collection of conversations with the folk that aim to
52 We chat to Bath Rugby’s treble-winning, local lad and legend, Tom Dunn
Bath is renowned as a centre of excellence for fine independent Goldsmiths. We meet the makers
cultural tour of the
arts scene at The Holburne... Yes, it is Lady Danbury’s
Tessa Brand’s shop, The Dressing Room offers the finest in lingerie, beach and nightwear
‘Dot’ for a lesson in very good housekeeping at the
the magic happen. The beguiling sorcery of Billy
wonderful features from the local archives
Saturnalia – ’tis the season to be jolly... The Romans certainly knew how to party
34
The men who built Bath: Ralph Allen, Beau Nash and John Wood, the elder and John Wood, the younger
92 Dr Felicity James takes a look at Jane Austen’s time in Bath and the effect the city had on her work
96 Explore Bath’s dark and gothic literary past with some of the most influential writers of the last 250 years
114 Discover how our Georgian forebears dressed to impress, with pale complexions, towering wigs and all the hidden health hazards
138 Now in its third incarnation, the Theatre Royal Bath reminds us that the show must go on
140 Ralph ‘Romeo’ Coates – the worst ever actor. It’s a great story, and quite hilarious!
CITY TREATS:
Snippets of indulgent fun and activities to make your stay special
54
A selection of precious delights from Mallory, the oldest jewellers in Bath
62 Fancy a little souvenir to take home as a memento of your visit? Here are some popular gift choices
66 Time for some retail therapy, take a tour of Bath’s excellent shopping scene with our guide to the city’s best shops
110 Spa city: a round up of a few relaxing spots for a good pampering session
FOOD & DRINK:
It’s vibrant, international and delicious. Bath has a phenomenal choice when it comes to eating out
32 Enjoy a great cup of coffee and a tempting slice of delicious cake at one of Bath’s top coffee shops
102 Afternoon tea: our guide to the best places to ‘raise a pinky’ and how to take tea in total style
118 Start your tour of the city’s gastronomic delights, from fine dining to casual bistros and the coolest eateries
142 We love a bit of nightlife: the very best places in Bath to venture out after dark and be thoroughly entertained
On the cover: Detail of The Byam Family by Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). On display at The Holburne art gallery and museum. Generously loaned by The Andrew Brownsword Arts Foundation, 2001.
BWELCOME TO BATH From the Editor
ath during the winter months is a place of beauty and excitement. The days may be chilly, but it’s rarely too cold to venture out and take in the many delights the city has to offer. From a visit to the city’s world-class attractions or galleries, or a tour of the architectural sites – there’s something particularly enchanting about the hue of Bath stone in the wintry sunlight. Whether you are enjoying a shopping or sporting weekend, taking a pleasurable dip in the geothermal waters (that’s pretty much compulsory), savouring Bath’s excellent dining options followed by a film, theatre or show, not to mention the night life. There’s so much on offer, it’s no wonder that this little city provides all the magic needed to be one of the country’s finest visitor destinations.
Of course for most of us, our thoughts are centred around the Christmas holidays – a German friend reliably informs me that we have officially entered what they call vorweihnachtszeit, or as we might say – ‘run up to Christmas’. While many of our festive traditions are influenced by Mitteleuropa and beyond, it’s fair to say that the Bath Christmas Market (27 Nov – 14 Dec) has become its own West Country entity and is one of the city’s most significant annual attractions.
Postcard, as the name suggests, is a collection of experiential notes, stories and personal accounts delivered by those who really know this wonderful city of ours. Rather than the usual touristguide formula, our line up of talented writers have been assigned to delight and inform you in a perceptive and engaging way and I think they’ve done an exceptional job.
Finally in Postcard you can find a lot of practical detail to make your stay in Bath as well-informed as possible: great places where you can eat, drink, shop and be entertained.
From all of us who have contributed to this edition, we hope you’ll absolutely love this pretty little city we call home.
Enjoy your stay. Return sometime soon. Steve M.
ABOUT US
For more than 23 years we have been publishing The Bath Magazine – the city’s biggest monthly magazine. During that time we have amassed an extensive library of information and knowledge with some of the best writers and writing on Bath, its history and the places and people that make the city a great destination. Postcard from Bath is a compendium of new features and reworked articles and just about everything else we know and love about Bath.
And, if you want to be informed about everything good going on in Bath, visit: thebathmagazine.co.uk
POSTCARD from
BATH
Publishing Editor
Steve Miklos
E: steve@postcardmagazine.co.uk
Editorial
Joanna Lewis, Melissa Blease
Contributors, feature writers and photography:
Jenny McAuley, Dr Felicity James, Georgette McCready, Jessica Hope, Catherine Pitt, Dara Foley, Crystal Rose, Joe Short, Paolo Ferla.
Advertising Sales
Liz Grey
E: liz@postcardmagazine.co.uk
Production Manager
Jeff Osborne
E: jeff@postcardmagazine.co.uk
Finance Director
Jane Miklos
E: jane@postcardmagazine.co.uk
are aware, factually correct at the time of going to press. MC Publishing Limited cannot accept responsibility for any errors or inaccuracies in such information. Whilst every reasonable care is taken with all material submitted to The Postcard from Bath, the publisher cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage to such material. MC Publishing Limited endeavours to respect the intellectual property of any owner of copyrighted material reproduced in this publication. If any copyright holder has been wrongly accredited, please contact us. M C
Green Park Brasserie in the old Green Park Station invites all its guests to enjoy great food, drink and live music. The venue supports local food producers and offers a menu using quality ingredients, from Braised Beef Bourguignon Pie to a Moving Mountains Vegan Burger. What’s more, every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening the brasserie offers live music and candlelit dining. The music from the very best artists in Bath and Bristol includes modern funk trios, hot club jazz bands, acoustic soul and swing, Beatles' classics and saxled trios. It takes place on Wednesday and Thursday from 6.30pm–8.45pm and on Friday and Saturday from 6.30pm–9.45pm. Green Park Brasserie, Green Park Station, Bath. Web: greenparkbrasserie.com
That festive feeling
Visit The American Museum & Gardens for an uplifting Christmas experience
Throughout December, be enchanted by Claverton Manor, the Georgian Manor House at The American Museum & Gardens, festooned with a stunning fir tree and artisan decorations, explore the fresh winter gardens, and enjoy festive food and drinks at the American Garden Deli. On the 5 and 6 December the museum hosts a live Christmas concert from 6:30pm with award-winning singer and radio presenter Clare Teal, offering an uplifting blend of winter warmers, from swing to sublime ballads by famous American artists such as Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, and Bing Crosby, as well as her own original material.
The American Museum & Gardens, Claverton Manor, Claverton Down, Bath. Web: americanmuseum.org
Highlights at Bath Forum
Muppet Christmas Carol in Concert
Enjoy Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol live in concert with a screening of the complete film with the musical score performed live by orchestra.
29 November
The Polar Express
Step on board and have your ticket stamped by The Forum’s station masters on a magical journey to the North Pole on the Polar Express. An interactive movie event with hot chocolate, ice cream, and more.
30 November & 7 December
Rick Stein’s Countdown to Christmas
Get into the festive spirit with multi-award-winning chef and author Rick Stein as he embarks on a brandnew UK tour. This captivating live show celebrates the magic of the season with heart-warming stories, expert tips, and plenty of culinary inspiration.
2 December
Bath Phil & The Snowman
Enjoy a screening of the iconic film The Snowman on the big screen, accompanied by the Bath Philharmonia orchestra, offering seasonal orchestral delights.
13 December
Step Into Christmas
Back by popular demand, Step Into Christmas presents a magical, feel-good show, offering the ultimate way to kick-start your festive celebrations. The concert is packed with Christmas classics, bringing the holiday season to life with dazzling performances, stunning festive visuals, and a sensational live band.
18 December
Bath Forum, 1A Forum Buildings, Bath BA1 1UG Web: bathforum.co.uk
Create festive memories and watch your little ones' faces light up as they meet Father Christmas and his elves in their workshop. Much more than your usual grotto, Father Christmas’ Grotto is a fun, immersive experience full of storytelling, live music, comic performances, gifts, and laughter, with professional actors and musicians creating a truly one-of-a-kind experience. There will also be seasonal drinks and snacks, ensuring a superb family event. The Grotto is taking place in its new home, in the gardens of the Holburne, Sydney Gardens, every weekend and on selected weekdays.
Web: fatherchristmasbath.co.uk
The ReBalance Bath Wellbeing Festival 2026
28 January – 16 February
ReBalance Bath, Festival of Wellbeing is celebrating its fourth year! Chase away the cold dark days of winter and treat yourself in Bath at the city’s three-week celebration of feel-good activities, mindfulness and motivation, exclusive hotel and spa packages and taster sessions. With four different areas to explore, including physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, talk and fun, you’re bound to find the perfect experience for you.
Web: welcometobath.co.uk
Highlights at Theatre Royal Bath
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Starring acclaimed stage and screen actor Richard Coyle, this award-winning stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird visits Bath as part of its UK and Ireland tour.
From 11 – 22 November
Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
The Cornley Amateur Drama Society is back with tidings of chaos and joy, ready to tackle the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. The Cornley crew hilariously battles miscommunication, delays to their sets, actors missing in action, and a growing feud over who will play the lead. It’s sure to be a disastrous take on the much-loved classic.
From 25 – 30 November
A Christmas Carol
One of the hottest tickets of last Christmas is back for a limited number of performances – Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson’s internationally acclaimed solo performance of this festive tale. 15 & 19 December
The Further Adventures of Peter Pan: The Return of Captain Hook.
Tristan Gemill will don the infamous hook and sail to Neverland as the fearsome Captain Hook in this year’s pantomime spectacular. Written by Bath’s own panto legend Jon Monie, who also stars as the side-splitting Smee, this year’s show is bigger, bolder, and more dazzling than ever! Oh, yes it is... 11 December – 11 January 2026
Web: theatreroyal.org.uk
Van ( the Man ) Morrison
ZEITGEIST
What’s on and things to do
Twinkling lights in the forest
Visit the light trail at Westonbirt Arboretum
Enjoy an unforgettable day out at Westonbirt National Arboretum with a magical after-dark trail featuring brand-new lights, spectacular installations, and festive fun for the entire family. Created by the award-winning producers behind Christmas at Kew. Wander through the illuminated arboretum, where twinkling lights will bring the forest to life. New installations include Laser Garden, Fireworks Trees, Wicker Animals, and Mycelium Network. There will also be festive fairground rides (additional fee), and food and drink stalls serving winter warmers. Tickets start at £25 for adults, £18 for children.
28 November – 31 December
Westonbirt Arboretum, Tetbury GL8 8QS
Web: forestryengland.uk/westonbirt/christmas
Christmas Market Shop while feeling festive
From its humble beginnings in 2001, when the market had 40 stalls and ran for four days, Bath Christmas Market has grown into something much bigger. with over 200 stalls stretching around the Abbey and up Bath Street. This year, the market is celebrating its 25th anniversary, with a strong emphasis on local, handmade, and fairtrade products as well as sustainability. The market is a singular place to be at this time of year.
27 November – 14 December
Web: bathchristmasmarket.co.uk
Bath on Ice
Skate away this Christmas
Glowing in atmospheric lights, Bath on Ice is back for its 13th year and is the perfect place to practise your skating and show off some moves. Located at the Royal Pavilion in Royal Victoria Park, you’ll find wintry music, a cosy bar, and seasonal drinks transporting you to a dreamy winter wonderland! Whether you’re a Dancing on Ice champion, a total newbie, or just about anything in between, you’ll find some festive euphoria on the surface of the real, genuine ice.
14 November – 4 January (excluding Christmas Day) Web: bathonice.com
Itinerary: 12-24 Hours in Bath
It’s your time in Bath, so spend it well. Our very own round-the-clock tour guide Melissa Blease counts down the hours for a one-day or a two-day stay
BATH IN ONE DAY
• 8am – wake up to Bath
If you’ve only got one day in Bath, you need to get moving early to make the most of it... So use your post-breakfast quiet time to check out the addresses that the hoards are set to congregate around later on: the honey-coloured curves of the Royal Crescent and the Circus, the breathtakingly impressive, clean lines of Great Pulteney Street and the elegant Milsom Street area are all at their stage-set best when bathed in the early-morning sunlight.
• 10am – culture calling
Your attention levels should be at their peak around now, so take your pick of the fabulous historic tourist attractions in the vicinity of the city centre. Choosing just one option is a tough call, but if you’re time-limited, you’re not going to be able to take them all in; fortunately, either the Roman Baths, the brilliant Holburne Museum or Victoria Art Gallery can be ‘done’ in a single two-hour blast.
• 12 noon – lunch on-the-go
If the weather is behaving nicely, lunchtime is the opportunity for a spot of al fresco refuelling set against one of the city’s historic backdrops, including Royal Victoria Park, historic Queen Square and the dramatic weir waterfall; grab a bespoke, instant picnic lunch and munch your sarnies in style. If, however, it’s a bit too wet or chilly, a myriad of splendid cafés, restaurants and bars all vie for your attention.
• 2pm – get wet
Immerse yourself in the tranquil surroundings of the Cross Bath. Part of the Thermae Bath Spa Complex, this intimate, stand-alone, open-air thermal bath – an official ‘sacred site,’ complete with its own changing facilities – offers a uniquely peaceful alternative to the more extensive spa experience offered in the main New Royal Bath. Cross Bath sessions last a nice, neat 1½ hours including changing time, and a towel and robe are included in the entry price.
• 4pm – afternoon amble
Enjoy tea and cake at one of Bath’s many independent cafés before
taking time to wander, browse, compare and contrast the distinctly different atmospheres between the fascinating, eclectic Walcot Street, the chic and glamorous area around Milsom Street and the popular Southgate development, picking up souvenirs of your time in the city as you go.
• 6pm – speedy supper
If your time in the city is limited, you probably won’t want to linger long over dinner. Fortunately, a proliferation of pre-theatre and early bird menu deals offer gourmet feasts at a fraction of standard à la carte prices between 6pm–7.30pm at restaurants across the city, usually detailed on easy-to-spot A-boards outside their doors. If you’ve been organised enough to book a hot ticket for a show at the Theatre Royal, the Ustinov Studio, The Forum, The Little Theatre Cinema, Komedia, Chapel Arts Centre, an evening of magic with Billy Kidd at Krowd Keepers or and event at The Pavilion, your evening is planned. If, however, you’re footloose and fancy free...
• 8pm – fun ‘n’ frolics
For a fabulously fun winter tour around the ancient and mystical streets of Bath and to hear spine-chilling stories from the vaults of the city’s history, the super-spooky Ghost Walks of Bath tours start outside the Abbey main door at 8pm on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings throughout the year, duration 1 hour 45 minutes. But if rain stops play or you’ve done enough walking for one day, head for the Green Park Brasserie to enjoy free, live acoustic jazz/swing music in an atmospheric former Victorian railway station every evening from Wednesday to Saturday, or The Bell (Walcot Street), which offers a warm welcome to one and all supplemented by a diverse range of live music three-to-four times a week on evenings (Monday, every other Tuesday and Wednesday from 9pm) ranging from jazz and blues to folk and roots. Meanwhile, St James Wine Vaults (James Street) hosts regular live music, performance poetry and interactive pub quizzes throughout the week.
It’s been a long day! But if you’re still up for a little more of Bath, the Nightlife section (from page 142) can point you in the right direction of all manner of grown-up fun. If, however, you’re ready to hit the pillow – sweet dreams!
BATH IN TWO DAYS
The basic ingredients for making the most of the overall Bath experience are listed in our one-day tour. But if you’ve got time to delve deeper, supplement your stay with these add-on ideas.
• Make time to step back in time
Lose yourself in Bath’s rich history with the Bath Museums Saver Ticket, offering discounted entry to the Roman Baths and special exhibitions at the Victoria Art Gallery – if you’ve got two days to spend in the city, you can give these museums the attention they deserve. And for special interests, check out the city’s great smaller museums and art galleries.
• Bliss out
Turn a visit to the Thermae Bath Spa into a highlight of your stay, supplementing the standard two-hour session with a treatment from the Treatment Menu or a package that includes lunch or dinner at the spa’s Springs Café. The spa’s spectacular Rooftop Pool offers breathtaking views over the city; naturally seductively steamy at any hour of the day, it’s particularly magical at sunset even during the autumn/winter months.
• Tease yourself
Upgrade the mid-afternoon café/coffee shop break to an unforgettable Afternoon/High Tea experience at the Pump Room, the Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel, the Royal Crescent Hotel, The Ivy or Sally Lunn’s for a ‘Bath Bunn’.
• Post-sunset shenanigans
A two-night stay in Bath offers the opportunity to turn one evening into showtime (see venue suggestions on the 12-hour itinerary) and another into an unforgettable gourmet extravaganza. Tasting Menu plus optional Wine Flight experiences go large at Bath’s best hotels and restaurants, where some of the UK’s best chefs (Chris Cleghorn at the Michelin-starred Olive Tree Restaurant, Jauca Catalin at the Bath Priory and Martin Blake at the Royal Crescent) are waiting to take your order. Elsewhere, you can’t go wrong with
the vegetarian and vegan celebrations at Oak or Rob Clayton’s uplifting, stylish modern bistro dishes at his eponymously named Clayton’s Kitchen.
TOP TIPS:
Mayor’s Guide Walking Tours – led by local volunteers who are knowledgeable and passionate about the city – are free. Don comfortable shoes and hook up with the group outside the Pump Rooms at 10.30am and 2pm from Sunday to Friday and at 10.30am on Saturday. All walks last around two hours.
The Theatre Royal releases 40 gallery/side bench/perch tickets priced from around £15.50 on all performance days (maximum two tickets per person). These are available for booking as soon as tickets are for sale, and are available at the box office or online.
City Sightseeing buses depart from Bath Abbey on a regular basis and offer two options: the City Route and the Skyline Route, which takes voyagers through the countryside high in the hills that surround Bath. Both routes include an experienced guide who provides a fascinating commentary on the points of interest as you travel. Hop on/hop off tickets are valid for 24 hours.
A map is the most useful accessory a visitor can equip themselves with. But if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare, bring the map to life by heading up the Wellsway and taking in the glorious views from Alexandra Park: behold, the city in miniature, awaiting your investigation.
LINGERING FOR LONGER?
Then you qualify for a trip to one of the spectacular villages, towns and visitor experiences within easy access of Bath.
• Approximately 15 miles/24km
The super-pretty village of Castle Combe (as seen in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and the original film version of Dr Dolittle with Rex Harrison singing Talking to the Animals) represents the very meaning of the words ‘picturesque’ and ‘quaint’.
• Approximately 17 miles/27km
Even if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, Lacock Abbey – the interior of which doubled-up as the interior of Hogwarts in two of the Harry Potter films – is as enchanting and magical as the ancient, quintessentially English village of Lacock.
• Approximately 22 miles/35km
Wells (the smallest city in the UK) features a magnificent 13thcentury cathedral – surrounded by the unique, moated Bishop’s Palace. Meanwhile, Stonehenge, Westonbirt Arboretum, Longleat, Highclere Castle (aka Downtown Abbey), Glastonbury and Cheddar Gorge are all within easy access /drives from Bath.
FURTHER AFIELD
1. The magnificent Gothic façade of Wells Cathedral
2. Steeped in legend, the mysterious Glastonbury Tor looks over the mythical Isle of Avalon
3. The prehistoric standing stones of Stonehenge near Amesbury in Wiltshire
4. The picturesque village of Castle Combe
5. The cloisters of Lacock Abbey, where many a scene from Harry Potter has been filmed
GETTING AROUND
HISTORICAL SITES
Roman Baths
Bath Abbey
The Pump Rooms
Assembly Rooms
Royal Crescent
The Circus
Pulteney Bridge
Sally Lunn’s House
Beckford’s Tower
MUSEUMS & GALLERIES
Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution
Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein
Herschel Museum of
Holburne
Botanical
Timeline of the City
Bath has a long and rich history – here’s a whirlwind tour through some of its key moments, which include the story of Bladud, founder of Bath and the coronation of Edgar, the first King of England at Bath Abbey
There’s plenty of archaeological evidence to indicate that there was human activity around the hot springs on which Bath is built dating back to at least 8,000 BC. The first shrine at the site was actually built by the Celts, not the Romans, and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with their goddess Minerva. It is thought that the similarities between Minerva and Sulis helped the Celts adapt to Roman culture. So that’s how it all started.
• 863 BC: According to the legend, having healed himself and his herd of pigs from leprosy by bathing in the hot mud irrigated by the naturally heated spring waters, Bladud – son of King Rud Hud Hudibras and tenth ruler of the Britons in line from the first King Brutus, (aka Brute of Troy) – takes his rightful title of King (and founder) of Bath.
• AD 43: The Romans arrive and name the city Aquae Sulis, after the goddess Sulis Minerva – a considerable urban settlement is created on the site to include grand temples and bathing complexes.
The Arms of the City of Bath, c reated c. 1568, reproduced with kind permission of the City Council
Bladud in Exile, by Benjamin West PRA
• 577: The West Saxons win the Battle of Deorham and capture Bath, incorporating it into the Saxon petty kingdom of the Hwicce.
• 878: Bath becomes a royal borough of Alfred the Great’s Kingdom of Wessex.
• 973: Edgar, King of England 959–975, is crowned alongside his wife Ælfthryth at Bath Abbey by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1088: Benedictine monks take over the abbey and start to build a massive cathedral priory, complete with Bishop’s Palace.
• 1090: John of Tours moves the episcopal seat to Bath, giving it city status.
• 1137: Much of Bath is destroyed by a fire that ravages the city.
• 1499: Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, begins reconstruction of the now neglected abbey, which surrenders to the Dissolution of the Monasteries act in 1539.
• 1576: The Queen’s Bath is built, with a drinking fountain installed in 1578.
• 1590: Bath’s city status is confirmed by Queen Elizabeth I.
• 1657: The first regular coach service between London and Bath is established.
• 1702: Queen Anne visits Bath, confirming the city as a fashionable destination and focal point for social activity outside of London.
• 1704: Richard ‘Beau’ Nash is appointed Master of Ceremonies.
• 1712: Entrepreneur and philanthropist Ralph Allen is appointed postmaster.
• 1725: Architect John Wood the Elder develops an ambitious plan for his home town and presents them to Ralph Allen for consideration.
• 1726: Allen begins buying up Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines for building stone.
• 1727: A gilt bronze head from a cult statue of Sulis Minerva is found by workmen excavating a sewer near the Roman Temple.
• 1742: Ralph Allen is elected mayor of Bath.
• 1755: The Royal Crescent, designed by John Wood the Younger, is completed and the Roman Baths are rediscovered following the demolition of the Duke of Kingston’s Abbey House.
• 1761: Beau Nash dies, and the Corporation of the City fund a lavish, elaborate funeral. Nash is buried in the nave of Bath Abbey.
• 1762–1764: Scientist and astronomer William Herschel arrives in Bath and Brock Street is built.
• 1769: The Circus is completed; Pulteney Bridge is constructed.
• 1771: The New (Upper) Assembly Rooms are built.
• 1775–1777: The Hot Bath is built.
• 1780: The Roman Great Bath is rediscovered by Major CE Davis while exploring a leak from the King’s Bath.
