][20] John of Tours planned a new cathedral on a grand scale, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but only the ambulatory was complete when he died in December 1122.[21] The half-finished cathedral was devastated by fire in 1137,[22] but work continued until about 1156; the completed building was approximately 330 feet (101 m) long.

Interior of large building with a stained glass window at the far end. Above is a fan vault ceiling and on either side rows of arches. People standing at the bottom of the picture dwarfed by the height of the ceiling.
Fan vaulting over the nave at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. Made from local Bath stone, this is a Victorian restoration (made in the 1860s) of the original roof from 1608

By the 15th century, Bath's abbey church was badly dilapidated and in need of repairs.[23][24] Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided in 1500 to rebuild it on a smaller scale. It is in a late Perpendicular style with flying buttresses and crocketed pinnacles decorating a crenellated and pierced parapet.[25][26][27] The new church was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII.[28] Major restoration work was carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s, funded by the rector, Charles Kemble. The choir and transepts have a fan vault by Robert and William Vertue, in the 1860s, completing the original roof from 1608.[29][30] The nave was given a matching vault in the 19th century.[31] The building is lit by 52 windows.[32]

The medieval era is represented by the remains of the city walls in Upper Borough Walls.[33] There are no other surviving buildings from this period.

King Edward's School opened in the city in the 16th century and used a building in Broad Street from 1754.[34]

Several areas of the city underwent development during the Stuart period, in response to the increasing number of visitors to the spa and resort town who required accommodation.[35] Areas on the south side of the River Avon such as Widcombe were originally seperate settlements but became subsumed into the city. The St Thomas à Becket Church was built between 1490 and 1498 by John Cantlow, Prior of Bath Abbey and took the place of an older Norman church.[36][37] It is believed that there was originally a Saxon chapel on the site. The church was commonly called Old Widcombe Church and used to be the principal church of the parishes of Widcombe and Lyncombe. The Domesday survey of 1086 shows a small settlement around the church although no trace of it remains.[38] In 1847 a much larger church, St Matthews, was built in Widcombe parish. On 22 April 1847, it was announced that the church bells, which had for centuries been in the tower of St. Thomas à Becket, were to be removed and installed in the new St. Matthew's.[39] Widcombe Manor was originally built in 1656[40] and then rebuilt in 1727 for Philip Bennet the local MP.[41] The crest of the Bennet family can be seen surmounting the two pedestals at the entrance gates.[42]

Thomas Guidott, who had been a student of chemistry and medicine at Wadham College Oxford, moved to Bath and set up practice in 1668. He became interested in the curative properties of the waters and he wrote A discourse of Bathe, and the hot waters there. Also, Some Enquiries into the Nature of the water in 1676. This brought the health-giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the attention of the country and soon the aristocracy started to arrive to partake in them.[43]

Distance photograph showing rows and crescents of yellow stone buildings. Several tress and hills in the background.
Aerial view over northern Bath from a hot air balloon. The Royal Crescent is in the centre.

The early 18th century the central area around the Abbey was expanded including the Abbey Church Yard which contained Marshal Wade's House,[44] which was built for George Wade who was a Field Marshal and served as a British military commander and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, as well as Member of Parliament for Bath from 1722 to 1747, and Trim Street,[45][46][47] which was named after George Trim who owned the land.[48] Number 5, which is also known as General Wolfe's house, is a 2 storey building with a parapet and rusticated quoins, built by Thomas Greenway. The doorway has Ionic pilasters and a tympanum decorated with the implements of war. General James Wolfe was staying in the house when William Pitt, the elder commanded him to lead an expedition to Quebec.[49]

In 1716 the architect William Killigrew was commissioned to rebuild St John's Hospital which was founded around 1180, by Bishop Reginald Fitz Jocelin and is among the oldest almshouses in England.[50] Construction continued after 1727 with John Wood, the Elder undertaking the building, as his first work in Bath, when he was aged 23.

