Bath, the UNESCO spa city

Bath is one of the most beautiful cities in England and the only one listed in its entirety as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its hot springs, the only ones in Britain, drew the Celts and the Romans, who built a great bathing complex that can still be clearly read today, and in the 18th century made it the most elegant spa in the kingdom, where the aristocracy came to take the cure, dance, gamble and find a husband. From that era survives a city of honey-coloured stone, with crescent-shaped terraces, circular squares and a bridge lined with shops, that seems to have stepped out of a novel by Jane Austen, the writer who lived here and set some of her stories in the city. A quarter of an hour by train from Bristol and under an hour and a half from London, Bath makes a delightful visit of one or two days.

Bath at a glance

The city has about 95,000 inhabitants and lies in a valley of the River Avon, among the hills of Somerset, on the edge of the Cotswolds. Since 1987 the whole city has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and since 2021 it has been listed a second time as one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe, alongside places such as Baden-Baden, Spa and Montecatini Terme. Its springs rise at about 46 degrees, with more than a million litres of water a day. Bath has two universities and a strong tourist vocation, but it is also a living city, with a very popular rugby team.

The history of Bath

According to legend, the Celtic prince Bladud, suffering from leprosy, was cured by bathing in the warm mud of the valley. The Celts worshipped the springs as sacred to the goddess Sulis, and the Romans, who arrived in the 1st century, identified her with Minerva and founded Aquae Sulis, with a temple and a grand bathing complex that became famous throughout the Empire. In the Middle Ages Bath was a city of monasteries and the wool trade; in 973 Edgar, regarded as the first king of all England, was crowned here in a ceremony that still inspires British coronations. The present abbey was begun in 1499.

The golden age came in the 18th century. The master of ceremonies Beau Nash turned the city into the drawing room of polite society, laying down rules of behaviour and etiquette, while the entrepreneur Ralph Allen exploited the quarries of the distinctive cream-coloured Bath stone, and the architects John Wood the Elder and the Younger designed a city inspired by classical antiquity. In those years figures such as the astronomer William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus from his garden in 1781, the painter Thomas Gainsborough and Jane Austen lived or stayed in Bath; Austen lived here between 1801 and 1806 and set Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in the city. In the 19th century fashion moved to the seaside, and Bath became a quiet city of retired people. In 1942 it was hit by German bombing; since the war it has been reborn as one of the most visited destinations in the country.

What to see in Bath

The Roman Baths

The Roman Baths are one of the best-preserved Roman sites in northern Europe. The visit starts from the 19th-century terrace decorated with statues of emperors, overlooking the Great Bath, where the green, steaming water is still the same that the Romans used. You then go down into the museum, where you can see the remains of the temple of Sulis Minerva with the gilded bronze head of the goddess, the sacred spring, the saunas and pools, and the famous curse tablets, small sheets of lead on which the Romans scratched prayers for revenge against whoever had stolen their cloak or a coin. Next to the baths, the Pump Room, an 18th-century tea room, lets you taste the spa water.

The abbey and the centre

Bath Abbey is one of the great examples of Perpendicular Gothic, with splendid fan vaults and a façade decorated with angels climbing up and down stone ladders, inspired by a bishop's dream. You can climb the tower for a view over the rooftops. Pulteney Bridge, designed by Robert Adam in 1774, is one of the few bridges in the world lined with shops on both sides, like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and overlooks a picturesque stepped weir on the Avon.

The Georgian city

Heading north you enter Georgian Bath. The Circus is a circular square of linked terraced houses, inspired by the Colosseum turned inside out, with three superimposed orders of columns. A little further on, the Royal Crescent is a grand half-moon of thirty houses overlooking a lawn, the masterpiece of John Wood the Younger: No. 1 is a museum furnished as an 18th-century home. Nearby are the Assembly Rooms, the ballrooms and card rooms frequented by the society of the day. The Jane Austen Centre tells the story of the writer's links with the city, and the Holburne Museum, at the end of elegant Great Pulteney Street, displays art and decorative objects.

The baths today

To bathe in the hot water you need to go to Thermae Bath Spa, opened in 2006, which combines a historic building and a modern glass structure with a rooftop pool: swimming outdoors in the warm water looking at the abbey tower, especially at sunset, is a unique experience.

Food, events and surroundings

Local specialities include the Sally Lunn bun, a large brioche served in the oldest house in the city, and savoury Bath Oliver biscuits, as well as Somerset cheeses and cider. The city hosts the Bath Festival of music and literature in May, the Jane Austen Festival in September, with a parade in Regency costume, and one of the most famous Christmas markets in the country. Around the city you can walk the Bath Skyline, a circular trail on the hills, or the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal. Nearby you can visit Cotswold villages such as Castle Combe and Lacock, Prior Park landscape garden, the small city of Wells with its cathedral and, within an hour, Stonehenge and Salisbury.

Living in Bath

Bath is a highly desirable, quiet and safe city, but one of the most expensive in England for housing. Many residents work in Bristol or commute to London. In high season the centre is crowded with tourists, and the city has introduced a clean air zone for traffic.

Practical information

• Getting there: the nearest airport is Bristol, about 45 minutes away; from London Paddington the train takes about an hour and twenty minutes.
• Getting around: the centre is easily walkable; the Royal Crescent is uphill but close.
• When to go: all year round; in December for the Christmas market, in September for the Jane Austen Festival.

See also UNESCO sites in the UK, Bristol and British cities.

Bath on the map

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