• 1781: William Herschel makes the first observation of the planet Uranus from the back garden of his house in New King Street.
• 1783–1784: The Cross Bath is built.
• 1793: The devastating Bath bank crash causes temporary havoc to the construction industry.
• 1795: Sydney Gardens opens as Bath Vauxhall Gardens, a commercial pleasure garden. The Grand Pump Room opens.
• 1797–1798: The Cross Bath is developed and increases in size.
Photograph, consecutively: Gorgon's Head of the Temple Sulis Minerva by Joyofmuseums; 19th century stained glass window in Bat h Abbey depicting King Edgar of England being crowned, by Singinglemon; Beau Nash, photo by Michael Maggs. Main image courtesy of Bath in Time
THE GORGON’S HEAD
RICHARD ‘BEAU’ NASH
• 1801: Jane Austen moves to Bath and stays in the city for almost five years. The Austens resided mostly in the newly built 4 Sydney Place, overlooking Sydney Gardens.
• 1804: Construction of the New Theatre Royal on Beaufort Street/Saw Close begins.
• 1805: The Orchard Street Theatre closes its doors for good. The New Theatre Royal opens to the public.
• 1816: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley arrives in Bath. By December her writing on the novel Frankenstein was well underway.
• 1830: Victoria Park is opened by 11year-old Princess Victoria (later queen) as a private pleasure ground.
• 1831: Jolly’s on Milsom Street opens as The Bath Emporium, one of the very first department stores to open in the UK. Sadly now closed.
• 1840: Isambard Kingdom Brunel builds the Bath Spa Train Station for the Great Western Railway. The First Penny Black postage stamp is used to send a letter by Thomas Moore Musgrave, postmaster of Bath.
• 1861: The Guildhall Market is built on a site that had been used for trading for more than 800 years.
• 1862: The New Theatre Royal is destroyed by fire. The refurbished theatre opens again in 1863.
• 1865: Bath Rugby is founded by members of Lansdown Cricket Club as Bath Football Club.
• 1893: The Holburne Museum opens on Charlotte Street.
• 1923: The Roman hot plunge baths are excavated.
• 1936–1941: Haile Selassie, deposed Emperor of Ethiopia, is exiled in Bath.
• 1938: The Assembly Rooms reopen after restoration.
• 1942: Three German aerial bombing raids – part of the Baedeker Blitz – kill 417 Bath residents and destroy or badly damage the newly restored Assembly Rooms.
• 1955: The Assembly Rooms reopen, incorporating the Museum of Costume; The Beatles play at Bath Pavilion.
• 1987: Bath is inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
• 1997: The Ustinov Studio opens at the rear of the Theatre Royal.
• 2005: The egg, a venue for children’s, young people’s and family theatre, opens.
• 2006: The Thermae Bath Spa opens to the public.
• 2009: The SouthGate shopping centre and a brand new bus station opens on Dorchester Street.
• 2021: The City of Bath receives a second World Heritage Site inscription as one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.
• 2022: Bath Abbey’s Footprint Project is completed, including the abbey’s historic floor being saved from collapse and underfloor heating powered by Bath’s hot springs.
THE HERSCHELS
HAILE SELASSIE
MARY SHELLEY
GREAT BATH
POSTCARDS
The Roman Baths
Melissa Blease takes a tour of Bath’s most popular visitor attraction and discovers a world-class experience
Despite Senator Tacitus describing the taking of the waters as “one of the luxuries that stimulate vice,” the Romans started the development of Aquae Sulis as a sanctuary of rest and relaxation some time after the Roman invasion of Britain in 43AD. Over the next three decades, they built a reservoir, a sophisticated series of baths and a temple dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva around the natural hot springs. The temple was constructed around 60–70AD, and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.
But after the Roman withdrawal in the first decade of the fifth century, the bathing complex fell into serious disrepair and was eventually lost to silting and flooding. The vaulted building around the spring collapsed into the waters in the sixth or seventh century, but the oak piles that were sunk into the mud continue to provide an integral part of the stable foundations today.
The various street level aspects of the Roman Baths, The Grand Pump Room and the Stall Street entrance were designed in the 18th century by Thomas Baldwin and John Palmer, two of the leading architects of Georgian Bath who, alongside John Wood the Elder, John Wood the Younger, Robert Adam and John Eveleigh, are responsible for most of the Palladian-style architecture for which Bath is so highly regarded.
Throughout the 18th and early 19th century, visitors flocked to fashionable, genteel Bath from far and wide to drink the mineralrich spring waters and socialise in the Grand Pump Room, the neo-classical salon within the Roman Baths complex. As Jane Austen – who moved with her family to Bath in 1801 for what her family deemed to be health benefits – wrote in Northanger Abbey, “every morning brought its regular duties: shops were to be visited; some new part of the town to be looked at: and the Pump Room to be attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour, looking at everybody and speaking to no one.”
Both the Pump Room (which remains in use as a tea room and restaurant today) and the Roman Baths fortunately offer a far friendlier, more accessible welcome to contemporary visitors, centuries on – and the complex still remains very much a fully functioning, sparkling jewel in the city’s crown.
ON SHOW
In 2021, a new area was unveiled at the Roman Baths. The Roman Gym (part of the main visitor journey around the Roman Baths) was renovated amongst newly excavated remains, and allows visitors access to a courtyard where Romans worked out before heading into the baths. The gym itself includes the remains of an
ancient sauna (a laconicum) and one of the best preserved doorways from Roman British times, while projections showing how the Romans would have used the gym, and audio commentary explaining Roman workouts and the Roman attitude to health, wellbeing and medicine brings the whole area to fully authentic life.
The state-of-the-art Clore Learning Centre – which allows school and community groups to learn all about history and heritage in a hands-on, accessible way – opened a year later and was unveiled at the same time at Bath World Heritage Centre, which offers a central point for visitors to find out about the city-wide UNESCO World Heritage site’s hot springs, Roman remains, Georgian architecture, Georgian town planning, the social setting of the Georgian spa town and the city’s natural landscape setting.
Time may not stand still for the Roman Baths, but the defining purpose at the core of the complex remains the same. The site’s permanent collection contains thousands of archaeological finds from pre-Roman and Roman Britain including a fairly recent addition known as the Beau Street Hoard, which was excavated by archaeologists on the site of the Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel in Beau Street in 2007 and is today widely acknowledged to be one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries ever to have been made in Bath: 17,655 Roman coins were found fused together in eight separate money bags and spanning the period from 32 BC–274 ad
Elsewhere, exhibits range from the divine to the domestic. In the Temple Worship area of the museum, the gilt bronze head of the
THE GORGON’S HEAD
goddess Sulis Minerva, for example, is an ancient, awe-inspiring showpiece, while catching the eye of the imposing Gorgon’s head that glowers down from the top of the grand ornamental Temple Pediment (the temple itself being one of only two classical style temples in Britain, depicting the merging of local and Roman beliefs) is a curiously thrilling experience. Offering delightful contrast to the more dramatic exhibits on display, the brooches, combs, jewellery, glass bottles and general domestic paraphernalia discovered buried beneath the foundations of the present buildings offer a fascinating, evocative snapshot of everyday Roman life and create a strong link of familiarity between the past and the present.
Meanwhile, the curiously moving Roman Curse tablets (‘defixiones’, inscribed on to small sheets of lead or pewter and believed to range in date from the second to the late fourth century AD) depict the private and personal prayers and wishes of 130 individuals and provide a uniquely personal insight into Roman life. Addressed to the goddess Minerva Sulis, many request stolen items be returned, but others are scarily malevolent, seeking more severe levels of justice be served: “Docimedis has lost two gloves and asks that the thief responsible should lose their minds and eyes in the goddess’ temple”.
The tablets are the only objects from Roman Britain to be included within UNESCO’s Memory of the World register, which aims to preserve, promote and protect written and audiovisual heritage while encouraging universal access to social history.
YOUR VISIT
A visit to the Roman Baths is a multi-textured, comprehensive experience offering broad appeal to all ages, tastes and interests. Even those who may not think they’re visiting Bath to learn more about the history of the Heritage City can’t fail to realise that it’s all around us, at every turn – and never more so than within the Roman Baths where the city began.
It is recommended that you allow between around 90 minutes up to 2 hours for your visit. Portable, fact-packed audioguides
with information on Roman life and the history of the Baths (available in thirteen languages) that can be stopped, started, and rewound according to your schedule and particular interests are included as standard in the admission price, including all-age guides and a children’s guide. Printed language sheets are also available at the Roman Baths reception.
In addition to the audio guides, the Baths now run regular onehour guided tours throughout the day where you can delve into the Roman bathing experience, explore the famous Great Bath and the Roman bathing rooms in the East Baths, and see the Sacred Spring where naturally hot water has bubbled up from under the ground for thousands of years. During the tour you will have a chance to see historic photos and illustrations of the Roman Baths and handle replica bathing equipment – such as a strigil, which Roman bathers used to scrape and clean their skin.
You’ll also enjoy meeting and chatting to some of the costumed characters that add history and colour to your experience. These characters (who stay in character, even when asked to pose for a modern-day photo), are based on real people who lived and worked at Aquae Sulis 2000 years ago. Performed by local actors from ‘The Natural Theatre Company’ the characters and their stories have been meticulously reconstructed from collected evidence found on site at the Baths.
Finally, while it may not be to everyone’s taste, at the end of your visit you have the opportunity to sample the hot natural spa water. Salute!
The Roman Baths, Abbey Church Yard, Bath BA1 1LZ
The Roman Baths is open every day except 25 and 26 December.
For specific seasonal opening times, admission prices, special events and accessibility details, visit the Roman Baths website.
Tel: 01225 477785
Web: romanbaths.co.uk
A DISPLAY OF THE BEAU STREET HOARD
Photographs: courtesy of Bath & North East Somerset Council. Hypocaust image by Jon Craig
FASCINATING FACTS
In 2024 over 1 million people visited the Roman Baths. It’s the second most visited attraction outside London. Stonehenge being first.
Hot water at a temperature of 46°C (114.8°F) rises at the Roman Baths at the rate of 1,170,000 litres every day.
The spa water originally fell as rain around 10,000 years ago. It sank to a depth of around 2km below the earth’s surface, where it is geothermally heated before rising back up to one of Bath’s three springs: the Cross Bath Spring, the Hetling Spring or the King’s Spring, which supplies the Roman Baths.
Bath spa water contains more than 43 minerals and trace elements, the most concentrated of which include calcium, magnesium, sodium and iron.
The Great Bath holds 225,000 litres of water.
The Temple of Sulis Minerva in Bath is one of only two classical temples known from Roman Britain, the second one being the Claudius Temple in Colchester.
The tranquil Cross Bath – part of the grander Thermae Bath Spa complex but situated in an independent setting – is an official sacred site with ancient origins; some historians claim that, around 7,000 years ago, the site was occupied. Indeed, Mesolithic flints found in the spring support this and there was human activity all round the area.
It’s impossible to estimate exactly how much the Beau Street Hoard (17,655 Roman coins) would be worth in real terms today. If you’d like to imagine going shopping Roman-style, an amphora of wine would have cost you 300 Sestertii, you could buy 200 pounds of flour for just one Aureus and a slave would set you back 500–1,500 Denarii.
The terrace overlooking the Great Bath is lined with Victorian statues of Roman emperors and governors of Britain including Constantine the Great, Julius Caesar, Claudius and Hadrian. The statues on the terrace date to 1894, and were carved in advance of the grand opening of the Roman Baths in 1897.
Visitors could still occasionally bathe in the Great Bath (and some of the smaller baths) up until 1978. However, following the discovery of a dangerous amoeba, which was active in the water, the baths were closed for bathing.
The spring water that supplies the Thermae Bath Spa today is drawn from new boreholes drilled beneath the King’s Spring and the Cross Bath between 1983–1985, and the Hetling Spring in 1998 and 2011. The water is tested weekly and is consistently declared safe.
CITY HISTORY
Saturnalia & the Romans
What have the Romans ever done for us? Georgette McCready takes a look at the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia and finds links with modern-day Christmas festivities
In Monty Python’s Life of Brian film there’s a scene where John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin are complaining about their Roman occupiers and John Cleese’s character asks a rhetorical question: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” In reply the other revolutionaries begin a long list of advantages the Romans have brought to Judea and Cleese typically agrees: “Okay, apart from sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” The one thing they might’ve added to the ever-growing list of benefits is ‘the Christmas spirit’ because there are so many links to the way the ancient Romans celebrated the festival of Saturnalia to how we enjoy the Christmas period today.
Boy, did those Romans know how to party! Their Saturnalia was a week-long period of over-indulgence where workplaces such as courts shut, people gave each other presents and there was a good deal of debauched behaviour as a result of excess alcohol. There was even dancing in the streets. And as we prepare for our own Christmases, this does sound familiar.
As the Roman Empire settled down after years of fighting tribes in Britain, Bath was a settlement where the Romans enjoyed peaceful times and were able to celebrate their own culture. In around 70AD the Romans had built a holy temple on the site of the natural hot water springs here in the south west of Britain before building the impressive complex of baths that we’re lucky enough to see today. In a tactful gesture to their British neighbours, who had originally built their shrine by the spring and dedicated it to Sulis their goddess of healing, the Romans named their baths The Waters of Sulis, or Aquae Sulis.
Religion was an important aspect of Roman culture but they cunningly made sure that having a good time was built into the worship of their gods. The Roman calendar is full of festivals and holidays – at least one for every month of the year – and it’s here that we find the early roots of our modern-day Christmas celebrations. Lots of cultures like to mark the darkest days of winter by bringing families and friends together for feasts, to light fires and banish the cold and the Romans were no exception. Saturnalia was a hugely popular mid-winter festival which took place over a week between 17 and 23 December.
During this holiday period it was traditional for wealthy people to give their slaves and servants presents and time off. They quite often swapped clothes with their servants and waited on them, reversing roles even for a brief time. It was customary to bring berries and greenery into the house as a tribute to Saturn, the god of agriculture, and gifts often took the form of small statuettes or
ornaments, which were hung in the greenery – decking the halls with boughs of holly.
And then there were the banquets... In her book Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking, Kate Coluhon explains how Roman food and dishes would have been such a revelation to the indigenous British people. This would have been the equivalent of the 1960s in the UK when most people had a bland diet which did not include ginger, garlic or chilli and they were suddenly introduced to the highly flavoured cuisine of curries and Chinese dishes.
While the British in pre-Christian times cooked with butter, milk and ale, the Romans used olive oil and wine. They brought with them their secret recipes for a pungent, dark, salty fish sauce which they used to flavour their dishes. It was said that a soldier who had been stuck on distant outposts guarding the Roman Empire used to stand in the British rain or mists dreaming of the tasty fish relish of home.
If you were invited to a Saturnalian feast in Bath what might you expect? The diners would eat lounging on couches, the most important guests nearest to the host. And dishes were announced before being brought to the table, served in a series of courses as we do now. The food would have been an expression of the host’s wealth and they prided themselves on beautiful glassware and decorative bowls.
We might recognise a sort of early pasta and we would almost certainly enjoy the fresh breads made from oats, rye, wheat or barley, although we might find a sausage stuffed with a mixture of meat and fish rather odd. The Romans brought many innovations to Bath. They roasted meat in ovens and liked to keep their food hot as it was brought to table. In the kitchens they introduced the three-legged metal cauldron, ladles and spatulas.
They enjoyed watercress, lettuce, bacon and beans and their range of herbs and spices, including fennel, dill and aniseed must have been a shot of flavour for their British guests. The Romans were farmers as well as warriors. They fenced in wild deer for venison meat and kept wild ducks which they domesticated for food. There was also the habit of keeping dormice in pottery vessels where they were fattened up on chestnuts and acorns, before being roasted for the feast.
One of history’s earliest recipe books was written by a Roman gourmet Apicus. One recipe begins: ‘take and pluck a flamingo’ and ends ‘the same recipe can be used for parrot.’ It’s unlikely that cooks in Bath could get their hands on either of these birds, but we do know that grapes were grown for wine in terraces on the sunny slopes of Walcot, where the name Vineyards on the Paragon remains as a reminder of that time.
Our Saturnalian celebrants would finish their convivium (another name for a dinner party) with puddings sweetened with honey. Some guests would have brought napkins to wipe their greasy fingers but it was perfectly acceptable for guests to run their fingers through the serving boys’ hair to clean them for the next course.
Throughout the meal wine would have been served and in wealthier households there would have been entertainment between courses in the form of short theatrical scenes, juggling, singing or poetry. And at the end of the feast everyone would enjoy the chance to gossip over more wine, or to play backgammon, dice or draughts.
The Romans were happy with nudity, they were at ease naked in the baths, where business and pleasure were conducted with flesh on show. They were also relaxed about sex and the festivities of
Saturnalia saw some debauched behaviour take place, much as it can today when Christmas parties get out of hand and the mistletoe and red wine loosen inhibitions. Who knows what stories the walls of the Roman baths would tell if they could talk.
As always, every good party has to come to an end and by 312AD the Christian Roman Emperor Constantine started to clamp down on Saturnalia as its orgies and louche behaviour didn’t sit comfortably with Christian values. Within generations the British Christian Christmas had become all about prayer and solemnity.
However the spark of those festive good times, remains buried in our collective subconscious and we’re quite sure the Romans of ancient Bath would have approved of our 21st-century funfilled holiday. Happy Saturnalia!
The Top Spots for Coffee
Like many cities, Bath has no shortage of places to get a coffee and cake. Between well-loved chains and independent, local, favourites, there’s no shortage of spots for a good ol’ cup of Joe and a delicious bite to eat
Are you a fan of a flat white? Or are you more of a caramel macchiato kind of person? Maybe you’re always in search of your morning espresso, or a mocha as your daily indulgence. Either way, everyone has their preferred brew and the Bath coffee scene is booming.
Whether it’s an early morning take-out, a mid-morning refreshment, or even an afternoon pick-me up, enjoying quality coffee has become an essential part of most people’s day, and Bathonians are no exception. Bath’s baristas will serve up an estimated £17 million worth of espressos, lattes, cappuccinos and flat whites every year. But if you’re new to Bath – how do you choose where to go for your good ol’ cup of Joe?
We’ve rounded up some of the city’s best cafés and delis where you’ll discover plenty of great coffee blends, fine pastries, yummy cakes and savoury snacks – all beautifully served, simple pleasures start here.
Cakes galore at Poppy’s Bakery, a beautiful little coffee shop and bakery situated directly on Pulteney Bridge, a world heritage site. Delicious pastries are cooked on-site everyday, why not enjoy one with a freshly ground espresso and a beautiful view over the weir! Lovely come rain or shine. Takeaways are also popular; they offer a meal deal which is ideal for a picnic down by the river or a hot chocolate and a Cornish pasty in the winter! Cream teas are an afternoon staple here with varying homemade scone options, look out for the blueberry scones especially, along side other favourites including Victoria Sponge, Bakewell Cake and Lemon Drizzle – made by the on-site bakery team. Opening hours –9am – 5.30pm Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm on Saturdays, & 9.30am – 5.30pm on Sundays
Just around the corner from the bustle of Bath Abbey, this colourful independent café has been serving up delicious food for over 30 years. Head down the steps at North Parade Passage to discover the quirky surroundings of Lilliput Court and soak in the Georgian architecture views. Go for fluffy pancake stacks or Havana toast – think spiced pulled pork, ham, cheese and chipotle mayo, topped with a fried egg – boozy cream teas, tempting tartines, all day Full English/veggie, homemade lunch specials and Kirsty’s moreish cakes. There’s a cosy inside space and plenty of cover outside too, with heaters and blankets for chillier days, ensuring a delightful stop off year-round.
NATA & CO
Nata & Co, 8 Bridge Street, BA2 4AS
Web: nataco.uk
Nata & Co in Bath brings you the true taste of Portugal with their famous, authentic, Pastéis de Nata – delicious Portuguese tarts baked fresh every day! Try the classic or explore new exciting flavours like pistachio, peanut butter, nutella, biscoff, blueberry tart and apple. A Vegan option is also available. Pair your treat with a great coffee and enjoy warm, friendly service. You will also find a variety of traditional Portuguese dishes and soups on the menu. Warm Pastels and coffee on a winter’s morn, life’s so good!
QUIET STREET COFFEE
2 Quiet Street, Bath BA1 2JS
A array of homemade cakes awaits you at Quiet Street Coffee, all made down the road in central Bath. Favourites include carrot cake, lemon drizzle and triple chocolate brownies. The rock cakes are also very popular! There’s a great variety of coffees, with all of the options available in freshly ground decaf as well. A popular spot for takeaway coffee, there is also plenty of seating on the ground floor, as well as down a spiral staircase into a colourful and cosy lounge. Serving a simple breakfast, lunch and tea and cake menu, the café can get busy so get there early. A delightful pitstop on the way into town, this pretty little café is situated between Milsom Street and Queen Square. Opening hours –8.30am – 5.30pm Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm on Saturdays & 9.30am – 5.30pm on Sundays.
Café Lucca revives and relaxes in equal measure. It serves wonderful food in a welcoming environment, offering freshly ground coffee and a light breakfast in the mornings, lunch from a selection of brightly coloured salads and bruschettas and panini, or for afternoon tea an array of tempting cakes. This is the perfect place for catching up with friends, or as a respite from shopping, and is one of Bath’s favourite places to see people and be seen. Deliciously fresh, modern Italianstyle/Mediterranean food is served in the elegant and spacious surroundings of The Loft. All the fresh produce and Italian products are from small local family suppliers. Based in a traffic-free street in Bath’s boutique quarter, the restaurant is just two minutes’ walk from Milsom Street and The Assembly Rooms, and when the sun shines there are tables outside from where one can watch the world go by.
AND THERE’S MORE...
ADVENTURE CAFÉ
5 Princes Buildings, George Street, Bath BA1 2ED Web: adventurecafebar.co.uk
21 Old Bond Street, Bath BA1 2LA Web: knoops.co.uk
IMAGES (top left, rotating clockwise): Richard ‘Beau’ Nash by William H oare, courtesy of Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and N.E. So merset Council; Ralph Allen by John Faber Jr.
Wikimedia Commons; John Wood the Elder courtesy of Bath in Time; The Circus, AdobeStock
RICHARD ‘BEAU’ NASH
RALPH ALLEN
JOHN WOOD THE ELDER
The Men Who Built Bath
Melissa Blease digs deep into the architectural roots of Bath, and celebrates the pioneers responsible for creating some of the city’s most loved and distinct buildings
Despite enduring a Roman invasion, being granted official city status more than nine centuries ago, and operating a regular coach service to London since 1657, Bath in the late 17th century was little more than a quiet market town with a population of just 2,000 people. But the Bathonians who enjoyed the quiet life at this time were about to have their world turned upside down.
In 1702, Queen Anne visited Bath and publicly endorsed the medicinal, mineral-rich properties of the city’s spring water, declaring that it helped to ease her painful gout – a form of arthritis that causes severe swelling and inflammation. She visited Bath regularly to take the waters with the aim of seeking a cure.