Georgian

The dominant style of architecture in Central Bath is Georgian;[51] this evolved from the Palladian revival style which became popular in the early 18th century. Many of the prominent architects of the day were employed in the development of the city. The original purpose of much of Bath's architecture is concealed by the honey-coloured classical façades; in an era before the advent of the luxury hotel, these apparently elegant residences were frequently purpose-built lodging houses, where visitors could hire a room, a floor, or (according to their means) an entire house for the duration of their visit, and be waited on by the house's communal servants.[52]

Semicular terrace of honey coloured stone buildings with matching doors and windows.
The Circus consists of three long, curved terraces designed by the elder John Wood to form a circular space or theatre intended for civic functions and games. It was inspired by the Colosseum in Rome.[1]

The architects John Wood the elder and his son John Wood the younger laid out the new quarters in streets and squares, the identical façades of which gave an impression of palatial scale and classical decorum.[53] Much of the creamy gold Bath stone which was used for construction throughout the city, was obtained from the limestone Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines, which were owned by Ralph Allen (1694–1764).[54] Allen, in order to advertise the quality of his quarried limestone, commissioned the elder John Wood to build him a country house on his Prior Park estate between the city and the mines,[54] replacing his Town House.[55][56]

Queen Square was the first speculative development by John Wood, the Elder who lived in one of the houses. [57][58] Queen Square was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the finest Palladian compositions in England before 1730".[59] The west side (numbers 14 - 18 and 18A, 19 & 20) was designed by John Pinch in 1830 and differs from Wood's original design as the central block is in Neo-Grecian style.[60] 16-18 is now occupied by the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI). The south side (numbers 5-13) which was originally left open and is now occupied by a hotel.[61] The obelisk in the centre of the square was erected by Beau Nash in 1738.[62]

The Circus is seen as the pinnacle of Wood's work. It consists of three long, curved terraces designed by the elder John Wood to form a circular space or theatre intended for civic functions and games. The games give a clue to the design, the inspiration behind which was the Colosseum in Rome.[1] Like the Colosseum, the three façades have a different order of architecture on each floor: Doric on the ground level, then Ionic on the piano nobile and finishing with Corinthian on the upper floor, the style of the building thus becoming progressively more ornate as it rises.[1]

Gay Street links Queen Square to The Circus. It was designed by John Wood, the Elder in 1735 and completed by his son John Wood, the Younger. The houses are of 3 storeys with Mansard roofs, with many also having Ionic columns. Hester Thrale, who was also known as Mrs Piozzi, lived at number 8, with its 4 Corinthian pilasters on the ground and 1st floors in 1781.[63] Number 41 is on the corner between Gay Street and Queen Square. It was the home of John Wood, the Younger.[64] The Jane Austen Centre is at number 40, although Jane Austen actually lived at number 25.

Busy shopping street of yellow stone buildings.
Milsom Street looking downhill to the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases.

One of the main shopping streets is now Milsom Street, which was built in 1762 by Thomas Lightholder. The buildings were originally grand town houses with mansard roofs and Corintian columns. [65][66] The bank at number 24 was built by Wilson and Willcox and includes baroque detail not seen on the other buildings.[67] Numbers 37 to 42 which are known as Somersetshire Buildings have been designated as Grade I listed buildings.[68] The Octagon Chapel was a place of worship,[69] when it was built in 1767, then a furniture shop by Mallett Antiques and is now a restaurant.[70] Milsom street leads up hill, from the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, which was founded in 1738 as The Mineral Water Hospital,[71] to The Paragon which overlooks the Walcot area. The Paragon was designed by Thomas Warr Attwood.[72] Each building has matching doors and widows with central pediments and flat entablatures either side of the 1st floor windows and Tuscan pilasters and pediments to the doorways.[73] Numbers 22 to 37 continue the theme from numbers 1 to 21 and were completed in 1775 by Joseph Axford, a local mason. Numbers 28 to 32 were damaged by bombing during World War II but have since been restored.[74] St Swithin's Church was built between 1779 and 1790 by John Palmer.[75] The church house which forms number 38 The Paragon was built in the early 18th century.[76] The adjoining cemetery has gates with a rusticated base and panels with inverted torches between pilasters. There is an entablature with metopes and triglyphs.[77]

Water in the foreground reflecting an arched bridge of honey coloured stone.
The neoclassical architect Robert Adam designed Pulteney Bridge, using as the prototype for the three-arched bridge spanning the Avon an original, but unused, design by Palladio for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.[78]

Around 1770 the neoclassical architect Robert Adam designed Pulteney Bridge, using as the prototype for the three-arched bridge spanning the Avon an original, but unused, design by Palladio for the Rialto Bridge in Venice.[78] Thus, Pulteney Bridge became not just a means of crossing the river, but also a shopping arcade. Along with the Rialto Bridge, is one of the very few surviving bridges in Europe to serve this dual purpose.[78] It has been substantially altered since it was built. The bridge was named after Frances and William Pulteney, the owners of the Bathwick estate for which the bridge provided a link to the rest of Bath.[78]

