Rough Guide Staycations Bath (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781839052798
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Rough Guides Staycations Bath Make the most of your time on Earth with the ultimate travel guides. Inspirational and informative new pocket guide, making the most of holidaying at home in the UK through clearly laid-out walks and tours. Explore the best of Bath with this unique travel guide, packed full of insider information and stunning images. From making sure you don't miss out on must-see, top attractions like The Royal Crescent, Roman Baths and Milsom Street to discovering cultural gems, including Bath Abbey, such as The Jane Austen festival and stunning Georgian architecture, the easy-to-follow, ready-made walking and driving routes will save you time, and help you plan and enhance your staycation in Bath. Features of this travel guide to Bath:
- 10 walks and tours: detailed itineraries feature all the best places to visit, including where to eat along the way
- Local highlights: discover the area's top sights and unique attractions, and be inspired by stunning imagery
- Time-saving itineraries: carefully planned routes will help inspire and inform your on-the-road experiences
- Historical and cultural insights: learn more about Bath's rich history with fascinating cultural insights throughout
- Insider recommendations: where to stay and what to do, from active pursuits to themed trips
- Rainy day recommendations: uncover plenty of options, whatever the weather throws at you
- Practical full-colour maps: with every major sight and listing highlighted, the full-colour maps make on-the-ground navigation easy
- Key tips and essential information: from transport to hours of operation, we've got you covered
- New for 2021: the latest guidance to all the places you should discover in Bath- Covers: The ancient centre and a modern spa; Georgian grandeur (The Upper Town); Across Pulteney Bridge; The spine of the city; From Pulteney Bridge to Prior Park; Bath and the countryside in film; Bristol; Wells and Glastonbury; Longleat and Stourhead; The ancient sites (Stonehenge and Avebury).
Looking for a comprehensive guide to England? Check out Rough Guides England for a detailed and entertaining look at all the country has to offer.
About Rough Guides: Rough Guides have been inspiring travellers for over 35 years, with over 30 million copies sold. Synonymous with practical travel tips, quality writing and a trustworthy 'tell it like it is' ethos, the Rough Guides list includes more than 260 travel guides to 120+ destinations, gift-books and phrasebooks.

Tour 1: The ancient centre and a modern spa

This walk in the heart of the city is about a third of a mile (0.5km) long and can be done in less than an hour, but you could happily spend a full day taking in all the highlights.

Highlights

The Roman Baths

The Pump Room

Bath Abbey

Sally Lunn’s

Thermae Bath Spa

This tour takes you through Bath’s 2,000-year history from the Roman Baths, via the Medieval Abbey and the Pump Room, to a modern spa complex, where you can swim in the natural thermal waters.

Bath Abbey as seen from inside the Roman Bath complex.

iStock

Bath’s most popular visitor attraction, the Roman Baths, is the ideal place to start both geographically and historically, as this is where the Bath we know today began. The Romans invaded Britain in AD43 and, after discovering the healing waters, they developed a city called Aquae Sulis, which included a bathing complex and temple. The surviving parts of that 2,000-year-old structure can be viewed alongside recreations of what it was like to be a Roman in Bath two millennia ago. Most of the complex is Victorian but much work has been done recently to improve the facilities, with modern techniques used to bring the past to life. You should set aside at least two hours to get the most out of your visit.

Gorgon’s Head.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Roman Baths

The main entrance to the Roman Baths 1 [map] (tel: [phone]; www.romanbaths.co.uk; daily Mar–mid-June and Sept–Oct 9am–6pm, mid-June–Aug 9am–10pm, Nov–Feb 9.30am–6pm, last entry 1 hour before closing) is in Abbey Church Yard. The baths themselves are below the modern street level and the site also features a Sacred Spring, a Roman Temple, a Roman Bath House and a museum with finds from the Roman Baths. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century.

You begin your visit in the Victorian reception hall, where you can buy a ticket and pick up a personal audioguide at no extra cost. These informative guides are available in 12 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and Russian. There are also separate commentaries aimed at children, featuring Roman characters and their stories, and some of the highlights are described by the writer Bill Bryson in his usual witty and incisive way. In the entrance, formerly a concert hall, the impressive ceiling is decorated with images of the four seasons and surmounted by an elegant dome.