Within two years of the royal visit, Richard ‘Beau’ Nash relocated to Bath from London to claim the mantle of Master of Ceremonies, presiding over the social and cultural events of a city that was fast turning into the UK’s most fashionable merrymaking zone. And eight years later, 17-year-old Ralph Allen swapped his job behind the counter of his family’s post office in Cornwall to fill a vacancy for an assistant to the postmistress of Bath – and Bath’s architectural renaissance was poised to begin.
Excelling in his initial role of clerk, Allen soon became the youngest postmaster in the UK in 1712, at the age of 19. An instinctive entrepreneur and avid philanthropist, he went on to reform the country’s postal system by introducing a ‘signed for’ mail initiative to guarantee security, and improving speed and efficiency by ceasing the lengthy process of directing all mail via London.
In a move that exemplified his passion for enterprise and forwardthinking initiatives, combined with an innate aptitude for logistics, in 1726 Allen used the small fortune he’d made from revolutionising the postal system to purchase the quarries at Combe and Bathampton Downs, and built a railway to carry huge blocks of stone into the city.
Around the same time, architect John Wood (born in Bath in 1704) had recently returned to the city from London, where he’d been involved with the Cavendish-Harley housing estate development in Mayfair. Wood the Elder (the reason behind ‘the Elder’ appellation will shortly become clear) discovered a natural affinity with Allen and together they developed an ambitious plan for the architectural regeneration of Bath, which he duly presented to his prospective collaborator. Working closely together, the duo was largely responsible for the development of Georgian Bath.
Combining his passion for Palladianism (a classic European style of architecture derived from 16th-century Venetian architect Andrea Palladio) and his fascination with ancient British history, Wood the Elder’s overall vision was to turn Bath into ‘the Rome of Britain’,
complete with a Circus Maximus and Forum. While the Corporation of Bath initially looked upon his grand designs as little more than self-indulgent folly, they eventually conceded that Bath’s burgeoning popularity was creating a need for accommodation for visitors and prospective long-term residents. Using Wood the Elder’s designs as a blueprint, work on Queen Square – named in honour of George II’s consort, Caroline – began in 1729; leading by example, perhaps, Wood the Elder took one of the centre houses for himself.
While Queen Square was still a work in progress, Wood the Elder also undertook a commission from Allen to build a new home that would display and convey his new-found status and wealth. The pair chose a plot of land that lay just outside Bath's original city boundaries to build Prior Park, an imposing Palladian mansion set in 28 acres of ground overlooking the city. Completed in 1743, the park was described by British author and man-about-town Philip Thicknesse as ‘a noble seat which sees all Bath, and which was built, probably, for all Bath to see’ – and Thicknesse probably had a point.
Although their professional partnership came to an end during the project (Allen dismissed Wood in 1734, replacing him with their Clerk of Works, Richard Jones), they remained firm friends. Allen used Prior Park to entertain many influential personalities of the day including artist Thomas Gainsborough, theatrical impresario David Garrick and novelist and dramatist Henry Fielding. All of these he proudly introduced to Wood the Elder who, by 1728, had completed his first private commission in Bath, a new building for St John’s Hospital in the city centre.
But Wood the Elder’s greatest architectural gift to Bath had yet to be revealed.
The Circus – named after the original Latin word for a circle or ring rather than a travelling entertainment venue – comprised 30 terraced houses on an orbicular layout, perfectly divided into three sections of exactly equal length and based around a central lawn. When viewed from the air (might we suggest the basket of an air balloon?) The Circus, Gay Street and Queen Square form the shape of a key. This ancient masonic symbol unlocks a clue to Wood the Elder’s longstanding fascination with Freemasonry, a non-religious fraternity established at the end of the 14th century by local stonemasons aiming to regulate fair interaction with clients.
Freemasonry was described by one of the original founding members as ‘a beautiful system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols’. Wood the Elder’s connections are further endorsed if you wander The Circus at street level and notice the frieze that runs along the elegant curved facades of each segment of the buildings, richly decorated with 525 pictorial emblems including nautical symbols, swords, mythological and legendary beasts and
representations of the arts and sciences, all of which have origins in Masonic tradition. Wood the Elder, however, never saw his most magnificent, ambitious work completed – he died three months after laying The Circus’ first foundation stone in 1754. But the Wood family’s legacy doesn’t end there.
John Wood’s son John (hence the designation of Elder and Younger) was born in Bath in 1728 – the same year his father moved back to the city from London. From his early childhood, Wood the Younger was captivated by his father’s work. In 1749, when Wood the Elder temporarily relocated to Liverpool to oversee the initial stages of his design for the city’s new town hall, Wood the Younger went with him. It was on an early site visit to Liverpool Town Hall that Wood the Younger met Elizabeth Brock, the sister of nearby Chester’s town clerk, whom he eventually married and they raised a family of nine children (seven girls and two boys).
After Wood the Elder died in 1754, Wood the Younger took over where his father left off, building The Circus (which was eventually completed in 1768) and Gay Street, which provided an elegant thoroughfare twixt The Circus and Queen Square.
Over the coming years, Wood the Younger (who lived with his family at 41 Gay Street) created a brand-new architectural image for Bath, pioneering a bold, neo-classical style that contrasted with the more ornate, embellished frontages preferred by his father. This contrast is most sharply represented in Wood the Younger’s designs for buildings such as - the Assembly Rooms, this is a U-shaped building based around a grand central aisle linking a Tea Room, Card Room, Ball Room and Octagon Room and was purpose-built in 1771 to host an 18th-century entertainment venue known as the Assembly. The Hot Bath is another example, part of the Roman Baths complex and built in 1777.
Wood the Younger’s ultimate masterpiece was Bath’s exquisite Royal Crescent, completed in 1774. The 500ft/150m supremely elegant, sweeping curve of 30 grandiose terraced houses facing south and overlooking acres of pastoral paradise was later transformed into Royal Victoria Park (opened in 1830 by the 11-year-old princess – later queen – Victoria). Subtly exuding the kind of discreetly luxurious glamour that Wood the Younger excelled in creating and to this day renowned across the globe for its iconic architectural status, the Royal Crescent was the first of its kind to be built in the UK. It remains one of the greatest, most picture-perfect examples of Georgian architecture in the county, if not the world.
Over the course of the 18th century, Bath’s population grew from 2,000 to almost 30,000 as the city transformed from a market town into a fashionable metropolis. Today, 83,000+ residents and thousands upon thousands of annual visitors and tourists offer gratitude in abundance to The Men Who Built Bath.
Remembering Legends
• John Wood the Elder died in his Queen Square home in 1754 and was buried in the chancel of Swainswick Church.
• Beau Nash died in 1762 and left such a lasting legacy that locals rallied together to throw a lavish funeral, fit for a king.
• Ralph Allen – elected Mayor of Bath in 1742 – used Prior Park as his primary residence until his death in 1764.
• John Wood the Younger died at his eventual home (Eagle House, Batheaston) in 1781 and was buried beside his father.
1750: PRIOR PARK AND RALPH ALLEN’S RAILWAY
Hand-coloured line engraving of Prior Park and Ralph Allen’s railway in 1750 from an engraving by Anthony Walker, courtesy of the National Railway Museum /Science and Society Picture Library
The Perfect Curve
It’s 250 years since the completion of the Royal Crescent and it remains one of the most breathtaking architectural treasures in the UK, says Jessica Hope
With its 114 Ionic columns, honey-coloured stone and curved symmetry spanning 150m (500 ft), the Royal Crescent is one of the most majestic examples of 18th-century Palladian-style architecture in the UK, and as such it is protected by a Grade-I listed status.
Between 1767 and 1775 architect John Wood the Younger designed and oversaw the construction of this magnificent semiellipse of buildings. His father John Wood the Elder had brought Palladianism to Bath with his developments in and around Queen Square (1725–1736) and the Circus (1754–1768). The Crescent was the final sequence in this architectural masterplan.
Wood employed various builders on each of the 30 houses, and while he was particular about maintaining the dimensions and design across the façade, he allowed purchasers the freedom of budget to do what they liked inside and at the back. This is why the depth of the buildings and roof lines differ behind the Royal Crescent, and the windows are not all aligned. This architecture, often described as ‘Queen Anne fronts and Mary-Anne backs’, is an indication of the wealth of the initial owner.
The Royal Crescent was the first crescent of terraced houses to be built ‘rus in urbe’ (country in the city) as it overlooked parkland and offered fashionable visitors city residences that had the same style and grandeur as the houses in their country estates.
A Ha-Ha remains to this day – a ditch separating the upper and lower lawns mainly to keep grazing animals off the upper lawn, but is near invisible to anyone running down - hence the unsympathetic name.
On completion, the Crescent became one of the most sought-after addresses in the city. It adopted the title ‘Royal’ at the end of the 18th century after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, had stayed there.
Drawn by the Assembly Rooms and the thermal waters, by the late 18th century Bath had become a centre for the leisurely classes to take the waters, socialise, gamble and purvey the marriage market. To see and be seen was considered the most desirable of diversions and those in wealthy (and not so wealthy) society used Bath’s open spaces, such as the Royal Crescent, Circus and Queen Square, to promenade, meet their friends and gossip.
Currently, of the crescent’s 30 townhouses, 10 are still full-size houses, 18 have been split into flats of various sizes, one is the No. 1 Royal Crescent museum, and the two central houses with the entrance at number 16 is the splendid Royal Crescent Hotel.
POSTCARDS
The Lantern of the West
Bath Abbey sits at the very heart of the city. Rich in history and a notable example of fine Gothic architecture, it is one of the city’s most inspiring sights for visitors and pilgrims. We look at its past, present and future
One might expect the principal religious building at the heart of the city of Bath to be a cathedral, but the magnificent, imposing church is actually an abbey – and the original church, built in around 757 AD by the Anglo-Saxons, was once a monastery.
Bath Abbey is the third building to stand on the spot where Christians have worshipped for over 1000 years. Dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, the Abbey is historically important for many reasons, and world-renowned as the site where King Edgar, the first king of a united England, was crowned in 973 AD. Until that point, England had been a series of small kingdoms, each run by their own leader; Edgar’s coronation paved the way for the future unity of the nation of England.
As you approach the Abbey from the impressive west front, one of the first things you’ll notice is the unusual stone carving, depicting angels climbing up – and tumbling down – a pair of ladders. This dates from the early 16th century, when Bishop Oliver King commissioned the building of a new abbey that was to be the forerunner of what we see today: the last great Medieval cathedral to be built in England before King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries closed the Abbey in 1539.
In 1573, permission was granted by Queen Elizabeth I for the restoration of the Abbey and it was completed in 1620. A second restoration with major changes were carried out by the City of Bath in 1833 resulting in much of the Abbey exterior we see today.
Admirers of Gothic architecture will appreciate the Abbey’s dramatic flying buttresses and the many windows which allow the interior of the building to be filled with natural light. At night, when the lights glow inside to welcome visitors, the Abbey can be clearly seen from the tops of the hills that surround Bath, earning itself the affectionate local nickname, the Lantern of the West.
The dramatic fan-vaulted ceiling in the main nave replaced the original wooden ceiling and was part of Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott’s restoration of the Abbey during the 1860s. Scott, who also designed the Albert Memorial and the grand station at St Pancras Station, was also responsible for the handsome, ornate chandeliers, which were originally gas fired before being converted to electricity in 1979.
Original visitors to Bath Abbey would have been able to move freely around the nave, as it was not until the 19th century that wooden pews were installed, again at the behest of Gilbert Scott. As part of the recent renovation scheme for the Abbey, the pews – which were uncomfortable for long periods of sitting – were removed in order to free the space up for a variety of events and leaving the nave unadorned as it was in medieval times, or filled with seating when the occasion demanded it.
Bath Abbey is unique for the plethora of memorial plaques on its walls and floors. Only Westminster Abbey has more wall tablets than can be found in Bath: there are 1508 memorials, with 617 on the walls and 891 laid into the floor. Not all the
THE WEST WINDOW AND FAN VAULTED CEILING
individuals commemorated are interred in the Abbey, but they or their families wanted a memorial to be placed here. Wander among the plaques and it quickly becomes apparent that it’s not only the lives of the wealthy and influential that are recorded; if you’re looking for a particular memorial stone, the Abbey’s volunteer guides are very knowledgeable.
If you have a head for heights, regular Tower Tours offer a memorable view of the city. A guide will lead you up the 212 steps to the top of the tower, pausing in the magnificent, awe-inspiring bell-ringing chamber on the way up. The views from the top of the 45-metre tall tower are spectacular – it’s no wonder that this eyrie has become a popular spot for marriage proposals.
BATH ABBEY’S FOOTPRINT PROJECT
In recent years, Bath Abbey’s ambitious, multi-million pound Footprint Project protected and restored the historic fabric of Bath Abbey while bringing it into 21st-century service.
The project started in May 2018 when the east end of the Abbey was closed off so that the collapsing floor could be stabilised, ecofriendly underfloor heating could be installed and the ledgerstones on the floor could be restored. When the first phase was completed and the east end reopened, the north side of the Abbey was closed to carry out the same work on the floor, heating and ledgerstones.
A wealth of discoveries were unearthed during the archaeological digs (including a Medieval tiled floor that was in the Norman cathedral that once stood on the site of the current Abbey) and today, the Abbey has been opened up in new ways, securing its full glory for present and future generations of visitors.
A new LED lighting system and underfloor heating powered by renewable energy from Bath’s famous hot springs has made the whole site far more energy-efficient. There’s a brand new Song School alongside meeting rooms and office space in Kingston Buildings (adjacent to the Abbey), as well as a brand new Learning Room that has transformed the Abbey’s facilities and opportunities for the Abbey congregation, Bath residents and the city’s visitors
alike. The Learning Room is regularly used by visiting primary and secondary schools and is currently an integral part of the ‘warm spaces’ initiative across the city of Bath and for the provision of English lessons for Ukrainian refugees.
In March 2023 Bath Abbey’s Discovery Museum opened to the public. This unique heritage centre transformed the building’s newly excavated ancient vaults into a fascinating, accessible space that brings the Abbey’s history to life. Objects from the archives (including Anglo-Saxon crosses and Medieval fragments) are on display in the ancient vaults beneath the building, while interactive, immersive exhibits, videos, animated timelines and replica period costumes bring the history of this extraordinary building to vivid life for all ages. Meanwhile, the Abbey Shop has undergone a complete transformation, not to be overlooked!
To maintain its high standard as a leading local heritage attraction and to remain a sustainable place for worship, the Abbey has an admission fee of £8. Local residents and those wishing to pray, worship and attend services are welcomed at no charge. There are regular prayers during the day and a roster of services throughout the week, details of which can be found on the Bath Abbey website.
Today, Bath Abbey is used regularly for secular events, concerts, art installations and more, and is a renowned centre of musicmaking. It’s vital to remember, however, that it primarily remains a dedicated place of worship for its congregation and the Christian community.
Visit: Bath Abbey, Bath BA1 1LT
Tickets: For admission tickets and more information, visit the Bath Abbey website
Open daily, Monday to Friday: 10.00am – 5.30pm, (6pm Saturday), Sunday: 1.00pm – 3.30pm
Information on the Tower Tours can be found online
Web: bathabbey.org
THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM, LOCATED IN THE ANCIENT ABBEY VAULTS OFFERS A FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO ITS RICH HISTORY
IMAGE: ABG Design for Bath Abbey
Collections & Treasures
Dara Foley ventures off the well-worn tourist routes to discover Bath’s many specialist museums
Bath has a wonderful, eclectic mix of independent specialist museums that will delight, educate and stimulate the senses in even measure. Housed in some of Bath’s finest buildings these little treasures will make your experience of our city so much richer. Intelligent, intriguing and charming they are certainly worth a visit.
NO. 1 ROYAL CRESCENT
At one end of the magnificent sweeping curve of the Royal Crescent, surely Bath’s most photographed street, can be found a museum which gives us the chance to see what the home life of a fashionable Georgian household was like. No. 1 Royal Crescent, run by Bath Preservation Trust, has been painstakingly furnished and decorated just as it might have been during the period 1776–1796. Visitors can take a room-by-room journey around 18th-century life, from the lady’s bedroom and the parlour to the gentleman’s retreat. In addition to the fine furniture, glassware, china and silver, and the collections, which reflect the interests of the era in science and the natural world, there’s a recreation of a working kitchen in the basement, filled with archaic and fascinating cooking paraphernalia. Children can have a turn trying on costumes from the period and there is often a be-wigged doorman in full Georgian costume to welcome visitors outside the grand front door.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, No. 1 Royal Crescent, Bath BA1 2LR Tel: 01225 428126 Web: no1royalcrescent.org.uk
BATH ROYAL LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION
For those who fear the world is dumbing down, BRLSI (pronounced Brillsy) is an oasis of cultural refreshment. Located on Queen Square, it’s a prominent address but an unassuming institution, perhaps explained by the fact that it’s a charitable organisation run by volunteers. So there’s no flashy shop selling t-shirts and pencils, but there is a running programme of free exhibitions centred on promoting science, literature and art. The museum is fortunate in being able to call on its tens of thousands of objects in its collections to collate fascinating displays. Throughout the year there are knowledgeable lectures and talks from world-class experts on topics as diverse as fake news, Buddhism, nanoscience and climate change. Check out some of the collections in its online gallery.
Open Monday to Saturday 16–18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN Tel: 01225 312084 Web: brlsi.org
MARY SHELLEY’S HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
This attraction, set in a Grade II listed property, blurs the lines between museum and immersive visitor experience, extending over four atmospheric floors including the dank foreboding basement experience. Step into the world of Mary Shelley with a floor dedicated to uncovering her history and tragic life events, and confront the formidable 8ft monster recreated exactly as Mary imagined. Bursting with unusual artefacts and vintage items, interactive multi-sensory environments and assorted body parts, Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein delivers an unnervingly visceral, illuminating and entertaining experience.
In a quiet side street off Bath city centre lies a modest Georgian terraced house where astronomer William Herschel made history over 200 years ago. With his telescope in the garden of the home in New King Street that he shared with his equally gifted sister Caroline, Herschel discovered Uranus, a hitherto unknown planet. That discovery in 1871 was to influence future generations of space scientists. The late astronomer Sir Patrick Moore said that Herschel should be commemorated as the man who gave us our first understanding of an accurate shape of our star system, or galaxy. The small museum has some rooms furnished as they would have been in the 18th century, and its artefacts tell of a life filled with music-making and scientific exploration. Also, watch a short film about the Herschels and visit the 18th-century garden, where plants used in cooking and medicine were cultivated.
Open Tuesday to Sunday 19 New King Street, Bath BA1 2BL Tel: 01225 446865 Web: herschelmuseum.org.uk
THE MUSEUM OF EAST ASIAN ART
Bath is home to the only UK museum dedicated to the art and culture of East and South East Asia. It has a collection of exquisitely beautiful items, including ceramics, carvings, netsuke and jade, many of them thousands of years old. It is a place to quietly focus on the details of form and colour and to marvel at the craftsmanship imbued in these pieces. The museum has an excellent shop – great for gift buying – and regularly runs family friendly events and craft sessions.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 12 Bennett Street, Bath BA1 2QJ Tel: 01225 464640 Web: meaa.org.uk
THE SPIRAL STAIRWELL AT BECKFORD’S TOWER
THE JANE AUSTEN CENTRE
GEORGIAN COOK IN THE KITCHEN AT NO. 1 ROYAL CRESCENT
JANE AUSTEN CENTRE
More of an immersive curiosity than a museum, the Jane Austen Centre celebrates the author’s life and works with a permanent exhibition that explores her time in Bath and the influence that the city had on her books and the characters she created. Set in a classic Georgian townhouse that’s decorated in classic regency-era style, and fit with the fashion and food to match, the museum offers a time-capsule glimpse into Austen’s personal life. Visitors will also meet many of the costumed guides that gallivant the corridors, such as the brilliant Martin Salter – AKA Mr Bennet, who remain in-character and make the experience enchanting and memorable. There’s also a chance to dress up in Regency clothing, and sample biscuits, scents of the era and even try a little writing with a quill and ink. After all that, take tea and possibly cake, with Mr Darcy in the centre’s Regency Tea Rooms.
Open daily
40 Gay Street, Bath BA1 2NT
Tel: 01225 443000 Web: janeausten.co.uk
THE MUSEUM OF BATH AT WORK
Bath was once a thriving hub of industry, making goods that were shipped around the world. This unusual museum is dedicated to the centuries of Bath’s working heritage. Highlights of the collection include a recreation of a 19th-century soft drinks bottling plant, J.B. Bowler, which once operated in the city, and a Horstmann car from 1914, one of the earliest motor vehicles, also made in Bath. The museum is a great place for Bathonians to learn more about their heritage, and for visitors to look at how our ancestors used to make things. For many it will also offer the experience when history collides with our own memories of past technology.
The city of Bath is one of only two entire cities inscribed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites, the other being Venice. Bath World Heritage Centre celebrates the city’s unique cultural offering and gives an insight into what makes the city so special. Find out more about the city’s attributes of Outstanding Universal Value the hot springs, Roman remains, Georgian architecture, Georgian town planning, the social setting of the Georgian spa town and the city’s natural landscape setting. You can explore interactive exhibits and displays designed to inspire,
excite and inform. Discover free walking trails and guides and a specially designed mobile app to help you explore everything Bath has to offer.
Open daily
10 York Street, Bath BA1 1NH
Tel: 01225 477785 Web: bathworldheritage.org.uk
OLD THEATRE ROYAL AND MASONIC MUSEUM
It’s easy to miss this ordinary looking building, yet it was the first purpose-built theatre in Bath and behind the modest front door lies a fascinating history dating back to 1750. Originally named the St James Theatre, it soon became the first Theatre Royal outside London with star performers such as William Dimond and Sarah Siddons attracting sell-out audiences. As the population of Bath grew towards the end of the 1700s, its limitations were obvious and a new location for the theatre was found in Beaufort Square, the site now occupied by the Theatre Royal Bath. The Theatre Royal and Masonic Hall are open to the public on selected days with guided tours available to give you an insight into the history of the theatre, the building and freemasonry in general.
Built between 1826 and 1827 for William Beckford (1760-1844), Beckford’s Tower is a unique building and a key landmark for the City of Bath. It once housed one of the greatest collections of art, furniture and books in Georgian England. However, behind its beauty lies a more brutal story.
The Tower is a product of the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people. Beckford’s ability to build, and to collect, was made possible by a vast fortune built on the profits of sugar plantations in Jamaica and the stolen labour of thousands of enslaved Africans. This wealth gave Beckford a life of privilege, and enabled him to collect and commission unique and influential artworks by some of Europe’s greatest artists and makers. It also gave him power over the lives of others. Understanding the source of Beckford’s wealth, and what it enabled him to do, is essential to exploring the books he wrote, the collection he put together and the buildings he created.
Opening times Saturday to Sunday, 10am-4pm Lansdown Rd, Bath BA1 9BH
Tel: 01225 460705 Web: beckfordstower.org.uk
HERSCHEL MUSEUM OF ASTRONOMY MARY SHELLEY’S HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Nigel Dando
Member of The London Diamond Bourse
Situated on Bath’s historic Pulteney Bridge, Nigel Dando began his career after he gained national Goldsmiths Diploma before going on study gemmology at the Sir John Cass College of Art, Whitechapel.