The best known of Bath's terraces is the Royal Crescent, built between 1767 and 1774 and designed by the younger John Wood.[79] But all is not what it seems; while Wood designed the great curved façade of what appears to be about 30 houses with Ionic columns on a rusticated ground floor, that was the extent of his input. Each purchaser bought a certain length of the façade, and then employed their own architect to build a house to their own specifications behind it; hence what appears to be two houses is sometimes one. This system of town planning is betrayed at the rear of the crescent: while the front is completely uniform and symmetrical, the rear is a mixture of differing roof heights, juxtapositions and fenestration.[80] This "Queen Anne fronts and Mary-Anne backs" architecture occurs repeatedly in Bath.[81]

The other crescents which give Bath its architectural identity include: Camden Crescent which was built by John Eveleigh in 1788,[82] and damaged by a landslide in 1889,[83] Lansdown Crescent, designed by John Palmer and constructed by a variety of builders between 1789 and 1793,[84] and Somerset Place for which the facades were designed by the architect John Eveleigh who went bankrupt during the building, which started in 1790 but was not completed until the 1820s.[85] Some of Somerset Crescent was destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt as student accommodation in the 1950s and 1960s. It used to form part of the campus of Bath Spa University, but has since been sold.[86]

The area of North Parade South Parade, Pierrepont and Duke Streets, was part of a wider scheme to build a Royal Forum, similar to Queen Square, which was never completed. Wood designed the facade, of Bath stone, after which a variety of builders completed the work with different interiors and rear elevations. Many of the buildings are now hotels and shops whilst some remain as private residences.[87] The 3 storey house at Number 1 North Parade was the home of John Palmer, who owned the Theatre Royal, Bath and was instigator of the British system of mail coaches that was the beginning of the British post office.[88] Number 9 North Parade is connected with Wordsworth and number 11 was home to Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith, of the literary Club, in 1771.[89] North Parade Bridge was built almost 100 years later in 1836 by William Tierney Clark. His original bridge was made of cast iron on stone abutments, with lodges and staircases. This was rebuilt in 1936 completely in stone.[90] Many of the buildings in South Parade are now hotels and restaurants whilst some remain as private residences.[91] The area which Wood envisaged as an area of sunken gardens matching the houses is now a car park.[92] Numbers 1, 2 and 3 (which became Farrell's Hotel and now includes the Qube nightclub[93]) and numbers 4 to 8 (which became the 46 room Pratt's Hotel[94]) form a 3 storey terrace with a double break at the centre. There is a central pediment and balustraded parapet and the central door has Ionic columns. Number 6 was associated with Sir Walter Scott in 1775.[95] On the southern side of the road is the Roman Catholic St John's Church, which was designed and built between 1861 and 1863 by Charles Francis Hansom[96] who added the 222 foot (68 metre) spire in 1867.

A long street of matching houses built from honey coloured stone.
A view down Great Pulteney Street, which was commissioned by Sir William Pulteney, towards the Holburne Museum of Art. It was designed by the architect Thomas Baldwin and completed in 1789.[97]

The heart of the Georgian city were Wood's Assembly Rooms,[98] and the Pump Room, which, together with its associated Lower Assembly Rooms, was designed by Thomas Baldwin, a local builder responsible for many other buildings in the city, including the terraces in Argyle Street,[99] the Guildhall,[100] and the The Cross Bath[101] and Royal Baths Treatment Centre in Bath Street.[102] Baldwin rose rapidly, becoming a leader in Bath's architectural history.[99] Great Pulteney Street, where Baldwin eventually lived, is another of his works: this wide boulevard, constructed c. 1789 and over 1,000 feet (305 m) long and 100 feet (30 m) wide, leading from Laura Place is lined on both sides by Georgian terraces.[97][103]

At the end of Great Pulteney Street is the Holburne Museum of Art which was originally designed as the Sydney Hotel, and was built by Charles Harcourt Masters in 1795–6.[104] It on Sydney Place and within the Sydney Pleasure Gardens which stretch from the road to the Kennet and Avon Canal. Next to the church of St Mary the Virgin is Bathwick Hill which leads up to Claverton Down, including Claverton Manor which was built in the 1820s[105] and is now home to the American Museum in Britain[106] and the University of Bath.