As you walk through to the terrace, you get your first glimpse from above of the magnificent Great Bath, lined with statues of Roman emperors and other leaders. Bryson rightly describes the view from one corner of the terrace, taking in Bath Abbey in the background, as one of the finest in the country. When ready, follow the self-guided tour that leads to ground level.

The ancient centre and a modern spa

The Great Bath looks particularly special at night when it’s lit by torches.

iStock

Sacred Spring

You next pass the King’s Bath, site of the Sacred Spring. Hot water at a temperature of 114°F (46°C) rises here at a rate of 240,000 gallons (1,170,000 litres) per day as it has been doing for thousands of years. In the past this natural phenomenon was beyond human understanding and was believed to be the work of the ancient gods. In Roman times a great Temple was built next to the spring dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a deity with healing powers. The mineral-rich water from the Sacred Spring supplied a magnificent bathhouse that attracted visitors from across the Roman Empire. Many of these visitors would have thrown objects into the Sacred Spring as offerings to the goddess, including more than 12,000 Roman coins. Curses, inscribed on pewter or lead sheets, also abound, some written backwards. These generally solicit help or revenge for mundane grievances, such as the theft of a glove or napkin ring.

The temple

You next encounter one of only two truly classical temples known from Roman Britain and the place where the cult statue of the goddess Sulis Minerva was housed. The great ornamental pediment survives and has been re-erected in the Roman Baths Museum. Its centrepiece is the image of a fearsome head carved in Bath stone, thought to be the Gorgon’s Head, a powerful symbol of Sulis Minerva.

The temple courtyard houses the stunning gilded bronze head of Minerva, one of the best-known objects from Roman Britain and one of the museum’s highlights. The bronze, minus helmet (you can see the rivet holes where this would have been held in place), was discovered in 1727 by workmen in nearby Stall Street and was the first intimation of the marvellous Roman ruins below Georgian Bath. The head is probably from a statue of the deity, which would have stood within her Temple beside the Sacred Spring.

The Roman Baths houses a museum collection of outstanding quality and international significance. Many of the objects in the museum tell us about the people who lived and worked in the area and those who visited the spa and temple. This area includes film projections of Roman characters to give visitors a sense of how the Romans lived and worshipped.

Discovery of Great Bath

The Great Bath was discovered by chance in the 1880s by Charles Davis, the city surveyor and architect, while he was investigating the cause of hot-water floods in local cellars. The Victorians were as excited by archaeology and the past as the Georgians had been indifferent and his discovery was greeted by enormous interest throughout Britain and led to the excavation of the site and the construction of the current Roman Baths facilities.

Before moving on to the Great Bath, you get a glimpse of the Roman plumbing and drainage system, which is still largely in place and shows the ingenuity of the Roman engineers. Lead pipes were used to carry hot spa water around the site using gravity flow. The Spring overflow is where surplus water from the Spring flows out to a Roman drain, which carries all the spa water from the site to the River Avon 1,300ft (400m) away.

The Great Bath

This is the highlight of the tour and the best place to see the water at close quarters. Laden with 43 different minerals, including iron, which stains the stone red, the water is thought to spring from 2 miles (3km) beneath the Mendip Hills, on which it fell as rain up to 10,000 years ago. Its green colour is caused by light reacting with algae: when the baths were roofed over, as they were in Roman times, the water wo...

Table of contents

• 10 Things not to miss
• Introduction to Bath
• Festivals in Bath
• Tour 1: The ancient centre and a modern spa
• Tour 2: Georgian grandeur (The Upper Town)
• Feature: Architectural Bath
• Tour 3: Across Pulteney Bridge
• Tour 4: The spine of the city
• Feature: Bath as a spa
• Tour 5: From Pulteney Bridge to Prior Park
• Tour 6: Bath and the countryside in film
• Feature: Literary Bath
• Tour 7: Bristol
• Tour 8: Wells and Glastonbury
• Tour 9: Longleat and Stourhead
• Tour 10: The ancient sites (Stonehenge and Avebury)
• Active Pursuits
• Themed Holidays
• Practical Information
• Accommodation