Today he sells an eclectic mix of new, pre-owned and vintage jewellery and has a particular interest in pieces from the 1920-1960 era together with ranges of contemporary silver jewellery at affordable prices, many of which are one-off pieces, the emphasis being on quality and style.
Another facet of the business is the buying of gold and silver items in any form or condition. Nigel also sells investment precious metals at what he believes to be the most competitive prices in the city. Being one of the few provincial members of The London Diamond Bourse, Nigel is in daily contact with the market. which enables him to offer undeniable expertise and value. He also offers a valuation service.
POSTCARDS
Bath – As Seen on Screen
From Sense and Sensibility to Bridgerton and The Pursuit of Love to Sherlock, Bath’s heritage and picturesque locations continue to make a big mark on TV and film screens. Melissa Blease rolls the credits
REGENCY ROMPS
“The dash of carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of newspapermen, muffin-men and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of pattens...” That’s how Jane Austen described Lady Russell’s experience of driving through Bath in her 1817 novel Persuasion. Over two centuries on, the carts, drays, muffinmen and pattens are long gone – or are they?
At least three adaptations of Persuasion have been filmed in Bath, most recently the thoroughly modern and controversial 2022 Netflix version starring Dakota Johnson. The BBC’s 1995 version proved to be more favourable with critics, but the supreme winner was the BBC’s six-part adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which came out in the same year and starred Colin Firth as Fitzwilliam Darcy... most memorably, perhaps in that wet shirt scene, although (sadly) this was not filmed in Bath. The BBC/A&E Network 1987 adaptation of Northanger Abbey was, though –and the popular Sky Arts/Giles Coren 2017 documentary I Hate Jane Austen.
Key Austen-related film and TV backdrops include the Royal Crescent, Sydney Place, Abbey Churchyard, Abbey Green, The Pump Room, Old Bond Street, The Assembly Rooms, Bath Street, North Parade Buildings and Gravel Walk.
Director Mira Nair’s 2004 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel Vanity Fair (starring Reese Witherspoon alongside a host of iconic stage/screen superstars) gave us bountiful, big-screen Bath in abundance. Four years later, Saul Dibb’s 2008 historical drama The Duchess worked similar Bath blockbuster magic as Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling and Dominic Cooper starred as groovy Georgians trotting their well-heeled stuff in various locations across the city, most notably The Assembly Rooms and The Holburne Museum, at the apex of gracious Great Pulteney Street. Talking of which...
Are you familiar with Bridgerton’s Lady Danbury’s exquisite home in an upper-class corner of 19th-century London? Well, that’s The Holburne, too! Since 2020, the very word Bridgerton (the huge Netflix historical fiction/romance smash hit) has become
BATH’S GREAT PULTENEY STREET IS TRANSFORMED FOR BRIDGERTON,
synonymous with Bath: all the exterior shots of the Featherington family’s fabulous house were filmed on the Royal Crescent, while Gunter's Tea Shop, Lady Dee’s Hat Emporium, the Modiste Dress Shop, the Horse and Hop Pub, the market’ and Siena Rosso's humble abode were all variously shot around Abbey Square, Abbey Green and Beauford Square.
Bath reprised its role in the Bridgerton franchise in the 2023 prequel series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, and season 3 arrived in summer 2024, profiling wallflower (and secret scandal sheet writer) Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and her longtime crush, world traveller Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton). Season 4 is due to be released in January 2026 and will profile Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and his new love interest, the determined and captivating maid, Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha).
LIGHTS, CAMERA – DRAMA!
Tom Hooper’s epic, multi award-winning 2012 musical film version of Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel Les Miserables beautifully recreated the sights and sounds of 19th-century Paris... in Bath. Remember the dramatic moment when Javert/Russell Crowe throws himself off the Pont au Change into the River Seine? It was neither the Pont au Change nor the River Seine; the scene was filmed on Pulteney Bridge and Bath Weir.
Less dramatic, perhaps, but equally moving, the title character in Hettie Macdonald’s 2023 film adaptation of Rachel Joyce’s whimsical, poignant 2012 novel The Unremarkable Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (starring Jim Broadbent) passes through Bath city centre during his epic walking journey from South Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Expected to arrive on our TV screens this year, courtesy of Netflix, is the series The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie, which was filmed in Bristol and Bath in 2024. The context is a lavish country house party where a practical joke goes murdereously wrong. Sound familiar? Starring Mia McKennaBruce, Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham Carter.
FANTASTICAL FICTION
On a rainy autumn day in October 2021, Parade Gardens, Pulteney Bridge and Pulteney Weir were transformed into a magical snowy backdrop for key scenes in Paul King’s Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet. The film’s narrative acts as a prequel to both Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its original 1971 film adaptation premiered in December 2023. In 2009, Bath’s Little Theatre Cinema (St Michael’s Place) was immortalised in another magical Roald Dahl spectacular: Wes Anderson’s stop-motion classic, Fantastic Mr. Fox
SMALL SCREEN, BIG IMPACT
It would probably be easier to list the few remaining corners of Bath that haven’t been used as a backdrop across four seasons of quirky ITV detective drama McDonald and Dodds. And, being on contemporary drama territory, locations from the grand (Queen Square; the Royal Crescent; Royal Victoria Park) to the functional (the city council meeting rooms at The Guildhall; the council-leased allotments; Bath Leisure Centre) by way of various popular Bath watering holes including The Bell Inn (Walcot Street) are all clearly recognisable.
JONATHAN BAILEY IN THE SECOND SERIES OF BRIDGERTON, FILMED IN PRIOR PARK GARDENS
JASON WATKINS AND TALA GOUVEIA IN MCDONALD AND DODDS, SERIES 3 AT THE PARADE GARDENS
NIKKI AMUKA-BIRD AS LADY RUSSELL AND DAKOTA JOHNSON AS ANNE ELLIOT IN PERSUASION, FILMED IN BATH STREET
You might not think that McDonald’s in SouthGate is a prime location, but the fast food giant filmed its spectacular 2017 Christmas advert complete with snowflakes and Christmas trees here.
Elsewhere, key scenes in Emily Mortimer’s wild’n’witty adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love (BBC, 2021) were filmed around No 1 Royal Crescent and Green Park Station; the Assembly Rooms took centre stage as the grand Brussels ball scene in ITV’s 2020 historical drama Belgravia; the Guildhall doubled-up as London’s Old Bailey court rooms in the BBC’s 2019 series The Trial of Christine Keeler; and Benedict Cumberbatch strutted his Sherlock stuff on the ancient cobbles of Queen Street when it was transformed into a Victorian-era street market for the BBC’s 2015 Sherlock Christmas Special.
There’s also a brand new romcom movie One Night in Bath by Stardom Films, which was filmed around the city – starring John Hannah and Siobhan Redmond and was released earlier this year.
AROUND AND ABOUT
Several scenes in Steven Spielberg’s 2011 powerful World War I epic film War Horse were filmed in the village of Castle Combe (9 miles/14km north east of Bath). You might also recognise the ancient, picturesque bridge from its close-up as a backdrop in the original film version of Dr Doolittle (1967), while pivotal scenes in Matthew Vaughan’s 2017 adventure film Stardust were filmed here. Meanwhile, the village of Lacock (15 miles/24km east of Bath) is as picture-perfect as ancient, quintessentially English villages
get and film production companies agree. Lacock Abbey was turned into Wolf Hall in the BBC’s adaptations of Hilary Mantel’s book and the sequel Bring Up the Bodies, while Great Chalfield Manor and Garden (down the road from the Abbey) starred as Austen Friars, home of Thomas Cromwell.
Lacock Abbey also doubled-up as the interior of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Both the Abbey and the village featured in Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald (2017); His Dark Materials (BBC, 2019); Cranford (BBC 2007–10); Pride and Prejudice (BBC, 1995) and Justin Chadwick’s 2008 historical drama The Other Boleyn Girl
Dyrham Park (9 miles/14km north of Bath) is no stranger to period dramas either; this imposing National Trust property has enjoyed various big-screen roles including close-ups in James Ivory’s elegant 1993 tear-jerker The Remains of the Day (1933), John Alexander’s Sense and Sensibility (2008) and ITV’s 2019 historical drama Sanditon
The Dyrham Park mansion was also spotted as the exterior of Warleggan House in Poldark (BBC, 2015–2019)... and there was more Poldark at Bath’s Prior Park College for a ballroom scene, in Corsham (8 miles/13km south west of Bath) and Wells (around 22 miles/35km north-east of Bath), most notably Wells Town Hall, which had a starring role as Warleggan Bank.
LILY JAMES IN THE 2021 VERSION OF THE BBC’S PURSUIT OF LOVE, FILMED IN OLD GREEN PARK STATION
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET STARRING IN PAUL KING’S WONKA, FILMED IN BATH IN 2021
The treble winner
Tom Dunn is a core figure at Bath Rugby. Local, fiercely loyal, committed and deeply rooted in the community, he’s more than just a player, however. He’s a symbol of resilience and pride in a club which not only enjoyed a remarkable 24/25 season, but continue to be the team to beat says Emma Clegg.
After 15 years at Bath Rugby, hooker Tom Dunn is part of the engine of the club. Known for his frequent black eyes, bloodied ears and dogged determination, Dunn has become a symbol of grit and spirit. With over 250 club appearances, he has become one of the most dependable figures in its recent history.
Bath-born, Dunn is seen as the ultimate rugby icon for the city. He arrives – with his 18-month old chocolate labrador Tilly (who also proves very photogenic, although slightly less responsive to photographer’s cues) – with the traces of a black eye still evident, and as we walk to our coffee rendezvous, he is intercepted every few metres by friends, associates and fans.
On 14 June, Bath ended a 29-year wait by beating Leicester Tigers 23–21 at Twickenham to win the Gallagher Premiership. The finish capped off a fairytale season, with Bath also winning the Premiership Rugby Cup and European Challenge Cup. It marked the club’s first treble, and for players like Dunn the success was deeply personal.
“I don’t think I’ve fully taken in what we’ve achieved,” says Dunn. “After 15 years, I’d never won a single trophy, and now we have won all three. It’s just incredible. But it takes more than just the starting 15, or even the matchday 23. It’s the whole squad, the 25 others pushing us, the 35 support staff, the owners, the ticket sellers, the marketing team – and of course, the fans. This one’s for all of them.”
The celebrations spilled on to the streets of Bath, culminating in a jubilant gathering at The Rec. It was a cathartic release for fans, and for stalwarts like Dunn – men who have stayed loyal through years of near-misses, coaching changes and rebuilding.
“There were some darker days over the past three years. Things didn’t always go to plan. But if you look at the core of the team now, it’s actually quite similar. Going through those tough times together brought us closer. We’ve been through the lows, and now we’ve experienced the highs, together again.”
Dunn’s rugby journey began at Chippenham RFC. He joined Bath in 2012, playing as a loosehead prop before switching to hooker, all over a period of three demanding years. It paid off. He says, “I honestly don’t know if I could have cared this deeply or been this emotionally invested anywhere else. I’m Bath through and through.”
A University of Bath graduate, he signed his first long-term contract in 2016. His tenacity led to an England call-up in 2017 and a debut during the 2020 Guiness Six Nations, where England lifted the title. Dunn is modest about his capabilities. “I’m not the biggest, nor the strongest, nor the fastest, or the most skilful, but I try really hard. I won’t stop giving everything I’ve got. People joke about going to Valhalla, but for me, it’s not about talent, it’s about resilience."
He knows his role. “From the outside, people look at the team and say, ‘Wow, it’s a really strong side.’ And it is – but the big thing this year has been the variety. You’ve got the big ball-carriers like Thomas du Toit and Will Stuart, you’ve got the skilful guys like Ben Spencer, and the real speedsters like Will Muir, Joe Cokanasiga and Ted Hill. Then
there are four or five of us whose job is to hold it all together. Without that glue, the rest of the team couldn’t do what they do.”
Dunn credits much of this year’s transformation to head coach Johan van Graan. “The biggest thing Johan brought was the ability to build a group of genuinely good people. Now everyone’s completely aligned; we all care about the same things and want the same outcomes.”
He values Van Graan’s cultural approach. “There’s no ‘roll the dice’ stuff – just a simple ‘treat others how you want to be treated’. At first, I was sceptical, thought people might take advantage, but the opposite happened. Everyone bought in. That’s about his kindness and consistency.”
Dunn is already thinking about the next stage. “With success comes expectation. We’ve got a strong squad, even more depth, and of course we’d love to retain the Premiership title, but the next big goal is the Champions Cup – that’s the one that puts a star on the shirt. It’s what’s drives me to reset, refocus and get my head down again.”
Off the field, Dunn runs a thriving butchery – Kelly’s, based in Chew Magna – and co-owns a catering company, Black & White, specialising in everything from summer barbecues to hog roasts. Founded by Dave Kelly, a lifelong Bath fan, the business has evolved into a full-scale operation, complete with a thriving vegetable garden, Dexter cows and a pig called Sultan!
Despite the allure of farm life and running a food enterprise, Tom isn’t ready to hang up his boots. “Right now I’m very much enjoying playing rugby and I want to do this for as long as I can.”
He also plays a big role in the club’s charitable side, as an ambassador for the Bath Rugby Foundation and is involved with the Wiltshire Air Ambulance. “A friend of mine had a serious accident when I was 15 on the rugby pitch, and the Air Ambulance pretty much saved his life so I always back them by visiting and attending events.”
Dunn is also an ambassador for local charity Dorothy House, who support people with end-of-life care. His partner Jen, who worked in oncology before joining the team there, made the introduction. “I saw what they do there, especially through Covid when people were ill and on their own, and I realised I could help.”
Dunn is impressed by the culture of the hospice and often visits patients there. “People talk about death like it’s something to fear, but when you go and see the staff and the environment, it’s really positive,” he says. “It’s about making death a part of life.”
Dunn’s three children, eight, seven and three, all play rugby, with Tom as coach. “I coach both age groups. It’s full-on, but I wouldn’t change it.”
As for the future of the team, Dunn says, “Our squad depth is fantastic, and it’s the younger lads who are really driving that, keeping the pressure on us older guys, and honestly, I love it. They’re nipping at my heels, and that’s exactly what I need to keep going.
“The feeling I have for this club is huge. I feel a bit like a big brother to the younger Academy lads. Being part of their journey and part of this club’s story means the world to me.”
bathrugby.com
Luxury Shopping at MALLORY
A selection of beautiful things from Bath’s shop of many wonders
We introduce you to some of Bath’s finest independent goldsmiths and jewellery designers and find out how they got into the trade
Receiving a piece of jewellery rarely disappoints, especially when it’s a bespoke item from one of Bath’s independent goldsmiths. From diamond rings to vintage earrings, antiques to gold bracelets, the city’s experts have got plenty of unique pieces that make the perfect gift for loved ones.
As a hospot for independent businesses and exceptional shopping, Bath receives plenty of locals and visitors from across the world who visit the local goldsmiths in search of that special something. This is a true reflection of the fact that more and more people are searching for something unique or specially designed.
We gathered together some of the city’s most prominent goldsmiths and asked them how they got into the industry and what special pieces they might suggest we to add to our wish list this year.
MALLORY JEWELLERS
Mallory Jewellers, a cornerstone of Bath’s Bridge Street for over a century, continues to thrive as a family-owned business spanning five generations. Founded in 1898 by Edward Palmer Mallory, the jeweller is now led by Edward’s great, great, grand-daughter, Katie Vander Woerd, a qualified gemmologist who brings a deep understanding of precious stones and an eye for quality to her role as Managing Director.
A central tenet of Mallory’s success is its unwavering commitment to exceptional customer service
Katie’s expertise allows her to personally hand-select the finest gemstones from across the globe, ensuring that Mallory’s collection is always distinguished by exceptional beauty and rarity. Her hands-on approach guarantees that every gemstone used in Mallory’s jewellery meets the highest standards of quality, a hallmark that has helped the business maintain its prestigious reputation for generations.
Mallory not only specialises in sourcing rare and fine
gemstones but also in designing and creating bespoke pieces through its in-house jewellery workshop. Equipped with cuttingedge CAD technology, the workshop is home to Mallory’s exceptionally talented goldsmiths who bring clients visions to life with their meticulous craftsmanship. Additionally, the company’s team of expert watchmakers offers top-tier in-house repairs for some of the most prestigious watch brands in the world, ensuring customers receive comprehensive service under one roof.
A central tenet of Mallory’s success is its unwavering commitment to exceptional customer service. Katie emphasises that each customer is treated with the same courteously way,
Katie Vander Woerd Mallory Jewllers IMAGE: TBM
whether they are purchasing a significant piece or seeking a minor repair. This dedication to creating a personalised and attentive experience, paired with Mallory’s unique ability to both create and repair fine jewellery, has cemented the jeweller’s status as a trusted destination for clients seeking quality and expertise.
Customer satisfaction has always been central to the Mallory philosophy. Over the years, the business has evolved to meet the changing tastes and expectations of its clientele. The company has long-standing connection to the historic city of Bath. In the early 19th century, many of Mallory’s customers were visitors to the city who came to take the spa waters and would often stay for extended periods. These visitors would make purchases that reflected their elegant, leisurely lifestyle.
As times have changed, Mallory has continued to adapt, ensuring that their offerings align with the aspirations of both long-time patrons and new visitors to the city. The company’s enduring legacy is reflected not only in its beautiful jewellery and watches but also in its unwavering dedication to quality and customer satisfaction. See page 62–63 for a selection of luxury pieces from the Mallory showroom.
Mallory
1 – 5 Bridge Street, Bath, BA2 4AP
Tel: 01225 788800
Web: mallory-jewellers.com
NIGEL DANDO
With a Bath-based goldsmith for a father and having been brought up surrounded by second-hand silver, jewellery, vintage pieces and gorgeous antiques, it’s not surprising that Nigel Dando went into the jewellery business from a young age.
Upon becoming an apprentice at 16, Nigel was struck by the quality and style of jewellery dating from the early 20th century up to the 1950s. The classic shapes, cuts and quality of pieces from these decades caught Nigel’s eye, and he quickly made this his key area of interest and expertise that he has continued to this present day.
After gaining the National Goldsmiths Diploma, Nigel went on to study gemmology at the Sir John Cass College of Art in Whitechapel in his 20s. As he recalls, this gave him a significant insight into the trade of gemstones, understanding how they are created and used in handmade jewellery.
While his father was incredibly happy that his son had decided to go into the goldsmiths’ business, Nigel’s goldsmith training was rather different to what it was in his father’s day, where official qualifications weren’t as in demand. Instead, his father’s contemporaries relied heavily on their own knowledge and personal research into individual pieces. This is in stark contrast to the present day, as Nigel stresses, as if you want to get to the top of the goldsmiths’ ladder now, you need a whole host of qualifications under your belt.
If you want to get to the top of the goldsmiths’ ladder, then you need a whole host of qualifications under your belt
After working in the family business for a number of years, Nigel established his shop on Pulteney Bridge in 2002. He sells an eclectic mix of new, pre-owned and vintage jewellery, much of which dates from 1920–1960, along with ranges of contemporary silver jewellery. Many are high-quality, one-off pieces that you won’t find anywhere else – he doesn’t stock any brands you would usually find on the high street. The shop’s stock changes almost weekly, with new and unusual items appearing all the time. Nigel says: “I never know what is going to come through the door.” You get the sense that it is this notknowing what rare pieces that might come into his shop that keeps Nigel on his toes. Sometimes he can have 10–20 customers a day asking for their pieces to be valued and purchased over the counter, demonstrating just how quickly his stock can change.
While he does buy and sell items from his shop, Nigel visits up to 10 antique fairs a year, both to scout out any rare products or to sell some of his items to the market.
Nigel also buys and sells gold and silver in any form or condition, and sells precious metals at competitive prices. Additionally, he is happy to offer free advice on selling items, insurance and valuations.
Nigel Dando
11 Pulteney Bridge, Bath, BA2 4AY
Tel: 01225 464013 Web: nigeldando.co.uk
Nigel Dando
NICHOLAS WYLDE
Nicholas Wylde celebrates 38 years in business this year, having started out in Bath in 1987 as a young man. Now the awardwinning designer jeweller has branches in both Bath and Bristol and is one of the few jewellers in the world with their own registered and patented diamond cut – the exquisite Wylde Flower Diamond®.
After leaving school at 16, Nicholas worked in his father’s stationery shop in Birmingham, which was coincidentally placed in the jewellery quarter of the city. It was here he got to meet the local jewellers, who advised and influenced him to train as a jeweller. Nicholas went on to train as a jewellery designer and goldsmith at the prestigious Birmingham School of Jewellery.
He then moved to Bath and worked in a jewellers, where he developed his skills further, before opening his own shop, aged 24 which was managed by his sister Corrinda. They soon became so busy with orders that they had to move premises to Northumberland Place, where they have been based ever since. In 2010 Nicholas expanded the brand and opened another store and workshop in Clifton, Bristol, selling exclusive pieces.
Describing his business as a traditional family jewellers with a modern twist, Nicholas has always aimed to design and create jewellery that is not easily available on the market. This is why
Nicholas’ true passion is colour and highquality gemstones, cut in such a way to allow him to design unique and highly distinctive items of jewellery
customers have continued to come back year after year from all over the country.
Nicholas has seen many changes in the industry over the years, with fashions coming and going. But some things never change, as he comments: “Diamonds have always been a girl’s best friend, especially our Wylde Flower Diamond®. It has more cut facets than any other brilliant cut diamond for a special sparkle you won’t find anywhere else in the world. It combines the beauty of both diamonds and flowers: how romantic is that?”
Nicholas’ true passion is colour and high-quality gemstones, cut in such a way to allow him to design unique and highly distinctive items of jewellery – keeping to his style of mixing classic lines with striking designs. This style is known worldwide as ‘the Wylde Effect’. This is well represented in Nicholas’ latest collections as well as the Wylde Flower Diamond pieces he is commended for.
In recent years Nicholas Wylde has continued to win several awards including Best Boutique Jeweller UK, Best Business Award and Best Marketing Campaign UK at the most prestigious award show in the industry.
Jody Cory was born and raised in Bath and established her business here in the very heart of the city in 2001. Having spent her childhood rummaging through her mother’s jewellery box, Jody was always interested in jewellery and in the making process from the young age of 14; as Jody always says, “it’s fair to say that goldsmithing has been a life-long passion”. Jody started taking evening classes in goldsmithing at Bath College when she was just 15 years old and was immediately enthralled, leading her to move to Manchester two years later to start training as a goldsmith professionally. It was here that Jody learnt a lot of what she now knows about the process of jewellery making and gemmology, using all of these skills to create the handmade and expertly crafted jewellery that is now sold at Jody Cory Goldsmiths in Abbey Churchyard.
“At Jody Cory Goldsmiths we work with precious and semiprecious gemstones and take all our inspiration from the organic features of life and nature around us. We offer a bespoke service to each of our customers, allowing them to take part in the whole process from beginning to end; designing, making and finalising each repair, remodel or new piece of jewellery. Each item of jewellery is personal and the journey is unique to each individual, this is why customers come back to us and choose us as their family jeweller.”