The early 18th century saw Bath acquire its first purpose-built theatre, the Theatre Royal, along with the Grand Pump Room attached to the Roman Baths and assembly rooms. Master of Ceremonies Beau Nash, who presided over the city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761, drew up a code of behaviour for public entertainments.[107]

The population of the city had reached 40,020 by the time of the 1801 census, making it one of the largest cities in Britain, which was expanding up the surrounding hills.[108] William Thomas Beckford bought a house in Lansdown Crescent in 1822, eventually buying a further two houses in the crescent to form his residence. Having acquired all the land between his home and the top of Lansdown Hill, north of the city centre, he created a garden over half a mile in length and built Beckford's Tower at the top.[109] Part of Beckfords estate was later used by Kingswood School. To the west Partis College was built in the Newbridge area as a large block of almshouses between 1825 and 1827.[110] It was founded by Ann and Fletcher Partis for women "who had been left in reduced circumstances", and still provides accommodation, in 30 terraced houses set around three sides of a quadrangle, for women, aged over 50 in membership of the Church of England.[111] In 1862, George Gilbert Scott redesigned the original chapel,[111] which had been built by Goodrich.[110]

Wide image of a symmetrical semicircular terrace of yellow stone buildings. Grass in the foreground.
A panoramic view of the Royal Crescent

Late modern

Cast rion bridges over water, with a yellow stone building under which passes the canal tunnel
Cleveland House and the cast iron bridges of Sydney Gardens

In 1810 the Kennet and Avon Canal opened linking the River Avon at Bath to Reading. Bath Locks mark the divergence of the River Avon and the canal, 656 yards (600 m) south of Pulteney Bridge.[112] Alongside the bottom lock are a side pound and a pumping station that pumps water up the locks to replace that used each time the lock is opened.[113] The next stage of Bath Deep Lock is numbered 8/9 as two locks were combined when the canal was restored in 1976.[114] The new chamber has a depth of 19 feet 5 inches (5.92 metres), making it Britain's deepest canal lock.[115][116] Just above the 'deep lock' is an area of water enabling the lock to refill and above this is Wash House Lock,[117] followed by Abbey View Lock,[118] by which there is another pumping station and, in quick succession, Pultney Lock and Bath Top Lock.[119] Above the top lock the canal passes through Sydney Gardens including two short tunnels[120][121] and under two cast iron footbridges dating from 1800. Cleveland tunnel is 173 feet (53 metres) long and runs under Cleveland House, the former headquarters of the Kennet and Avon Canal Company. A trap-door in the tunnel roof was used to pass paperwork between clerks above and bargees below.[122][123] Many of the bridges over the canal are also listed buildings.[124][125][126][127][128][129]

'The New Bridge at Bathwick' (1830 engraving by FP Hay)

As the size of the city and numbers of visitors grew new facilities opened. Cleveland Pools in Hampton Row, is a semi-circular lido built, by John Pinch, around 1814.[130] It is believed to be the oldest surviving public outdoor swimming pools in England.[131] The Corridor is one of the world's earliest retail arcades, designed by architect Henry Goodridge and built in 1825, with a glass roof. The High Street end has a Doric colonnade. Each end has marble columns.[132] A musicians gallery, with a wrought iron balustrade and gilt lions heads and garlands, is in the centre of the arcade.[133] Cleveland Bridge was built in 1826 by William Hazledine with Henry Goodridge as the architect.[134] St Michael's Church was rebuilt between 1835 and 1837 and St. Stephen's Church built in Walcot. by James Wilson, between 1840 and 1845.[135] The Bear Flat area south of the city centre was started by the Georgians but the main estate of Poets Corner is late Victorian and Edwardian.

Yellow stone building with columns to first floor, partially obscured by trees.
Green Park Station, from James Street West