Jody highlights the oval pink sapphire and diamond cluster ring set in white gold as well as the rose cut and briolette diamond collections, which are very popular. They are each individually handmade and designed entirely by Jody and the team, so you won’t find anything similar anywhere else. Over the years, Jody
We work with precious and semiprecious gemstones and take all of our inspiration from the organic features of life and nature around us
has received commissions from a number of different actors and film stars, and has even made a handcrafted 18ct gold earpiece for a very well-known musician. “Despite the stories of famous people coming through the door, what we do here is always about the customer as an individual and this is extremely personal and confidential.” A story that has always stood out for Jody was when a father commissioned an eternal flame pendant for his daughter who was sadly suffering with a terminal illness. The pendant represented how his daughter would forever be with their family and that the memories they had made would always burn bright.
Jody Cory Goldsmiths offers a range of services including commissions, remodelling, repairs and valuations and Jody can give individual professional advice on quality, cut and clarity to those looking to purchase that special diamond piece.
The Gold & Platinum Studio began life as ‘The Gold & Silver Studio’ in 1970 in Queen Street. Goldsmith Michael Parsons has owned the business since 1997, and in 2006 he moved to Northumberland Place, re-naming the business. Michael trained at art college in jewellery design in the early 1980s. After graduating he started his first business.
Michael explains, “I got to know the owners of a local custom motorcycle publication, and they had a space in their premises in which I set up my first workshop. I was making contemporary pieces to sell in galleries, and biker jewellery for the magazine, which was run by Hells Angels at that time. It was an interesting contrast, and they were great to work with – rarely a dull moment, but grim reaper jewellery wasn’t really my thing.
“After a few years of travelling and working abroad, I came to visit Bath as my grandfather had moved here. I fell in love with the city after returning to the UK, particularly the surrounding countryside. I’m a keen walker and there is an abundance of beautiful footpaths nearby.
“When I was studying gemmology, I went to Sri Lanka as it is well known for sapphires... and it has become a regular trip to source gems.”
“When I first took over the business, it was a steep learning curve. Dealing with clients and handmaking to order was new to me. I immediately took to it after experiencing people’s reaction when I’d transformed someone’s old unwanted jewellery into something they loved.
“I still do quite a bit of re-modelling work, but we are concentrating on making more one-off pieces to sell nowadays. It can be challenging timewise as they tend to sell rather quickly! The inspiration often comes from a particular gemstone. When I was studying gemmology, I went to Sri Lanka as it is well known for sapphires as well as being a fascinating country with the best people. It has become a regular trip to source gems. I’m a big fan of pastel colours and the variety of sapphires I find always make it an inspirational trip and gives me a perfect excuse to go back.
“At the moment we are creating more pieces using multicoloured sapphires in contemporary designs.”
Gold and Platinum Studio 19 Northumberland Place, Bath, BA1 5AR
Icarus Jewellery is an independent silver jewellery shop located in the heart of Bath, on Pulteney Bridge and offers a great selection of handmade unique designs from their store and online shop.
Icarus Jewellery has recently released the Icarus Gift Card which can be purchased on their website. The boutique also offers UK and international shipping.
Looking for something special to take home? Peruse our pick of gorgeous gifts and souvenirs
BATH BLUE CHEESE
Available from: The Fine Cheese Co., 29 & 31 Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BN Web: finecheese.co.uk
Bath Blue is an artisan blue cheese, made by hand at Park Farm in Kelston, just outside Bath, it has been described as one of the finest examples of English blue cheesemaking today. Rich, creamy, and beautifully crafted, Bath Blue is a modern classic in the English blue tradition. Its Stilton-like character makes it instantly familiar, yet its gentler, wellrounded flavour profile ensures broad appeal, even to those who usually shy away from stronger blues. £10.68 (250g)
Designed by Up to Seven and handmade in Bath this children's knitted blue, black and white stripe hat makes the perfect gift for any Bath Rugby fan! These adorable, roll edged hats are all knitted in anti-tickle wool, and can be machine washed at 30 degrees.
Local goldsmith, Jody Cory has handmade a range of jewellery to celebrate her home town. Made at her Abbey Churchyard store, the Memories of Bath range includes angels climbing the abbey, UK pendants with a small diamond putting Bath on the map, fob pendants and bracelets featuring a map of Bath, and Bath charms. Shown here is the Roman coin range. Jody’s grandfather was an engineer in the city and while working at the Pump Room, he found a few Roman coins. As Jody recalls: “I remember as a child how special they were, and I was interested in the history of our amazing city. I guess I take after him in a small way by continuing to work in metal. Only this time, I use precious metals and work on a smaller scale.” While they can’t make original Roman coin jewellery, the WRL stamp on each piece shows it is a replica from an original coin. Jody was inspired to make a range for locals and visitors to celebrate our wonderful city.
Taking inspiration from the city’s spa waters, Bath Aqua Glass is based on Roman designs and contains copper and iron oxide to give it a beautiful aqua hue. Available in both the shop opposite the Roman Baths and the studio in the Artisan Quarter of Walcot Street of Bath where you can see the glass-blowing daily.
The modern, exotically smooth and refreshing Bath Gin is distilled and bottled using the finest botanicals from across the world. Made in Bath by The Bath Distillery. Shown here: Classic 70cl, 40% ABV. £39.50 and Orange Sloe 70cl, 27% ABV. £38.50
An absolute must for any visitor to Bath – take home something blue, black and white – the colours of Bath Rugby. At the shop you will also find a full range of fantastic gifts and merch including a personalised Bath Rugby shirt option which can be ordered and delivered to you... by airmail if need be. Plenty of other cool souvenirs though...
SILVER SHOP OF BATH
25 Union Passage, Bath BA1 1RD Web: silvershopofbath.co.uk
As well as a huge range of delightful silver jewellery and gift ideas, we found this popular ‘I'd rather be in Bath’ Bone China mug. Priced at £10.95 it’s a quick and easy take home that will not only remind you of your time in Bath, but gently call you back to visit again.
Quintessentially British, Barbour wax jackets are a timeless style. Whether you’re exploring the countryside or navigating city streets, Barbour’s classic silhouettes and refined details offer unmatched versatility. You’ll handle rain or shine and still look effortlessly stylish, which is what Barbour and their Bath stockist, Wadswick, are all about!
Handmade in England using 100% silk and printed by Adamley in Macclesfield, this pocket square is a versatile and sophisticated accessory. The delicate blend of soft greens and magenta hues make it perfect for both daytime elegance and evening charm. £57.50.
A Life in Lingerie
Over 20 years ago, Tessa Brand bought The Dressing Room on Quiet Street in Bath and has continued the shop’s renowned tradition of selling the finest in lingerie, beach and nightwear to loyal customers and new friends alike. Here we speak to Tessa about why she still feels so passionate about what she does, after so long...
“Ioften say to customers – and I’m only half joking – that really good, well-fitting underwear is addictive,” says Tessa. “Once you’ve tried on something that is so comfortable, so supportive and so well made, it’s hardly surprising that you would want to come back for more at some point.
“A lot of people might go straight to the price tag and immediately dismiss a garment, but I do try to explain that our lingerie brands (with the exception of one entry-point make) are all made by hand. I’ve seen the processes first hand and it takes roughly three weeks, and the overall development – from design onwards – takes about 18 months. At every stage of production, the fabrics, the threads, the lace etc. are all checked by hand and/or eye.
“There are 47 different pieces which go into making one bra, four different thread types and 32 different stitching movements. The underwires are all padded and rarely felt. Honestly – I defy anyone to not love them!”
“ I have customers who’ve been shopping with us for more than 30 years, but most days we’ll still get someone in who’s never been through the door before – and I really love that”
Tessa also sells beachwear and nightwear all year round – and that comes in very handy when you’re hunting for a bikini in February, or a snuggly dressing gown for your Antarctic cruise in June. As with the lingerie, The Dressing Room also provides a fitting service for beachwear, with sizes ranging from 10 to 22 and A to G cups.
“I think it’s so important that a woman feels comfortable, both physically and mentally, when she is choosing a swimsuit (for example) and we will often be able to direct her purely
because of our knowledge of a brand’s style, fit and length and this can be very reassuring.”
Despite her obvious dedication to offering the finest lingerie, beach and nightwear for over two decades, Tessa hasn’t always been in the retail industry.
After serving in the Royal Navy upon leaving school, she moved to Aston Martin’s head office under the leadership of Victor Gauntlett, so it’s no wonder that she hunts out the absolute best for her customers and can spot quality from a mile off.
The Dressing Room is nothing short of an institution in Bath. The original shop opened in 1985 and Tessa took on the business in 2003 – and it has not only survived, but thrived in the face of a global pandemic – not to mention online shopping. But you can’t get expertly measured for a bra on a website, can you?
The personal level of service and enthusiasm for the craftmanship of the items they sell shine through, and it’s brought people back through the doors year after year.
“I have customers who’ve been shopping with us for more than 30 years,” Tessa says, “but most days we’ll still get someone in who’s never been through the door before and I really love that.”
The continuity is reflected in the team of experts working with Tessa at the shop, too. Marian has been there for 10 years and Brigitte since the early days – 37 years ago – and that’s a real wealth of knowledge and experience under one roof.
“I honestly believe that one of the best things is that we are really friendly, really approachable and pretty laid back. We don’t take appointments – customers just drop in as and when they feel like it.
“And whether you’ve lived in Bath for 20 years or are here on holiday, if you’re curious about the shop, or maybe unsure about visiting, just pop in and find out for yourself what we’re all about. We would all be more than happy to show you around and answer any questions you might have. Seriously – just come and see!”
The Dressing Room, 7 Quiet Street, Bath, BA1 2JU
Telephone: 01225 330563
Website: dressingroombath.com
Instagram: @dressing_room_bath
ANTHROPOLOGIE,
COUNTRY STYLES AT WADSWICK COUNTRY STORE, PULTENEY BRIDGE
THE DRESSING ROOM, QUIET STREET
THE CORRIDOR
MALLORY, BRIDGE STREET
NEW BOND STREET
WINTER WINDOW SHOPPING IN BATH
Bath’s best shops
A City of Great Shops
Whether you crave a fast fashion fix courtesy of the biggest high street names or fancy an elegantly paced, inspirational browse around an eclectic range of independent traders, Bath offers a unique blend of shopping experiences. Melissa Blease guides us through the streets paved with shops
Great shops are a primary reason why people love to visit Bath, shop in Bath, and choose to work or live in Bath. Interesting, designer, luxurious, cool, or just downright eccentric, our independent shops sell beautiful things with a customer service that is rarely found elsewhere. There’s a compelling argument that indirectly these indie emporiums and little shops contribute more to the city’s economy than the high street chains. While broader market forces continue to challenge retailers, Bath remains one of the finest shopping destinations in Europe.
One of the best aspects of Bath’s commercial centre is that everything is easily walkable – in no more than 30 minutes you could make one end to the other. To really enjoy the city, however, you need to meander down little streets, get slightly lost, find beautiful shops and make purchases by happenchance. So let the joy begin...
To help you get your bearings, let’s start at the south end of town, the spacious SouthGate area – just across the road from Bath Spa train and coach stations. This is home to multiple shopping opportunities including familiar high-street stores such as Apple, Boots, Urban Outfitters, Oliver Bonas, Tommy Hilfiger, Hollister and H&M, a supersized Zara store, womenswear retailer Sosandar but also My Small World, a brilliant independent toy store are at the heart of this glossiest west country shopper’s shrine. A new, flagship M&S is also set to open very soon. As you stroll along the swanky pedestrianised thoroughfares that lead north from the SouthGate complex, a myriad of independent retailers, market traders and buskers happily sit alongside branches of M&S, Primark, Clarks, COS and more, contributing to the unique retail landscape that shoppers love about Bath.
The further up town you go, the many stylish shops and watering holes towards the northern aspects of the city centre tend to be housed in the kind of historic buildings that make Bath so unique.
Around and about the centre of town, there’s a picturesque conurbation of cute little passages and byways. Both the supercharming Northumberland Passage and the uniquely pretty undercover arcade The Corridor flaunt an enchanting selection of independent shops. The wares include must-have accessories, quirky galleries including Magalleria which specialises in all things ‘magazine’, a branch of organic remedy and skincare specialists Neal’s Yard, and a number of long-established, Bath-based goldsmiths and jewellers such as The Silver Shop, the Gold and Platinum Studio and Nicholas Wylde’s enticing emporium. Between them is the Coeur de Lion, officially the smallest pub in Bath. For the gentleman about town, if a quick haircut or wet shave is needed then a Turkish barbershop adds a lively dash of international character.
Across the main shopping street at the end of Northumberland Passage and The Corridor, and you’ll find yourself bang on track for a bustle around the historic Guildhall Market (read on to find out more) on the High Street. Amble through the market, exit via Grand Parade, and you’ll find yourself taking in the spectacular weir views, adjacent to... Ah, Pulteney Bridge: Bath’s very own, utterly enchanting version of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio. The bridge was designed in 1769 by Robert Adam, opened to the public in 1770 and is today lined with a fascinating collection of unique shops including children’s clothing specialist Up-to-Seven, a gorgeous flower shop (Pulteney Bridge Flowers), Tillius for quirky and unusual homewares and gifts, the fabulous Wadswick Country Store, jeweller Nigel Dando, and you’ll also find the official Bath Rugby shop.
On Bridge Street (on the city centre side of the Pulteney Bridge area, on the corner of the High Street) you must take time to discover Mallory, arguably Bath’s (and the West Country’s) most glamorous jewellery and watch emporium, established in 1898 by Edward Palmer Mallory. Today, Mallory – which remains very much a family business – enjoys legendary status across the globe as an ultimate destination for exclusive timepieces and jewellery, and specialists in all manner of luxury gifts and accessories rarely seen outside London. Prepare to be dazzled by many sparkly things here.
Back on the northerly track, Milsom Street is home to Jolly’s (originally the oldest department store in the UK, established in 1831). Currently closed for refurbishment, the store has been taken over by family-owned firm Morleys and is due to reopen in 2026. Milsom Street also boasts a classy array of super-chic, big-name fashion and jewellery outlets, nicely balanced by a handful of quirky independent outfitters, gift shops and homeware stores such as Mulberry, Portman boutique, NRBY, Piglet in Bed, Cream Cornwall, and OKA.
Green Street – officially part of the ‘Milsom Quarter’ is one of the city’s prettiest thoroughfares, lined with independent traders including, Minerva Art supplies, British Shoe Company and Amathus, a specialist wine and drinks retailer. Meanwhile, New Bond Street (parallel to Green Street) is hosts yet more fashionable pitstops including Anthropologie, Albaray, Sea Salt, premium menswear from Rodd & Gunn, L’Occitane and chic skincare sanctuary Space NK Apothecary, Aesop, Jo Malone and Penhaligon’s – but we still haven’t blown the shopping budget yet.
Take left at the bottom of either Green Street or New Bond Street and you’re perfectly placed for a stroll up Broad Street, home to Rossiters of Bath, (the eclectic and quirky department store known
as the Liberty’s of the west country), Tilian Kids and stylish boutiques Boho and Aspiga and a brand new Heal’s to enjoy. Situated between Broad Street and Milsom Street is Shires Yard: a quaint cobbled courtyard to explore and home to a variety of great restaurants, such as Bandook, Bosco, Cote and the newly open Root Bath. Next take a turn into the Walcot Street/London Road area, known locally as Bath’s Artisan Quarter. Here you’ll find some of the funkiest indie trading posts in town specialising in everything from vintage clothes to stylish interior stores and, taking in all manner of foodie havens along the way including the odorous yet beautifully stocked Fine Cheese Company and veggie/vegan Harvest, homeware store Graham and Green, as well as the fun and funky Yellow Shop for preloved vintage and retro style clothing.
Heading back up, across the top of Milsom Street, the elegant George Street flaunts an eclectic mix of good deli’s, coffee shops, as well as cool charity shops, and a strip of nightclubs and winebars. Meanwhile the pretty pedestrianised lane that is Bartlett Street (just off George Street) is home to a number of glam-but-accessible boutiques, a wonderful antique centre and unique lifestyle space: The Loft, formerly a Victorian department store, where businesses share floorspace and features the popular Café Lucca, and designer women’s clothing by Blue and the Loft’s own über-cool home and interiors department.
If you find yourself walking from The Circus to The Crescent along Brock Street don’t miss a quick diversion into Margaret’s Buildings for some interiors inspo from Divine Savages, Berdoulat and Homefront Interiors as well as clothing from Uber and perfumes from Parterre Fragrances.
Needless to say there are so many more great little shops and boutiques that are worth discovering. Women’s fashion at Kimberly, beautiful lingerie and swimwear at The Dressing Room are a must.
BATH MARKETS
Farmers’ markets have earned near-legendary status in foodie circles and the original – and, many would argue, still the best of the bunch –is based at Bath’s historic Green Park Station and was formally established there in 1997, making it one of the longest-running farmers’ markets in the UK. Popular this bustling hubbub of foodbased fabulosity offers a wide selection of traders, all of whom are local to Bath. An ever-evolving selection of largely organic, seasonal produce proliferates at the market every Saturday morning, supplemented by themed markets including the weekday minimarkets and the excellent Bath Contemporary Artists Fair (every 2nd Sunday of the month) there’s also antiques, vegan and other ad-hoc markets to enjoy each month.
For those of us who like to shop the old-fashioned way, the Guildhall Market is a veritable treasure house of delights. Baubles, beads and bows; pet food, mop buckets and second-hand books; feather boas, handbags and old fashioned humbugs; deli food, cheese specialists and exotic delights: the oldest trading epicentre in the Heritage City offers the kind of “I didn't know how much I needed one of those until I found it here” experiences that online, supermarket or even high street shopping can never provide.
Meanwhile, Walcot Street’s popular Antique and Flea market offers a unique selection of clothes, antiques, books, crockery, collectables and more every Saturday morning.
SOUTHGATE SHOPPING
FLEA MARKET, WALCOT STREET
THE ENTRANCE TO THE GUILDHALL MARKET
MY SMALL WORLD TOYSHOP
A city of great shops
Essential, interesting, designer, luxurious, cool or just downright eccentric... our retailers sell beautiful products with a customer service that is rarely found elsewhere. The Postcard Guide promotes a selection of our favourite shops and stores that make the Bath one of the finest shopping destinations in the country.
Mallory is renowned as Bath’s destination jeweller. Now in its fifth generation, it is one of the country’s oldest family-owned and run jewellers since 1898 in its original Bridge Street premises. Today it boasts one of the largest in-house workshops in the UK, employing goldsmiths trained to the highest calibre, who create the most exquisite bespoke jewellery, as well as fully accredited watchmakers, who are qualified to maintain the finest of timepieces. Inside the showroom you will find a majestic emporium of fine and contemporary jewellery, watches, and luxury gifts and accessories from the world’s most exclusive brands. The imposing frontage may look daunting, however Mallory’s offerings encompass something to suit all pockets, with international names such as Patek Philippe, Rolex, Omega, Tudor, Fabergé, Chopard, Marco Bicego, Montblanc, Tag Heuer, Longines, Georg Jensen, Fope and Mikimoto, as well as an extensive collection of jewellery designed by Mallory.
Magalleria is a unique store selling the largest collection of international, independent and niche print magazines in Europe, and arguably anywhere. Based in central Bath, Magalleria imports magazines, journals and zines from all over the world (many exclusive) to showcase the most interesting and hard to find titles from indie magazine and book publishers. Interest in creative print is very strong, with new entrants and established publishers alike now able to access modern production technologies that ensure today’s magazines are better geared to make reading a more tactile and visually pleasurable experience than ever before. With knowledgeable staff and offering strong depth in art, design, interiors, fashion, lifestyle, food, travel and literature, Magalleria is packed with information, ideas and inspiration.
PENHALIGON’S
14 New Bond St, Bath BA1 1BE Tel: 01225 410090 Web: penhaligons.com
Celebrating 155 years, British perfumery Penhaligon’s was established in 1870 by William Penhaligon. Originating as a barbershop, Penhaligon’s offered its first fragrance in 1872, Hammam Bouquet, inspired by the neighbouring Turkish Bath and its sulfurous steam. Best-selling fragrances include, Halfeti and 1902’s Blenheim Bouquet which broke with the prevailing floral trends of its day to enchant with zesty citrus, spices and woods. As well as Bluebell, which was Diana, Princess of Wales, favourite scent.
Penhaligon’s has been granted a number of Royal Warrants, including King Charles’ for the manufacturing of toiletries. The company specialises in fine, traditional perfume ingredients and techniques. Penhaligon’s today offers a line of bath and body care products and luxury grooming accessories to complement its fragrances.
Bath’s best shops
NEUHAUS CHOCOLATES
2 Milsom St, Bath BA1 1DA
Tel: 01225 698535 Web: neuhauschocolates.com
This season, Neuhaus invites chocolate lovers to savour the art of taste with Les Savoureux, an exquisite collection created in collaboration with Belgian three-Michelin-starred Chef Tim Boury. Together with the Neuhaus Maîtres Chocolatiers, Boury brings a gastronomic touch to the world of pralines, uniting fine dining artistry with the Maison’s Belgian chocolate heritage. Les Savoureux celebrates contrast and harmony — smooth ganaches, crunchy inclusions, and perfectly balanced fillings that reveal layers of refined flavour. Each praline embodies a dialogue between haute cuisine and chocolaterie, crafted with precision and passion to awaken every sense. Presented in an elegant bronze-toned box with a contemporary design, Les Savoureux reflects the Neuhaus philosophy: timeless quality, authentic ingredients, and the joy of sharing. Whether as a thoughtful gift or a personal indulgence, it is an invitation to experience chocolate as a true art form. Available at Neuhaus Bath, 2 Milsom Street, BA1 1DA, where guests can discover the full range of Neuhaus creations — from signature pralines to chef collaborations and seasonal limited editions.
BATH ABBEY SHOP
Bath BA1 1LT
Tel: 01225 422462 Web: bathabbey.org
The Abbey Shop, located on the south side of Bath Abbey, is a treasure trove of souvenirs and Christian gifts. The gift shop tells the story of the Abbey through its product ranges, with a Benedictine monk range, tales of Tudor days and comes right up to date with gifts depicting the West Front in a rainbow of colours. Featuring many local artists, the shop also has a special focus on Christian women and their small businesses. Alongside year-round ranges of gifts, you will find an excellent selection of Christian books and seasonal souvenirs.
Shown here is a Bath Abbey decoration, £15.
ALFRED’S
27 Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BN
Tel: 01225 481660
Are you looking for great quality clothes for men at an affordable price?
Alfred’s, the pre-loved men’s clothing shop on independent Walcot Street has what you’re looking for. After launching a store in Bradford on Avon, the next stage was a second store in Bath. If you have clothes to sell, the store will pay 50% of the sale price once an item has been sold. There are a wide range of brands and vintage pieces, all at an affordable price. Give the shop a call if you’d like to discuss your own items, or pop in to check out the current range.
The South West’s leading designer jeweller, award-winning Nicholas Wylde has been designing original, high-quality jewellery since first opening his Bath store in 1987. He has built up a reputation for designing outstanding pieces – from one-off commissions to larger corporate orders – all handmade, with great passion, in the workshop on the premises. An added cool factor: Nicholas Wylde offers his own patented diamond cut, the dazzling Wylde Flower Diamond®, with more cut facets than a brilliant cut diamond for that extra-special sparkle. You won’t find this gemstone anywhere else in the world. For vibrantly unique designs and excellent service from knowledgeable and helpful staff, Nicholas Wylde is a perfect destination for anyone looking for that truly unique piece of jewellery.
Founded in 2011 by Nickie Portman in Devon, with Bath’s boutique opening in 2017, Portman Boutiques is the place to find something unique, bold and beautiful to wear and love. You’ll find a carefully curated collection of Nickie’s favourite styles, many designed in house, to see you through every season. From Italian and Parisian French fashion to the Nickie Portman Jewellery collection and accessories, Nickie sources and designs beautiful collections with her stylist’s eye. Nickie and her team select every item based on what they truly love to wear. They buy seasonally, based on the latest trend-led silhouettes and love to add their particular sense of style to every collection. Whether you’re treating yourself to a new accessory to brighten your wardrobe or are treating a friend to some jewellery to brighten theirs, you’ll find the perfect piece.
Calling all antique lovers: shopping for fashionable quality pieces has never been easier! Beau Nash has over 1000 quality antique silverware, furniture, mirrors and objets d’art with regular deliveries to London and efficient global shipping. With personalised service by Ron, Cynthia and their team, shopping for useful and stylish antiques is fun and easy. Situated between the Circus and the Royal Crescent, you can now also see a recently-discovered Georgian kitchen in the basement of their furniture shop. They are one of the loveliest shops to visit in Bath and a must-see on our list.
JODY CORY GOLDSMITHS
9 Abbey Churchyard, Bath BA1 1LY
Tel: 01225 470072
Web: jodycory.co.uk
Jody Cory is an independent jeweller and member of the National Association of Goldsmiths with more than 25 years’ experience. From her shop and workshop in Abbey Churchyard, Jody and her team create beautiful, unique pieces which are the perfect way to mark any special occasion. Friendly advice is available seven days a week from a team of highly skilled goldsmiths working in extremely covetable silver, gold and platinum and using personally selected rare gemstones. Old or broken treasures can be repaired or remodelled to become exciting new pieces to be enjoyed all over again and a free design service is available. Jody also offers restringing, rhodium plating and valuations. Her shop in the Abbey Churchyard offers skilfully crafted handmade jewellery, from inexpensive silver pieces to diamond-set engagement rings, and wedding rings in traditional and contemporary styles to suit all tastes as well as a variety of highly interesting work from other UK designers.
Founded by Jo Hooper, whose 30-year career spans senior roles at Debenhams and John Lewis, NRBY was created from a simple idea: clothes for life as it’s really lived. With more women working flexibly, Jo saw the need for pieces that were as comfortable as they were beautiful. Together with co-founder Cornelia Smith, she built a femaleled brand that celebrates “One-Mile-Wear – the three inches of your wardrobe that you actually wear.” The result is a collection of relaxed silhouettes in natural fabrics and timeless design. From soft cashmeres to fluid silks, every garment moves seamlessly from morning to evening, city to countryside. Sustainability is central to every decision, from fabric sourcing to thoughtful production.
Bath’s best shops
ANTHROPOLOGIE
1 – 4 New Bond Street, Bath BA1 1BE Tel: 01225 335578 Web: anthropologie.com
Anthropologie in Bath is a wonderful, one-of-a-kind destination for those seeking rich collections of clothing, accessories, gifts and home décor inspired by fashion, art and entertainment. Products are sourced by buyers and designers who travel the world to uncover unique, special items and often collaborate with upcoming talented artists. The result? An eclectic assortment that includes clothing, accessories, beauty, found objects, gifts and more, with influences ranging from vintage to global. A visit to Anthropologie will reveal exquisitely crafted treasures waiting to delight.
As a reputable provider of exceptional hats for the past three decades, The Bath Hat Company has amassed an extensive collection suitable for every occasion. The bespoke hats are crafted with meticulous care and attention to detail by a team of skilled artisans, and are designed to make you stand out from the crowd. For women, choices include elegant accessories for a formal affair, functional hats for a sunny outdoor excursion, or cosy headpieces for the colder months. For men there is a diverse array of top-notch caps, from the timeless appeal of fedoras to panamas and trilbies. The shop also provides professional hat-stretching services to guarantee a perfect and comfortable fit. Occasion Hats | Mother of the Bride Hats | Men’s Hats | Sun Hats
14 Old Bond St, Bath BA1 1BP Tel: 01225 426383 Web: jigsaw-online.com
Each collection by Jigsaw is designed by expertly talented artisans in their atelier, crafted to tell a story, with each more beautiful than the last. Many lines are produced with a limited run to create exclusive wardrobe icons to love season after season. The customer is at the heart of everything Jigsaw does, from product to service in each of their boutiques. 50 years on, they continue to source and collaborate with the best creators in the industry, from suppliers to mills and artists.
Homefront Interiors is a small independent gift and homewares store which though small in size packs a punch with its wide range and regularly updated stock. The store follows a simple ethos to source ethically made and sustainable products with as many local brands as possible. With a clever mix of work by local artists and makers, displayed alongside handmade fairtrade products from around the world, Homefront aims to support the small producers and minimise environmental impact. The shop is a treasure trove of beautiful things - handmade, fair trade, recycled, or made from sustainable materials. The aim is to be the destination store in Bath for hand-picked special gifts and unique finds for your own home.
Bath’s best shops
ALBARAY
24 New Bond Street, Bath BA1 1BE Tel: 01225 967714
Web: albaray.co.uk
Albaray is a contemporary womenswear brand on a mission to make stylish dressing more sustainable.
Launched in 2021, Albaray offers versatile and effortless collections that are always thoughtfully designed and responsibly made. From everyday dresses, perfect jeans, easy to wear separates, and basics that will elevate your look, all of their pieces are designed to complement your existing wardrobe. Visit Albaray’s beautiful store on New Bond Street to see the full collection.
Tucked away in a lovingly restored Grade II-listed building, Piglet in Bed’s Bath boutique is a true reflection of the brand’s playful charm and joyfully lived-in aesthetic. Step beyond the iconic green frontage to discover their collection of signature linen and cotton bedding, and thoughtfully curated selection of sleepwear and homewares – all crafted from natural materials. Whether you’re making a few updates or embarking on a full bedroom refresh, Piglet’s interior experts are on hand with free design consultations to help you create a home that feels unmistakably yours. Visit the store to explore beloved collections like the gingham and ‘Pembroke Stripe’, and experience the world of Piglet in person.
Nigel Dando began his career after he gained a national goldsmiths diploma before going on to study gemmology at the Sir John Cass College of Art, Whitechapel. Today he sells an eclectic mix of new, pre-owned and vintage jewellery, and has a particular interest in pieces from the 1920s to 1960s. Together with ranges of contemporary silver jewellery at affordable prices, many of which are one-off pieces, the emphasis is on quality and style. He also buys gold and silver items in any form or condition. Nigel also sells investment precious metals at what he believes to be the most competitive prices in the city. Being one of the few provincial members of the London Diamond Bourse, Nigel offers undeniable expertise and value. He also offers a valuation service.
If photography is your passion then head to an institution where you are guaranteed a personal and helpful service from staff who really know their business. Whether you are after an SD card for your camera, or you’re looking for a brand new device to take pictures of beautiful Bath, London Camera Exchange is the go-to place for all things optical. Specialities include sensor cleaning and image recovery as well as prints from phones, instant prints and passport photos. Space is also devoted to other types of optical equipment such as astronomical telescopes and sport optics and there is an excellent part-exchange service too. Visit LCE for the best deals in Bath.
Have you found this beautiful shop on Pulteney Bridge? Here the team makes and sells lots of dresses, reversible dungarees, hand-knitted woollies and of course the store’s famous and incredibly cute hats; strawberry, Christmas pudding, Bath Rugby and more. Up to Seven is a major stockist of Frugi and Kite, organic cotton, fairly traded clothes for babies and children and always has lots of appliqued T-shirts, dresses, hats, baby gifts and dinosaurs. If you haven’t been in or if you are looking for a baby gift, a frock for a special occasion or comfy clothes for everyday, then pop in to Up To Seven to find the perfect solution.
Tillius is a family-owned business dedicated to curating eclectic homewares for those who appreciate the unusual in life. This one-of-a-kind shop, situated on the picturesque Pulteney Bridge, offers a unique shopping experience. Whether you’re searching for that perfect gift for a friend or a distinctive item to enhance your home, Tillius is the place where you’ll find something that will make your guests ask, “Where did you get that?!” Beyond homewares, Tillius embraces the unconventional with their intriguing room of curiosities. This special area showcases ethically sourced taxidermy and entomology. The shop also features a carefully selected range of clothing, catering to those who favour distinctive styles, as well as an exclusive jewellery range. Tillius invites you to explore its world of the extraordinary and discover the joys of finding truly unique treasures that reflect your taste for the unusual. Instagram: @tilliuslifestyle
Since first opening in Bath in 1985, The Dressing Room has maintained its reputation as the ‘go to’ place for the finest in lingerie, beach and nightwear. While offering the most exquisite lingerie collections from the likes of Marie Jo, Aubade, Lise Charmel, Empreinte and Prima Donna, the shop also has a wide range of basic T-shirt bras and invisible briefs. The beachwear collection is available all year round and features brands such as Melissa Odabash, Maryan Mehlhorn, Roidal, Anita, Gottex and Miraclesuit. The Nightwear selection includes silks from Marjolaine and Luna di Seta, robes from Louis Feraud, Diamond Tea and Clara Rossi and cottons from Hanro – amongst much, much more. With experienced and professional staff ready to help you, why not go along and have some fun?
Founded by Bath locals, Thomas Fortin Menswear celebrates classic style with high-quality accessories crafted in England and Italy. Inspired by early 20th-century elegance, their silk ties, scarves, pocket squares and trouser-braces bring sartorial sophistication back to the modern wardrobe. After 5 years online Thomas Fortin finally took the plunge and opened their first store in the artisan quarter of Walcot Street. Now visitors can experience first hand their luxurious pieces, crafted by skilled studios, often family run and rooted in tradition passed down through generations. This destination shop is perfect for those who appreciate timeless fashion and dressing up for the occasion. Discover authentic, beautifully-crafted menswear at Thomas Fortin and indulge your inner dapper!
Visit the shop in person at 11 Walcot Street, Bath, BA1 5BN or peruse the range online at ThomasFortin.com
Bath’s best shops
MY SMALL WORLD TOY STORE
Southgate Shopping Centre, Bath BA1 1AN Web: mysmallworld.co.uk
If you are mad about toys, the team here are handpicked for their sense of humour and wonderful empathy, they have a passion for all things play and are determined to make a shopping experience for you and your family like no other, for parents and grandparents alike who really love children.
The store offers a really magical adventure, a place where children feel special and where grownups are reminded of how they felt when they visited their favourite toy shop as a child. Every corner is filled with beautiful toys, books, games and arts and crafts.
Autism friendly My Small World know how much this inclusion means to all their neuro-diverse friends and families. Resident expert Romilly has put together a collection of toys, games and books which have been a real hit.
This little gem of a shop continues to be one of Bath’s favourite gift and jewellery stores and is still a family-run and independent business. You’ll find it tucked away just a minute walk from The Abbey and The Roman Baths. The shop is a firm favourite with visitors and residents alike and has a reputation for great customer service. With Bath’s largest selection of silver jewellery with prices ranging from £5 to £500, the staff work hard to source a wide selection of pieces with some ranges being handmade by local jewellers. With a small workshop on site, The Silver Shop also offers a charm soldering service for customers. Make this your first stop if you’re looking for a gift for someone special or just to treat yourself to a piece such as a clock or a candle, a christening gift or even a Charlie Bear, it is certain to have something for you. Open Monday – Saturday, 9.30 – 5.30
WADSWICK
1 Pulteney Bridge, Bath BA2 4AX
Tel: 01225 810307
Web: wadswick.co.uk
Wadswick has in its collection of men’s and women’s fashion and accessories some of the world’s best-loved country brands including Holland Cooper, Barbour, Schöffel, Fairfax & Favor, R.M. Williams, Ariat, Joules and Yeti.
Specialising in country lifestyle, Wadswick’s award-winning boutique in Bath builds on over thirty years of country heritage from their family-run flagship store near Corsham, the popular market town seven miles east of the city. There you will find a large clothing collection, a huge range for equestrians and pet lovers, a shooting simulator and a smart, contemporary restaurant. In Bath, their chic range of clothing is perfect for those looking for that smart-casual feel that will take you around the city and into the countryside in style. Find them centrally located on Bath’s iconic Pulteney Bridge.
ICARUS SILVER JEWELLERY
3 Pulteney Bridge, Bath BA2 4AX
Tel: 01225 463693 WhatsApp: 07376 416833
Web: icarusjewellery.com
Icarus Jewellery is an independent silver jewellery shop located on Pulteney Bridge in the heart of Bath, and offers a great selection of handmade unique designs from their store and online shop. Owner Dilek Köroğlu designs and makes some of the handmade silver jewellery pieces in the shop and is always happy to show you more of any particular style you desire. You are also very welcome to discuss custom orders for bespoke designs. The shop is something a little bit different and a place to be surrounded by beautiful things.
GOLD & PLATINUM STUDIO
19 Northumberland Place, Bath BA1 5AR
Tel: 01225 462300
Web: goldandplatinumstudio.co.uk
Goldsmith and gemmologist Michael Parsons and his team run a delightful independent studio on Northumberland Place. The highly skilled team specialise in hand making bespoke engagement rings and wedding rings, as well as offering a wide range of individual pieces to buy. The studio welcomes all types of commissions, including remodelling. The studio has been in Bath for over 50 years and has a reputation for quality service and craftsmanship. A visit is a must for jewellery lovers and anyone looking for a special gift or thinking of having a piece of jewellery made.
Bath Guildhall Market is the oldest shopping venue in the city and today a colourful group of 20 or so stallholders trade in this jewel of a building in the heart of the city, just 80 yards from Bath Abbey and opposite the famous Pulteney Bridge. Offering virtually everything you need under one roof, plus service with a smile and the kind of old-fashioned personal attention you find when shopping at a family-run business. You’ll find haberdashery, hardware, partywear, pet supplies, foodie treats and everything in between.
Founded in 2010 by Antonin Chartier, a 23 year old psychology student with a passion for entrepreneurship, the concept was simple: high-quality glasses, fair prices, a positive social and sustainable impact. Over a decade later, little has changed. Jimmy Fairly now has more than 126 stores across France, The UK, Germany, Belgium, Italy & Spain. Moreover, Jimmy Fairly is successfully bringing back great style and a smile to the eyewear world. Every two months, a new drop lands. Agile in their creative process, Jimmy Fairly constantly offers the latest trends to their customers in limited edition styles, always designed in their Parisian studio. Jimmy Fairly now has stores located in both Bristol and Bath.
WHISTLES
1 New Bond St, Buildings, Bath BA1 1BL
Tel: 01225 310662 Web: whistles.com
Whistles is well-loved both in Bath and across the UK for its timeless styles and wardrobe signatures that elevate the every day. Its distinctive yet refined collections capture the spirit of contemporary dressing, empowering its customers with a strong sense of independence and individuality. Current collections have been designed for versatility and to transcend seasons. From statement outerwear and chic layers to bold jewellery and elegant dresses, at Whistles, every piece is delicately crafted to last a lifetime. Head down to the Bond Street store to browse the dynamic collections today.
BATH CHRISTMAS MARKET
The buzz of a good Christmas market certainly brings on a warm festive feeling. Bath’s very own event not only adds seasonal cheer but a huge boost to the city’s economy and visitor popularity.
Christmas begins early for the organisers of Bath’s annual market – in the second week in January. That’s hardly a surprise when you consider that [according to a report commissioned for Bath & North East Somerset Council] the 2024 Christmas market attracted an estimated 440,000 visitors, generating a turnover of £60 million plus for businesses and stallholders with associated spend of around £49m for the city. This year the market is set to bring in similar figures when it opens on 27 November, running until 14 December. Several cities in Britain may have similar markets, but few have such fabulous surroundings as Bath with the magnificent backdrop of the Abbey and the Roman Baths. This Christmas extravaganza is in fact seen as more of an ‘event’ than a market.
The market in 2022 was the most successful to date – coming after a two-year hiatus during the pandemic. The market originally
came about at the instigation of two city councillors, Gitta Dawson and Marian McNair (who later became mayor). The idea was to celebrate the relationship with one of Bath’s twin cities, Aix-enProvence. The French town continues to share a chalet in Bath (selling cheese and lavender products) with its other twin cities Alkmaar and Braunschweig selling their own local goods.
From its initial, humble beginnings in 2001 when the market had 40 stalls and ran for just four days, Bath Christmas Market has emerged into something much bigger with its presence extending around the city. This year sees around 250 stalls, stretching around the Abbey and up Bath Street, Hot Bath Street and Milsom Street. This includes the offer of Christmas carts for small and microbusinesses in Green Street, three- and four-day lets designed for businesses to try out the market before, hopefully, renting a bigger chalet in the years that follow.
The event – which is not run for profit – is certainly something
Horsford.
of a money-spinner for the city. That said, not everyone is a fan of the Christmas stalls when they take over the streets of the city for 18 days because the market does cause disruption with street closures, but the organisers are always keen to work with smaller, independent outlets to find ways to extend the footfall of visitors to places outside of the market footprint.
Whatever the view, it is the sellers that make the market. The emphasis is on handmade and fairtrade products as well as sustainability. Marketing Manager Hannah Batey says, “We want to offer something that you can’t just go to any market to get, so the businesses are very artisan-focused, with handmade, traditionally made and ethically sourced products.”
Sustainability encompasses all elements of the market – all areas are single-use plastic-free, there is a fossil-fuel-free generator, stallholders can use an electric bike with a trailer to transport stock across the site; and stallholders and visitors are encouraged to take public transport to reduce congestion in the city. What’s more this year there will be no mass printing of maps, instead printed map boards or light boxes will be on display, and an online version for website and mobile.
Choosing the stallholders is certainly a big task for the organisers who this year received around 500 applications for the pitches, and each and every one is assessed thoroughly. There is always a need to bring in new ideas each year, but there are plenty of familiar faces that people will recognise, too. Around 65% of the market stalls are from the south west, with most of them Bath or Bristol based. For market regulars there are lots of familiar and favourite stalls such as Paper Starlights and their pretty light lanterns as well as Somerset Lavender with natural products handmade on the farm, from wax melts to reed diffusers.
There is always street entertainment adding to the atmosphere including community choirs, brass bands and street performers, alongside the wonderful Natural Theatre Company, all helping to bring some Christmas cheer to visitors of the city. New for this year is a reindeer trail around the outside of the markets footprint; encouraging visitors to explore more of the double-UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bath and its wide-ranging retailers offering something for every budget.
Another attraction of the market is that Bath doesn’t try and copy the format of the great German markets. Stallholders are asked to use LED white lights and not flashing or coloured ones, and there are no sound systems. So it is very much its own thing – and quintessentially British.
The market’s continuing popularity is proof that whether you are buying cheese from Aix, a Christmas pudding from Devon or just soaking up the infectious, wintery atmosphere, it’s a singular place to be at this time of year.
The Bath Christmas Market will run from 27 November – 14 December 2025 throughout the city centre. Web: bathchristmasmarket.co.uk
The Holburne
We explore the history and reinvention of Bath’s most eclectic museum and discover Italian maiolica; works by Gainsborough, Pieter Brueghel and Turner; Renaissance treasures; Meissen porcelain; vases by Josiah Wedgwood as well as a world-class exhibition space for contemporary art
When it’s not busy stealing the limelight in Netflix’s hit series Bridgerton as Lady Danbury’s majestic abode, The Holburne on Great Pulteney Street is also home to one of the most fascinating museum collections in the west country.
Bridgerton (which will return to our screens for a fourth season in 2026) used the building’s splendid facade as the backdrop to many spectacular and iconic scenes, making it a ‘must-visit’ place for all fans of the show. Its location is on one of the finest Georgian thoroughfares in Bath and is surrounded by glorious greenery, adjacent to the former 18th-century Sydney Garden Vauxhall.
Originally designed as a grand hotel in 1794, the impressive facade of the Holburne fronts a diverse collection of fine and decorative art, spanning centuries of culture. The collection is beautifully laid out in equally beautiful surroundings that seamlessly incorporate award-winning architect Eric Parry’s impressive 2011 extension, respectfully including contemporary themes against a backdrop of historic tradition. The opening of the Schroder Gallery in September 2025 on the lower ground
floor of the museum enriches the offering, displaying world-class Renaissance treasures on permanent loan from the Schroder family collection.
There’s a richly textured wealth of artistic treasures to explore at the Holburne, ranging from grand portraits and Old Masters; imposing historic furniture and domestic furniture; to tiny, highly detailed miniatures; intricate jewellery; and sparkling antique silverware. The impressive former ballroom on the front upper level of the building is used to display ceramics and porcelain from the Renaissance to the Georgian era. This can be browsed and considered under the watchful gaze of portraits of 17th and 18th-century high society on the walls. The new gallery on the first floor adjacent to the grand Ballroom – also opened in 2025 – houses the Schroder family’s collection of 17th-century painting, mostly Netherlandish but including a major work by Claude Lorraine, the grandfather of the pastoral landscape. On the top floor, the museum offers the opportunity to discover more about Bath’s history as a fashionable, creative destination; examples of works by former Bath resident Thomas Gainsborough can be found here, alongside canvases by Stubbs, Zoffany and Ramsay.
But whichever of the many displays captivate you on any level of the museum, views across either Sydney Gardens (to the rear) or all the way down magnificent Great Pulteney Street itself (to the front, from the ballroom) offer captivating works of living art in their own right.
The Holburne is most definitely a family-friendly zone, offering free activities inspired by current exhibitions, activity drawers are conveniently placed throughout the extension galleries and family trail suggestions.
Meanwhile, the museum’s fully-licensed garden café – serving an inviting variety of seasonal, freshly prepared food including fabulous cakes – opens out to the historic Sydney Gardens, and the museum shop stocks a range of books, gifts, homeware, stationery and stylish souvenirs.
HISTORY
The building now known as the Holburne Museum was originally designed by Thomas Baldwin as a two-storey hotel to serve the adjacent pleasure gardens (Sydney Gardens) in 1794. But after Baldwin was bankrupted, plans for the original hotel crumbled. In 1796, a new foundation stone was laid, marking the beginning of a brand new project designed by Charles Harcourt Masters. The new hotel opened in 1799 and became popular with visitors to the pleasure gardens and galas. Most notably the latter were planned to coincide with the birthdays of George III and the Prince of Wales, and the opening night of the annual Bath Races and public breakfasts. Jane Austen and her family often attended the public breakfasts – when they first arrived in Bath in 1801, they took lodgings at 4 Sydney Place, just over the road.
The hotel closed in 1836 and became a private lodging house. A third storey was added, and the two watchmen’s boxes that bookend the entrance/exits to the museum today were added around 1840. In 1830, Sir Thomas William Holburne and his three unmarried sisters took up residence little over a mile away from Great Pulteney Street, at 10 Cavendish Crescent. Holburne – a
former naval officer and Bath ‘gentleman of means’ – packed his modest townhouse with souvenirs, artworks, knickknacks and cultural/social paraphernalia collected throughout his naval career on a series of Grand Tours to Europe in the 1820s.