The opening of the Great Western Railway in 1841 removed much of the canal's traffic, and in 1852 the railway company took over its running. Bath Spa railway station is the principal railway station in Bath. It was built in 1840 by Brunel.[136]. It is in an asymmetrical Tudor style with curving gables, and lies on the north bank of the Avon, with the line swerving elegantly across from the southern bank to the station and then back again. Green Park railway station opened in 1870 as the terminus of Midland Railway's Mangotsfield and Bath Branch Line. For some of its life, it was known as Bath Queen Square. It includes a vaulted glass roof in a single-span wrought iron arch structure. The station is on the north bank of the River Avon, and trains crossed a bridge immediately outside it. When the Somerset & Dorset Railway completed its Bath extension line in 1874, they connected into the Midland line at Bath Junction, a half mile outside the station, and in friendly co-operation with the Midland company they used the station. It became Bath Green Park under British Railways in 1954, and still bears that name today. Parts of the distinctive glass roof were damaged during bombing raids in April 1942, and the glazing was not re-instated during railway usage after the war. Ordinary services were local trains to Bristol St Philips and Clifton Down, later to Bristol Temple Meads, and S&D trains to Templecombe and beyond. Following the Beeching Report, passenger trains ceased from 1966 and the last goods train ran in 1971. In the 1980s the rail approaches to the station were redeveloped as a major supermarket opened in December 1982, and the station itself is used as a pedestrian passageway to and from the city; there are a number of small shop units in the former station buildings. Green Park continues to be home to a Sainsbury's supermarket and a number of other shops and retail outlets. The former booking hall is now Green Park Brasserie. The old station building is used as a market hall, with some permanent stalls and boutiques and a farmers' market every Saturday. It occasionally acts as a venue for music and arts events and other performances and displays.

Yellow stone triangular building with four columns above the semicircular entrance.
The Forum

In the 1920s and 1930s Bath's architectural traditions combined with an art deco style in buildings such as The Forum which opened as a 2000 seat cinema in 1934, and has since been converted into a church and concert venue.[137][138] The Royal United Hospital opened in the Weston suburb, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the city centre in 1932.

During World War II, between the evening of 25 April and the early morning of 27 April 1942, Bath suffered three air raids in reprisal for RAF raids on the German cities of Lübeck and Rostock, part of the Luftwaffe campaign popularly known as the Baedeker Blitz. Over 400 people were killed, and more than 19,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed.[139] Houses in the Royal Crescent, Circus and Paragon were burnt out along with the Assembly Rooms, while part of the south side of Queen Square was destroyed.[140]

A postwar review of inadequate housing led to the clearance and redevelopment of large areas of the city in a postwar style, often at varience with the Georgian style of the city. In the 1950s the nearby villages of Combe Down, Twerton and Weston were incorporated into Bath to enable the development of further housing, much of it council housing such as the Whiteway estate. In the 1970s and 1980s it was recognised that conservation of historic buildings was inadequate, leading to more care and reuse of buildings and open spaces. In 1987 the city was selected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognising its international cultural significance.[141]

Thermae Bath Spa: the main building by Grimshaw Architects

In the 1960s and early 1970s the way in which some parts of Bath were redeveloped, resulting in the loss of some 18th- and 19th-century buildings, led to a popular campaign to change the way the city was developing, which drew strength from the publication of Adam Fergusson's The Sack of Bath.[142].

Since 2000, developments have included the Bath Spa, SouthGate and the Bath Western Riverside project.[143]

Controversy has continued in recent years with the demolition of the 1930s Churchill House, a neo-Georgian municipal building originally housing the Electricity Board, to make way for the new Bath Bus Station. The was part of the Southgate redevelopment begun in 2007 in which the central 1960s shopping precinct, bus station and multi-story carpark were demolished and a new area of mock-Georgian shopping streets is being constructed.[144][145] As a result of the changes the city's status as a World Heritage Site was reviewed by Unesco in 2009.[146] The decision was made let Bath keep its status, but Unesco has asked to be consulted on future phases of the Riverside development,[147] saying that the density volume of buildings in the second and third phases of the development need to be reconsidered.[148] It also says that Bath must do more to attract world-class architecture to any new developments.[148]

Tourism

Grass in the foreground of an arched honey coloured bridge over water. In the background is a view of tress and multiple buildings to hills in the distance.
The view over Prior Park Landscape Garden towards the city, including the Palladian bridge, which was built around 1743[149]

One of Bath's principal industries is tourism, with more than one million staying visitors and 3.8 million day visitors to the city on an annual basis.[150] The visits mainly fall into the categories of heritage tourism and cultural tourism, aided by the city's selection in 1987 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognising its international cultural significance.[141] The size of the tourist industry is reflected in the almost 300 places of accommodation – including over 80 hotels, and over 180 bed and breakfasts – many of which are located in Georgian buildings.

The history of the city is displayed at the Building of Bath Museum which is housed in a building which was built in 1765 as the Trinity Presbyterian Church. It was also known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, as she lived in the attached house from 1707–1791.[151]

Media

Many films and television programmes have been filmed using the architecture of Bath as the backdrop including: the 2004 film of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, The Duchess (2008), The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953).[152]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bath.

References

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51°22′N 2°21′W / 51.367°N 2.350°W / 51.367; -2.350

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