When Holburne’s aunt Catherine Cussans died in 1834, several trust funds bequeathed by Catherine allowed Holburne the means to expand his collection and to make frequent purchases at local auction houses, shops and sales. Supplemented by inherited family treasures – including portraits, porcelain and silverware – he added all manner of diverse artworks and social memorabilia to his hoard. These included miniatures, books and furniture, Roman coins and seals, 17th and 18th-century tableware and Chinese armorial ceramics... Holburne’s tastes were eclectic, and his collection became increasingly unique.
Holburne died in 1874, aged 81. In 1882, his sister Mary Anne Barbara Holburne died, and bequeathed her brother’s collection of over 4,000 pieces to the people of Bath, intending the treasures to form “the nucleus of a Museum of Art for the city of Bath”. The Holburne Museum opened to the public in 1893, and since then, a further 2,500 plus objects have been acquired.
In 1955, Ernest E. Cook – grandson of travel entrepreneur Thomas Cook – donated 10 paintings including works by Gainsborough, Stubbs and Turner to the museum. In 1963, former museum trustee J MacGregor Duncan bequested a collection of early Meissen porcelain and, in 1944, former trustee James Calder donated a comprehensive collection of English 18th-century porcelain to supplement the existing collection of Chelsea, Derby and Worcester.
In 2008, the Holburne Museum closed its doors to the public to instigate major redevelopment work. This included refurbishment to the galleries and public spaces, and a brand new extension designed by world-acclaimed British architect Eric Parry. In 2011, the Holburne’s revamp was unveiled, revealing purpose-built temporary exhibition and teaching spaces, collections stores and a café. In 2025 the new Schroder Gallery in the basement, a space previously used as archive and picture stores, was opened, designed by Eric Parry Associates with Real Studios.
Young visitor investigating one of the museum’s pull-out drawers. Photo Anna Barclay, courtesy The Holburne
NOTABLE WORKS
Seven works by Thomas Gainborough including his ethereal Lady in a Blue Cloak, Johan Zoffany’s The Auriol and Dashwood Families (a snapshot of Colonial life in 1780s Bengal), The Somerset Maugham collection of Georgian theatrical portraits, three works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Thomas Lawrence’s Study for Arthur Atherley, somehow all the more powerfully characterful for being a preparatory work-in-progress.
The Schroder Gallery in the basement includes some great masterpieces of the silversmith’s art, such as The Schwarzenberg Nef, a large silver ship; a rare Mechanical Celestial Globe, and The Aldobrandini Tazza (one of a set of 12 dishes). There are also works by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Holbein the Elder, and notably Hans Burgkmaier’s important portrait of the great Augsburg banker Jakob Fugger and his wife Sybilla Artzt.
The intricate, elaborate, richly detailed Beadwork Basket (artist unknown) is part of the Holburne’s significant collection of 17thcentury embroidery.
There is also Italian maiolica everywhere. Holburne was a big fan of the uniquely beautiful, richly decorated Italian tin-glazed pottery dating from the Renaissance period and the Schroder Gallery also contains masterpieces of 16th-century Italian maiolica, including The Mazo Dish painted with the allegory of the civilising power of Eloquence.
Last of all the museum shop is packed with curated gift ideas and art books, inspired by the collection and from exhibitions.
Visit: The Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney Street, Bath BA2 4DB
Tel: 01225 388569
For admission prices and information on special exhibitions and events visit website.
Open daily: 10am to 5pm (Sundays and Bank Holidays 11am to 5pm)
Closed 24, 25, 26 Dec and 1 Jan.
Web: holburne.org
EXHIBITIONS AT THE HOLBURNE
Illustrating Austen, until 11 January 2026
In the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth, this exhibition offers a chance for audiences to see the artwork behind their favourite Austen novels. Centring around Austen’s stories and the characters she created, visitors will discover how our favourite characters came to life on the page, how different artists depicted them in a range of styles, and how they have evolved through the years, reflecting changing times and new audiences. Austen resided just across the road from the Holburne Museum at 4 Sydney Place (from 1801–1804), and Bath had a profound effect on her work
Dreams of the Everyday: Paintings by Winifred Nicholson & Andrew Cranston, Until 11 January 2026
This compelling exhibition brings together the paintings of Winifred Nicholson (1893–1981) and Andrew Cranston (b. 1969), curated by designer and collector Jonathan Anderson, in collaboration with Andrew Cranston and the gallerist Richard Ingleby. The display explores the connections and contrasts in paintings by Nicholson and Cranston, many of which share a delight in ordinary, often domestic, realities – drawing on daily-life, memory and imagination, and incorporating figures, interiors and glimpses of nature.
Bath offers a diverse variety of cultural delights. Melissa Blease explores the city’s very own public art museum dedicated to paintings, sculpture and decorative arts
The Victoria Art Gallery is one of Bath’s most loved cultural attractions and the most popular art gallery in the region with an outstanding collection of 1,500 decorative art treasures and paintings on permanent display.
Since it opened its doors to the public in 1900, the gallery space within this subtly monumental Victorian building has become intrinsically woven into the fabric of day-to-day life in Bath, remaining as consistently popular with locals as it is with Heritage City visitors, some 80,000 of whom browse the gallery’s collections every year.
The airy, spacious two-storey building houses a huge collection of paintings, sketches, sculpture, artefacts and decorative art treasures dating from the 15th century all the way to the present day, showcasing all kinds of fascinating treasures from paintings by former Bath resident Thomas Gainsborough and lively satires on Georgian life in Bath by highly acclaimed Georgian
caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson, to a pot by Turner Prizewinning contemporary artist Grayson Perry, and a selection of World War I recruitment posters. Eclectic? Yes indeed – but in the most intelligently curated, enlightening way.
The gallery’s ground floor space hosts exhibitions that change on a regular basis (generally around every two months) for which an entrance fee is charged. The permanent collection in the Upper Gallery on the first floor is free to enter. This large gallery has recently re-opened following an extensive conservation project to return it to its Victorian splendour and displays works from the Council's own art collection. With five centuries of European art on show across two rooms this gracious space is flooded by natural light, offering an atmosphere of calm contemplation in which to browse, pause and generally enjoy the culturally enriching experience. There isn’t an on-site café but there are many in the immediate vicinity to enjoy before or after your visit.
Make time to visit the ground floor shop to browse a uniquely charming selection of books, arty gifts, postcards, greetings cards and collection/exhibition catalogues.
HISTORY
Today a Grade II* listed building, the Victoria Art Gallery’s original edifice was designed in 1897 by John McKean Brydon, a Scottish architect who developed a reputation for his expertise in designing public buildings including the St Peter’s Hospital in London’s Henrietta Street (Covent Garden) and Chelsea Public Library on London’s King’s Road.
In 1891, Brydon won a competition to enlarge Bath Guildhall – a project that forms a continuous building structure that includes the covered Guildhall Market, the Bath and North East Somerset Council chamber and the city’s Register Offices.
Built in 1900 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the Victoria Art Gallery offered a public library downstairs and a gallery upstairs, but was expanded in 1990 to house and display only works of art.
Work by painters including Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Malton and Thomas Barker – all of whom have strong connections to Bath – offer a unique insight into the changing lives and landscapes of the people and places in and around the city of Bath through the ages.
Every year, the Victoria Art Gallery showcases work by the cream of the regional contemporary artistic talent, hosting the annual Bath Society of Artists exhibition and offering members
The Watersplash Henry Herbert La Thangue (1859–1929)
of the public the opportunity to vote for their favourite artwork. The BSA was founded in 1904 and many distinguished painters including Patrick Heron, Mary Fedden, Howard Hodgkin and Walter Sickert have exhibited with the society.
In 2024, the Victoria Art Gallery hosted Toulouse-Lautrec and the Masters of Montmartre, a blockbuster show featuring 100 original posters from 1890s bohemian Paris. Highlights included the cancan dancers of Toulouse-Lautrec’s La Troupe de Mademoiselle Eglantine, his first poster of the Moulin Rouge, and Steinlen’s iconic Tournée du Chat Noir.
ON SHOW
Take a stroll around the Victoria Art Gallery’s exterior and you’ll find Anglo-Italian sculptor Andrea Carlo Lucchesi’s statue of Queen Victoria. There are also friezes of classical figures by fellow New Sculpturist George Anderson Lawson on either side. Inside, Grayson Perry’s Map of Days – purchased by the Art Fund and the Friends of the Victoria Art Gallery – is a fascinating portrayal of the
The main gallery is used for temporary exhibitions – this shows the recent Toulouse Lautrec exhibition
THE UPPER GALLERY
by Lisa Whiting
inner working of the artist’s mind, interpreted as a walled city. A few steps away, the historic caricature collection offers a unique perspective on the artistic interpretation of day-to-day life, putting the spotlight on the Georgian-era Bath social scene and often set against familiar Bath cityscapes such as the Assembly Rooms and the Pump Rooms.
Elsewhere, you are greeted in the entrance hall by local artist Sophie Ryder’s playful yet powerful bronze sculpture Lady Hare on a Dog. Other popular items from the gallery’s permanent collection include JW Turner’s haunting, dramatic West Front of Bath Abbey, the ethereal Adoration of the Magi (attributed to 15th-century painter Hugo van der Goes) and a wondrous, highly important portrait of Henry VIII, which has been dated to the mid-16th century and looks magnificent following recent conservation treatment.
Meanwhile, the eclectic array of British porcelain, delicate Georgian perfume bottles and tableware, Bohemian glass and pottery dogs in the gallery’s Decorative Art Collection offers an art gallery version of an Aladdin’s Cave.
Visit: The Victoria Art Gallery, Bridge Street, Bath BA2 4AT
Open Tuesday to Sunday (and Bank Holiday Mondays) from 10.30–5pm (closed 25, 26 Dec and 1 Jan)
Standard ticket price, adult £8, student £7.50, children age 6–18: £3.50
Web: victoriagal.org.uk
Tel: 01225 477233
EXHIBITIONS AT THE VICTORIA ART GALLERY
Bath Society of Artists 120th Open Exhibition
Running from October 2025 until Saturday 10 January 2026 will be the Society’s 120th open exhibition, the show celebrates the work of established artists and emerging talent at the Victoria Art Gallery. Attracting almost 1,500 entries every year, the Society’s Open exhibition is a highlight of Bath’s cultural calendar, with a fantastic mix of paintings, prints and sculptures in the widest variety of styles. Packed with colour, innovation and delight, this is a selling exhibition and has something for everyone to enjoy as well as prices to suit all buyers.
The Vibrant World of British Poster Design
From 23 January – 10 May 2026, this colourful exhibition is designed to showcase an exceptional range of beautiful British posters from the 19th and 20th centuries, drawn from the collections of the Victoria Art Gallery and Bath Record Office. Reflecting the spirit of the times, the display encompasses posters promoting theatre shows, events and entertainment, travel and transport, political campaigns and even WW1 recruiting. Visitors can discover how poster design developed over time, and take a nostalgic journey through the events and products advertised across 200 years.
Bath boasts so many independent galleries as well as wonderfully talented working artists and craftspeople. We can choose to visit the galleries of contemporary artists who combine their studio with a gallery space, or see high profile works and an eclectic range of craftwork from different makers, including jewellery, ceramics and art prints. Here are some of the places to visit for uplifting creative inspiration or for one-of-a-kind gift shopping
BEAUX ARTS BATH
12–13 York Street, Bath BA1 1NG
Open Monday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm and by appointment
Tel: 01225 464850 Web: beauxartsbath.co.uk
Founded in 1979, Beaux Arts is the longest established commercial gallery in Bath, and is the sister gallery to Beaux Arts in Mayfair. The gallery specialises in the very best in contemporary painting, sculpture and studio ceramics. Works by well-known artists of the 20th century such as Dame Elisabeth Frink, Sir Terry Frost and Dame Lucie Rie rub shoulders with new luminaries like Nathan Ford, Helen Simmonds, Anna Gillespie and Akiko Hirai. Beaux Arts has a wellearned reputation for curating exciting exhibitions. Artists’ work is given plenty of wall-space and, with its high ceilings and numerous rooms to explore, the gallery is light, airy and an ideal environment in which to enjoy beautiful and thought-provoking works of art.
Sandra Higgins Art is a contemporary art gallery based in Shires Yard (entrances on Milsom Street and Broad Street) in Bath. Adjacent to the gallery is ART STOP, a showcase for artisan objects and artworks from ceramics, photography, prints, sculpture, jewellery and textiles and more for sale in this boutique setting. The monthly exhibitions showcase a dynamic selection of established and emerging artists, offering thought provoking exhibitions, as well as a series of artist’s talks which inspire visitors to celebrate the power of contemporary art to inspire, challenge and connect. Whether you’re a collector looking for distinctive works or an art enthusiast eager to explore, do visit the gallery described by visitors as ‘a hidden gem’ in the centre of Bath. Open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm and Sundays 11am-4pm.
Autumn Nasturtiums by Helen Simmonds
Blue by Robin Sewell
River 1 by Skye Holland
Web Bow by Patrick Hughes
Interchange Series 23 by Julia Atkinson
GALLERY NINE
9B Margaret's Buildings, Bath BA1 2LP
Open Monday - Saturday, 10am-5pm Tel: 01225 319197 Web: galleryninebath.com
Founded in 2005, Gallery Nine’s current director Bo Collier whose gallery experience spans 30 years specialises in studio ceramics, jewellery, textiles, paintings and original artists prints. Pieces are selected for their quality, originality and craftsmanship and the space is frequented by collectors, tourists and local customers alike. The gallery curates an exciting exhibition programme three times a year in spring, summer and at Christmas focusing on unique and affordable original British craft and contemporary works of art. Gallery Nine supports the future of its artists, established artists and wide ranging potential of emerging and new talents and can be found in Margaret’s Buildings, a charming Georgian street with independent shops and galleries.
THE BARTON GALLERY
28 Barton Street, Bath BA1 1HH
BATH CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS’ FAIR AT GREEN PARK STATION
Second Sundays of November and December, and from April – December (apart from August) in 2026. 10am – 5pm Web: bcaf.co.uk
The award-winning monthly Bath Contemporary Artists’ Fair (BCAF) is committed to bringing the best of contemporary art to the heart of Bath. It has created a regular space where artists can network, share ideas, connect with the public, and where the public can connect with art. Visitors can see the works of local artists and admire fine art, photography, sculpture, textiles, ceramics and much more, all under the vaulted glass roof of Green Park Station. Make a day of it and enjoy the foodie treats found at the station too. For updates and exhibiting artists visit the website.
Open Monday - Saturday, 11am-5.30pm; Sunday, 11am-2.30pm Web: thebartongallery.com
The Barton Gallery is the latest thriving and eclectic addition to Bath’s independent shops in the city centre, located between Theatre Royal and Queen Square. It is spread over three floors, colour-drenched in a mesmerising shade of blue and filled with serene oil paintings, art prints, jewellery, porcelain lights, antique furniture and Ikat fabrics – all beautifully curated by local artist Agnes Pollock, in collaboration with other local artists and creatives. Since opening its doors in May ‘25, it is the place to go for interior inspiration, affordable art and unique gifts. It has already established a loyal following and is proving to be very popular with both local residents and visitors to the city.
Aly Dalrymple Hare and Bird, free machine-stitched embroidery
POSTCARDS
The American Museum & Gardens
Melissa Blease gives us an introduction to the American Museum & Gardens at Claverton Manor
For more than 50 years, the American Museum & Gardens has attracted visitors from across the world to experience the impeccable reconstructions of the rooms of 19th-century American family homes, the vast collection of American decorative arts, crafts and textiles, the array of American Folk Art, and the captivating gardens. And Claverton Manor – the grand, imposing mansion in which the museum is based – has a fascinating history all of its own.
Early owners of the estate (dating back to the early 17th century) include British MP Sir Edward Hungerford (d.1607). Ralph Allen –postmaster, philanthropist and former owner of Bath stone quarries, from which most of Bath's most iconic, historic buildings were built – purchased the manor in 1758, restoring and rebuilding it, and creating a peaceful retreat away from the city centre. Although Allen spent most of his time at his Palladian-styled mansion at Prior Park, he visited Claverton regularly and established a tree-lined road that linked the two properties.
During the ownership of the Skrine family in 1897, the gardens were the venue for the first public speech by Winston Churchill; a plaque outside the main entrance marks this historic moment. In the years that followed, the house was the headquarters of an RAF
barrage balloon group during the Second World War, and after the Bath Domestic Science College used the manor as a hall of residence until 1956.
The American Museum story itself begins in 1958, when British antiques dealer John Judkyn and the American psychiatrist and collector Dr Dallas Pratt (partners in both their personal and professional lives) purchased Claverton Manor and eventually turned it into a museum to celebrate American decorative arts and furniture.
With the help of furniture restorer Nick Bell Knight and Ian McCallum, who became the museum’s first director, the team worked tirelessly to transform the manor from a state of neardereliction while collecting artefacts and recreating period rooms from old American houses from centuries past, each carefully selected component (including panelling and floors shipped to Britain enabling period rooms to be painstakingly recreated in perfect detail) testifying to the artistry and history of American artisans and domestic life.
The American Museum & Gardens opened its doors to the public in 1961. Some 57 years later, the American Museum Gardens were transformed by Washington DC-based landscape gardeners Oehme, van Sweden, marking the company’s first UK commission. The £2m
CLAVERTON MANOR COMMANDS SPECTACULAR VIEWS ACROSS THE LIMPLEY STOKE VALLEY
SEE A WORLD-FAMOUS
COLLECTION OF TEXTILES, EMBROIDERIES, WEAVINGS AND PRINTS
makeover and refurbishment was unveiled by gardener Alan Titchmarsh in 2018.
Today, the American Museum & Gardens is home to many thousands of items that tell the story of the lives of American people from the earliest settlers all the way up to today both inside and out, while keeping the UK abreast with American contemporary culture.
YOUR VISIT
The American Museum’s permanent collection includes Dallas Pratt’s map collection, one of the great collections of Renaissance maps, and there is also a dedicated Textile Room showcasing early examples of whole-cloth quilts (including Hawaiian and Amish pieces), appliqué work and a selection of Navajo and New Mexican weavings, rugs, coverlets and samplers. The American Folk Art Collection, meanwhile, is considered to be the greatest of its kind in Europe, featuring portraits, monumental sculptures and stunning carvings, while several immaculately recreated, evocative period room sets allow visitors to step back in time and experience domestic American history in wholly authentic detail. And, until 4 January you can discover the wonders of space at a fantastic new family exhibition: Beyond Infinity: American Space Exploration This special exhibition showcases innovation, collaboration, and the sublime magic of space that ignites awe in all of us!
Regular events at the American Museum include weekly pop-up talks and guided garden walks, live music sessions and barbecues. No visit to the American Museum, however, is complete without a refreshment pitstop to sample the authentic flavours of America whilst taking in the panoramic views across Limpley Stoke Valley in the American Garden Deli followed by a bout of retail therapy in the Gallery Shop.
The American Museum and Gardens, Claverton Manor, Claverton, Bath BA2 7BD
Tel: 01225 460503
Open: Tuesday-Sunday from mid-February to end of December, also Bank Holidays and Mondays during local school holidays. For specific opening times for different parts of the site, admission prices and accessibility details, visit the website.
Web: americanmuseum.org
THE NEW AMERICAN GARDEN
Perched on an east-facing limestone bluff adjacent to the main building itself, The American Museum Gardens encapsulate the USA’s garden design revolution borne of trailblazing Washington DC-based landscape architects Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden (OvS).
OvS sought to rebuke the tyranny of the lawn and ‘foundational planting’ and instead to evoke the grandeur of the American prairies and introduce a new palette of plants. The 2.5-acre New American Gardens at the American Museum was opened in 2018 and offers visitors the unique opportunity to browse the designs that represent the OvS vision.
The design hinges on the circuitous Winding Way pathway that took inspiration from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and connects the gardens (including a children’s garden), arboretum, house, exhibition space and café, with wheelchair and buggy-friendly access encouraging every visitor to see everything on offer, plus the wilderness trail and surrounding parklands offering potential for further exploration.
Splashes of vibrant colour nestle in all the borders, native American fauna adds fascination, swathes of grasses and plumes whisper on the breeze and heavy-set blooms add depth and gravitas, alongside glorious panoramic views of the Limpley Stoke Valley and a turf amphitheatre nestling into the natural topography, used to host outdoor music and theatre events at the museum.
Six larger-than-life bust sculptures of key figures from American history are featured along the garden’s pathways, including President Abraham Lincoln and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, created by British sculptor Angela Conner.
Extensive changes were made to the Mount Vernon Garden, following new research into how President George Washington’s garden looked during his lifetime; the Parterre now features 2,100 Buxus microphylla ‘Herrenhausen’ plants laid out as an enormous fleur-de-lis, paying homage to the Marquis de Lafayette – a French aristocrat and military officer who led American troops in the Continental Army during the War of Independence, and who became a lifelong friend of Washington.
CITY HISTORY
Jane Austen’s Life in Bath
Jane Austen is one of Bath’s most famous former residents, but in her real life, as in her novels, she was aware of the contrast between the splendid and the seedy in the city, says associate professor in 18th and 19th-century literature, Dr Felicity James
Adreary, rainy November afternoon in 1797. A carriage bumps over the wet streets, dodging rumbling carts and drays. The young women inside look at one another with eager excitement. Everything seems to promise pleasure, from the bawling of the newsmen, muffinmen and milkmen, to the chinking of pattens as ladies dash from shop to shop, clutching their bonnets against the rain. The carriage pulls up at Number One, Paragon Buildings. Jane Austen, 21 years old, had arrived in Bath.
Jane, Cassandra and their mother stayed with their wealthy relatives, the Leigh-Perrots, in Paragon Buildings, where their gouty uncle came every winter to take the waters. The city had special significance for the Austen family – Jane’s mother and father had met there and had married there. It came to have a role in Jane’s creative life, since both her first and last full-length novels were inspired by the city: Northanger Abbey , begun in 1797, and Persuasion in 1815. They feature very different heroines, but they both show Austen’s fascination with the social panorama Bath provided.
In Northanger Abbey the heroine Catherine expresses ‘eager delight’ on arriving in Bath – ‘her eyes were here, there, every where, as they approached its fine and striking environs’ – and she breathlessly visits all the tourist attractions. This reflects Austen’s own excitement in her early encounters with the city. Her letters to Cassandra about her adventures in Bath in 1799 are written in lively, sociable, holiday spirits, reporting to her sister on the latest fashions – would Cassandra prefer flowers or fruit as a decoration for her new hat? Jane used to attend evening entertainments, including a grand gala with music, illuminations and fireworks in Sydney Gardens. The concert promised to be tolerable – after all, she writes, tongue-in-cheek, ‘the Gardens are large enough for me to get pretty well beyond the reach of its sound’ – and the fireworks turned out to be ‘really beautiful’. Moreover, the circulating libraries of Bath could feed the Austen sisters’ fondness for up-to-date books, shared by the heroine of Northanger Abbey . Catherine’s trips to the Pump Rooms, the Upper and Lower Rooms, and the baths are underscored by her addiction to the wild Gothic world of 1790s novels. ‘Yes, novels,’ exclaims Austen, ‘…in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed’.
Austen had clearly also learned to read the dangerous side of the city. As historian Peter Borsay points out, the Bath which
appears in Northanger Abbey has two sides: ‘a place of potential and opportunity which nurtured good and evil alike’. In the 1987 BBC production grotesque socialites lurk in the Pump Room, bewigged and bonnetted, their wrinkles slathered over with rouge, while wicked seducers hover on the sidelines.
Andrew Davies’ delicate adaptation of Northanger Abbey for ITV in 2007 shows a more romantic side of Bath, albeit with a dangerous undertow of flirtation. Candlelit, soft and rosy, it contrasts vividly with the dark, sexy horror of Catherine’s dreamlife, inspired by Mrs Radcliffe’s romances. The innocent Felicity Jones floats along in pale muslin as Catherine. She looks, as Davies admits, ‘slightly too pretty for Catherine’, but amply brings out the eager happiness of this first encounter with Bath.
Northanger Abbey is a tale of teenage excitement, but Austen’s return to Bath as a setting for her later novel, Persuasion , is subtler, deeper and sadder. At 27, Anne Elliot has lost her bloom. Faded, ‘haggard’, she seems to have said goodbye to her hopes of marriage when she turned down her first suitor, Wentworth, faced with the disapproval of her snobbish family. Now, eight years on, Wentworth is back, prosperous, happy and successful. But he has not forgiven Anne, who had ‘used him ill’ – she has to watch silently as he flirts with the pretty young Musgrove girls. This story of lost love and regret has long been linked to Austen herself – Jane was haunted by her own earlier love affairs –nostalgic memories which feed into Persuasion.
Anne’s dislike of Bath – uprooted from the country home she loves, forced by family circumstance into ‘something very opposite from her inclination’ – has also been taken to be Austen’s own view. Although she enjoyed her visits to the city, moving there permanently, on her father’s retirement from the vicarage at Steventon, seems not to have appealed. Her sister-inlaw Mary Lloyd Austen reported that Jane was ‘greatly distressed’, and her great-nephew claims, ‘The shock of the intelligence was so great that she fainted away’.
She seems to have ceased writing during those years in Bath. Save one abortive effort, The Watsons, her creativity seems to have been put on hold from 1801 until 1809, when she moved with her mother and sister in a house on her brother’s estate in Chawton, Hampshire.
Jane’s six completed novels were all revised or written at Chawton – at her death, she was just coming into her prime as a writer. Her masterpiece Emma took just over a year to write, from
1814 to 1815; Persuasion was written at a similar pace and finished in August 1816, and she had begun another novel, Sanditon, when she died. These last works, lively and experimental, tackle social transition and change much more openly than Austen’s previous novels. While Persuasion’s Captain Wentworth has made his fortune in the Napoleonic Wars, the titled Elliots have sunk into debt and have to leave their ancestral home to go and live in Bath.
Bath itself has also changed. When Austen visited in 1799, she was happy to stay in Queen Square. But the Musgrove sisters in Persuasion won’t settle for this. ‘We must be in a good situation,’ they tell their father, ‘none of your Queen-squares for us!’
Other, more fashionable visitors had deserted the city altogether, in favour of new spa towns. Even in the 1790s, despite the lively social gatherings depicted in Northanger Abbey, the city was already sinking into decline as a fashionable destination.
By 1801, after the Austens’ move, Jane was reporting on the poor showing at the dances: ‘Think of four couples,’ she tells Cassandra, ‘surrounded by about a hundred people, dancing in the upper rooms at Bath!’
This view of Bath is seconded by Anne Elliot, who shies away from what she terms the ‘littlenesses’ of the town, its petty snobberies and vanities. Her father delights in courting titled acquaintances, and expressing his disdain for his fellow spa-goers. He is inordinately proud of his rented house in Camden Place –showy and expensive, but built on unstable ground which meant that the upper crescent could never be completed. It’s the perfect symbol for his superficial vanity. Anne, on the other hand, seeks out the less fortunate, spending her time in the cramped rooms of her invalid friend, and persisting in her ‘disinclination for Bath’.
But it is Bath that finally allows Anne her happy ending. Here she meets Captain Wentworth once again. In an apartment at the White Hart, he pens his declaration of love, and in the ‘comparatively quiet and retired gravel-walk’, between Queen Square and the Royal Crescent, they finally share their feelings, looking only at each other, ‘seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling house-keepers, flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children’. Perhaps this is a clue to Austen’s own view of the city. While she takes a sceptical look at its sauntering, flirting bustle, she finds a place for her romance within it.
Bath prompted her earliest novel, and inspired her as a mature writer – it produced a sparkling comedy and a story of love and loss. From irrepressible flirts and Gothic villains, to the heartfelt love of Anne and Wentworth, the city was a lifelong source of inspiration for Jane Austen.
The year 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and to celebrate you’ll find all sorts going on in the city from guided tours, walking tours, workshops, exhibitions, theatre productions and afternoon teas, Austen-style.
Visit the Jane Austen Centre in Bath for a snapshot of life during Regency times and explore how living in the city affected Jane Austen and her writing.
Jane Austen Centre, 40 Gay Street, Bath
Tel: 01225 443000
Web: janeausten.co.uk
IMAGE: Thomas Rowlandson, A Master of Ceremonies Introducing a Partner, bathintime.co.uk, Bath Central Library
A note of some importance
To mark the 200th anniversary of her death in 2017, Jane Austen appeared on a Bank of England £10 note. There was a flurry of media excitement, inspired by the success of the campaign, ‘Keep a Woman on English Banknotes’. However, few spoke about the fact that a £10 ‘Austen’ banknote was already in existence.
Jane’s brother, Henry, built a small banking empire with its headquarters in London. A £10 note issued by the Alton bank is now displayed at the cottage where Jane once lived on his Chawton estate. However, Henry Austen’s name is rarely mentioned, as his financial ventures collapsed. His banking business was overtaken by the post-war financial crash of 1816, leading to significant losses for family, friends, and neighbours. This aspect of Jane’s life was often ignored by her descendants and overlooked by biographers. Nevertheless, Jane's literary career and her development as a novelist were deeply tied to Henry’s rise and fall. Henry was Jane’s favourite among her six brothers and they shared a quick wit and had similar temperaments. As Jane began writing seriously, their relationship became professional. Henry’s various homes in London served as her base of operations for entering the publishing world, and he acted as her literary agent. After her death, he took charge of publishing her final works and provided the public with some of the earliest biographical accounts of his sister’s life.
In the past, Jane Austen’s emphasis on the importance of a solid income was often downplayed, conflicting with the image of her as a gentle, sweet Aunt Jane that emerged in Victorian times. Today, however, there is a greater understanding of her practical approach to finances. Yet, the influence of Henry Austen, Jane’s most significant connection to the economic changes of her era, remains largely neglected.
IMAGE: VisitBath.co.uk
Bath celebrates 250 years of Jane Austen
Jane Austen has long been associated with Bath, and each year in September, the city hosts a grand festival that is organised by the Jane Austen Centre. This year, the festival marked 250 years since the author’s birth. While the main festival itself has largely come to a close, there are still several ways in which you can celebrate Jane Austen and learn more about her life, books, and her time in Bath.
In the Footsteps of Jane Austen audio tour
Don your headphones and embark on Visit Bath’s In the Footsteps of Jane Austen audio walking tour. Lasting for an hour and a half, the free tour provides an overview of how Bath would have appeared during its Georgian heyday. The tour also includes extracts from Jane Austen’s novels and letters. You can download the audio and map from visitbath.co.uk
Yuletide Birthday Ball
Dress in your finest Regency attire and celebrate the author’s birthday with a spectacular Yuletide Jane Austen Birthday Ball at the Bath Pump Room on 13 December. The event, the final part of the Jane Austen Festival’s 250th anniversary celebrations, is being held just a few days prior to her actual birthday on 16 December. This extravagant event promises a fine show of Regency dancing led by the Jane Austen Dancers of Bath, live music, and a special birthday toast. Visit janeausten.co.uk
Illustrating Austen Exhibition
The Holburne Museum’s Illustrating Austen exhibition runs until January 2026, showing how the author’s characters have been brought to life on the page, how different artists depicted them in a range of styles, and how they have evolved through the years, reflecting changing times and new audiences. View a fascinating collection of illustrations, illustrated editions, original sketchbooks, and complete works, now considered works of art in their own right. The exhibition showcases some of the earliest illustrations right through to the current work of Coralie Bickford-Smith for Penguin cloth-bound classics. Of note is the fact that from 1801 to 1804, Jane Austen resided just across the road from the Holburne Museum at 4 Sydney Place.
Visit holburne.org
The quotation used on the Jane Austen banknote – ‘I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading” – at first glance seems a good choice. However, the words, from Pride and Prejudice, were spoken by one of Austen’s most deceitful characters, Caroline Bingley, who has no interest in books. She is sidling up to Mr Darcy, whom she would like as a husband. He is reading a book, so she sits next to him and pretends to read alongside him.
Bath’s Gothic Female Writers
On a chilly, dark night in November Jenny McAuley explores some of Bath’s most influential writers of the last 200 years... Meet the Gothic Girls; Ann Radcliffe, Sophia Lee, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen and Angela Carter
Just over 200 years ago, in December 1817, Jane Austen’s famous parody of the Gothic novel, Northanger Abbey, was published. Appearing six months after the author’s death in July, it affectionately mocked the melodramatic conventions of the Gothic romances of her youth. Like Austen’s last-completed novel Persuasion (with which it was simultaneously published), Northanger Abbey also evoked the streets and social life of Bath as experienced by Austen while visiting in 1799, and living here between 1801 and 1806.
It’s only when Austen’s teenage heroine Catherine Morland leaves the polite Assembly Rooms and bustling shops of 1790s Bath for mysterious Northanger Abbey that she begins to imagine her Gothic fantasies, fuelled by the sensational fictions of Ann Radcliffe, might be coming true. But Bath is steeped in Gothic histories of its own. Although its harmonious neo-classical architecture, and its fame as a health spa, may not immediately suggest the uncanny, Bath has been home to some of the most iconic and influential English women writers of Gothic fiction.
For the fictional heroine Catherine Morland, Milsom Street is a significant location because it is where the object of her affections, witty Henry Tilney, is lodging. As a fan of Ann Radcliffe’s phenomenally successful novel The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), however, Catherine might have been still more interested in Milsom Street had she known of its associations with Radcliffe – whose
parents, William and Ann Ward, ran a showroom there for the porcelain-makers Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley.
Having begun work at the first Wedgwood showroom in Bath (at Westgate Buildings) in 1772, William Ward relocated it to 22 Milsom Street in 1779. Although the young Ann Ward appears to have spent much of her childhood in the household of Wedgwood’s business partner Thomas Bentley (her mother’s brother-in-law) near London, she was certainly residing at Bath at the time of her marriage to the London journalist William Radcliffe, whose radical political views she shared. Their wedding took place at St Michael’s Without Church, Broad Street on 15 January 1787, when Ann was aged 23.
Ann Radcliffe perfected a formula that characterised a specifically female strand of the literary Gothic for decades to come. The ‘female Gothic’ focused upon distressed heroines trapped in sinister castles or abbeys, which represented the constraints placed upon women’s lives under the patriarchal laws of 18th and 19th-century Britain. Radcliffe herself learned from earlier authors such as Sophia Lee, another Bath resident. The daughter of actors, Lee established a prestigious (and profitable) girls’ school on Lansdown Road along with her sisters Harriet, Charlotte and Anna in 1781 – initially funding the enterprise with proceeds from her dramatic writing. By 1786, the sisters had resettled their school at the larger Lansdown Road premises of Belvedere House.
Sophia Lee’s 1784 romance The Recess, about the fictional adventures of two equally fictional daughters of Mary, Queen of
Gothic writers, Mary Shelley (image, Richard Rothwell), Ann Radcliffe and Sophia Lee, (image by engraver William Ridley, after Thomas Lawrence) and Angela Carter
IMAGES: via Wikicommons, Alamy
“ I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days my hair standing on end the whole time.”
–
NORTHANGER ABBEY, JANE AUSTEN –
Scots, is wildly far-fetched and over-sentimental to modern tastes. It nevertheless significantly influenced the development of historical fiction in England – while featuring such defining Gothic hallmarks as dark, imposing architecture (the action of The Recess opens with the heroines secretly confined in a system of underground chambers, beneath a ruined monastery).
When Sophia Lee died in 1824, her obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine mentioned that she had been acquainted in Bath with the young Ann Radcliffe (‘Miss Ward’), adding that Radcliffe was an admirer of The Recess
Radcliffe biographers have doubted later claims that she attended Lee’s school, as she was already aged 17 when it opened; though it did admit young women up to about age 19 as ‘parlour boarders’, for training in etiquette and fashionable accomplishments.
Twenty years on from Radcliffe’s 1790s heyday, another young woman writer made Bath her base as she drafted perhaps the most famous of all female-authored Gothic novels: Frankenstein (1818).
As her journal precisely records, 19-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley lived in Bath between 10 September 1816 and 26 January 1817, settling first at 5 Abbey Churchyard (which no longer exists).
She travelled there with her unmarried stepsister Claire Clairmont, who was then pregnant by English Romantic poet and politician Lord Byron.
When Mary Shelley arrived in Bath, she was still Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, daughter of radical authors William Godwin and his first wife Mary Wollstonecraft (who had died within days of Mary Shelley’s birth in 1797). Her marriage to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, her lover of two years, took place on 30 December 1816, following the suicide earlier that month of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet Westbrook. This event had followed the suicide two months previously of Mary’s 21-year-old half-sister Frances, Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter by American speculator Gilbert Imlay.
Wollstonecraft herself was first employed as a lady’s companion on Milsom Street, near the Wedgwood showroom run by Radcliffe’s parents, during 1779 – 80. After Wollstonecraft’s death, Godwin also visited Bath in 1798, during his unsuccessful courtship of Sophia Lee’s sister and fellow author Harriet Lee.
Mary Shelley’s work on Frankenstein in Bath formed part of a routine of writing, reading, drawing, and caring for her year-old son, William, steadily maintained despite the traumatic events of that autumn. She recorded her progress in letters to Shelley, frequently absent from her on business in London. On 5 December 1816, she reported having just completed the fourth chapter of Frankenstein –in which the monstrous creature comes to life on ‘a dreary night of November’.
In the darkest days of winter there’s still a macabre thrill to be had from reading Mary Shelley’s tale of the creature: ‘By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull, yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs . . . I rushed out of the room.’
Bath’s gothic echo continues down through the years. In the 20th century, it was while living on Hay Hill just off the Paragon, between 1973 and 1976 that Angela Carter began the dark fairytales collected in The Bloody Chamber (1979), which updated the ‘female gothic’ tradition of exposing patriarchal abuses. Carter was particularly alert to Bath’s eerie aspects. In her 1975 essay Bath, Heritage City, she noted the Anglo-Saxons’ superstitious fear of the site, with its crumbling Roman ruins and mysteriously heated waters.
Carter herself loved the ‘haunting silences’ of 1970s Bath, and its then still-lingering atmosphere of faded Regency glamour – and perhaps even in today’s larger, livelier city, a hint of the gothic spirit that has inspired so many great authors might still occasionally be felt, as the nights draw in.
Written in Bath
Described by Goodreads as “Subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales”
The must-read masterpiece of Gothic horror: The Bloody Chamber [and other stories] by Angela Carter.
Pictured: A rare First Edition cover. Published by Gollancz, 1979. Dustwrapper Artwork by Malcolm Ashma.
ANN RADCLIFFE’S THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO
CONVERSATIONS
Good (very good) Housekeeping
Dorota Piatkowska, Housekeeping Manager, The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa
For any luxury hotel, the seamless experience that guests enjoy often depends on the people working quietly behind the scenes. From spotless rooms to a welcoming atmosphere, it is the dedication and attention to detail of the housekeeping team that ensures every stay feels effortless and memorable. At The Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath, where elegance meets comfort in one of the city’s most iconic addresses, the role of the housekeeper is nothing short of central to maintaining the hotel’s exceptional standards.
Guests may arrive expecting historic charm, refined décor and impeccable service, but it is the skill, efficiency, and care of the housekeeping team that truly brings the experience to life. Every bed made, every room prepared, and every small detail attended to contributes to a guest’s first impression and lasting memory of their stay. At the heart of this operation is ‘Dot, whose dedication to the job ensures that The Royal Crescent Hotel continues to offer an unrivalled standard of hospitality in the city.
Dorota — known to everyone as ‘Dot’ — was born in Lask and grew up in Niedoń, a tiny village in Sieradz County in central Poland, west of the regional capital Łódź. Surrounded by forest and farmland, she and her siblings were raised on the family farm, where everyone played a part in the day-to-day running of rural life.
At 21, after completing an accountancy degree in Łódź, Dot decided to take a year off. Hearing about a work opportunity from a friend in Bath, she flew to the UK and the very next day began work at The Royal Crescent Hotel as a cleaner.
Seventeen years later, Dot is now Housekeeping Manager, leading a team of more than 30 people, including supervisors, housekeepers and cleaners — who ensure every corner of the hotel’s 45 rooms is kept spick and span.
“I love my job because I work with wonderful people,” she says. “The Royal Crescent Hotel is a wonderful place to start a career because it allows for growth. From management to room attendant or restaurant waitress, RCH created the conditions for my growth and supported me in difficult situations.”
Those early years in Bath were not without their challenges. Living in a new country without family nearby and speaking only basic English, Dot recalls how she learned through determination — studying at home, attending evening classes, and practising with supportive colleagues who gently corrected her along the way.
Her perseverance paid off. Today, she’s not only fluent but a respected and empathetic leader. “My team motivates and inspires me every day,” she says. “They are the best in the universe — if I don’t have my team, I couldn’t achieve anything!”
That collaborative spirit runs through the entire hotel. “With many of the employees, I feel like we’re family, not just coworkers — some days we’re caring for each other, and others are full of laughs. At RCH, colleagues are not competitors but inspiration for each other,
with every department supporting one another and working to the same standard.”
Dot is particularly proud of the hotel’s diversity. “We have such a variety of people — different ages, nationalities and religions — and we’re all able to communicate and help each other. Guests are important, but so are the employees. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything.”
My team motivates and inspires me every day – they are the best in the universe. If I don’t have my team, I couldn’t achieve anything.”
No two days are ever the same. “It’s hard to describe a typical day in the life at the hotel because every day is different,” she explains. “One day I’m in the office, the next I’m cleaning, and the next I’m a porter or duty manager. My work isn’t monotonous — I can demonstrate my skills in various areas, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed with the hotel for so long.”
She also has a wonderful sense of humour about the unpredictable nature of hospitality. “A long time ago, some guests requested a cot for a baby,” she laughs. “One of the girls who worked for us was Polish and didn’t speak English yet, as she had just started. In Poland, ‘kot’ means ‘cat’, so she brought the cat to the guest room! That day, the hotel had two types of cots — both the guests and our team were still laughing for days afterwards!”
Away from work, Dot’s life is centred around her family. Her home is conveniently located just opposite The Royal Crescent, and her four-year-old son’s nursery is only a short walk away. She loves to cook traditional Polish food — especially soups and stews such as Żurek (sour rye soup), Ogórkowa (cucumber soup) and Rosół (chicken soup). As a Catholic, she and her family attend Polish Mass on Sundays at Manvers Street Baptist Church in Bath. Poland, she says, feels “a world away” from her life in the UK — different in culture, architecture and pace — but it remains an essential part of who she is. She visits Niedoat least twice a year, describing it as an “oasis of peace,” where her children help their grandparents on the farm, feed the animals, fish, and pick mushrooms and berries in the forest.
Fortunately for The Royal Crescent Hotel — and for many of its guests who appreciate every effort that makes their stay the most pleasurable experience — Bath has become Dot’s much-loved second home, where her warmth, dedication and team spirit shine through in everything she does.
Afternoon Tea
To experience the best of the afternoon tea tradition, why not indulge yourself with a trip to one of Bath’s finest hotels or visit one of the city’s quaint tearooms?
Immerse yourself in the history and heritage of Georgian Bath with a luxurious afternoon tea. Served in the Brasserie, this carefully curated experience combines all the traditions of this favourite of British pastimes with entertaining stories and tales, told by local experts, that reveal an intriguing insight into the history and heritage of Bath. The menu offers a wide selection of speciality blended teas from around the world including the hotel’s signature Gainsborough blend, delicate finger sandwiches, perfectly crafted miniature pastries and warm scones served with clotted cream and homemade jams, for £40 per person. To add a Jane Austen walking tour, contact strictlyjaneausten.com to arrange your booking.
Afternoon tea is a speciality of Bailbrook House where you can enjoy it in the elegant surroundings of the Mansion House lounges, which offer historic, feature-rich surroundings that fit with this great British tradition. Relish in the finest loose teas (strained to your personal taste), delicious sandwiches, handmade cakes, pastries and scones and the traditional Bath Bun – a large fruit bun, sprinkled with crushed sugar. For an extra touch of indulgence, just add a glass of Champagne. Saturdays and Sundays, from £32 per adult, £16 per child.
Afternoon Tea at The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa is a moment of memorable indulgence, in the elegant surroundings of Montagu’s Mews: in the restaurant or bar, and on fine days on the terrace or in the glorious gardens. Delicate finger sandwiches, warm scones with clotted cream and jam, dainty pâtisserie, and the region’s own Bath Bun are all carefully prepared and beautifully presented. Choose from a wide selection of Hoogly Teas for a traditional treat or why not go all out with a chilled flute – or flight –of Taittinger Champagne. Afternoon tea is served daily from 12.30pm –3.30pm and priced from £49 per adult and £24.50 per child. Vegetarian and vegan menus are also available, please request at time of booking.
A TEA TIME ROUTINE
The idea of afternoon tea was introduced to England by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in 1840. The Duchess would feel hungry around four o’clock, but the evening meal was served at eight, leaving a long gap between lunch and dinner. She asked for a tray of tea, bread and butter (a new innovation by the Earl of Sandwich), and cake to be served in the late afternoon. This became a habit, and she began inviting friends. The pause for tea evolved into a fashionable social event. Soon, the upper classes and society women would change into long gowns, gloves, and hats for afternoon tea, usually served between four and five o’clock in the drawing room or garden on a warm day. Jane Austen and her characters always found that one “should be very glad of a little tea” (Mansfield Park, 1814). Tea meant rest and pleasure, and its absence would be a severe disappointment. It was a ritual that brought families together, could make or break marriage contracts, and made dull events more exciting!
MORE JANE AUSTEN INSPIRATION
The Jane Austen Centre’s Regency Tea Room, 40 Gay Street, Bath BA1 2NT; janeausten.co.uk
Choose from a decadent ‘Tea with Mr Darcy’ to lighter options such as ‘Lady Catherine’s Proper Cream Tea’ and ‘Mrs Bennet’s Cake of the Day.’
Sally Lunn’s afternoon teas based on the world-famous Sally Lunn bun are served until 6pm every day.
The Bath Distillery Gin Bar, 2/3 Queen Street, Bath BA1 1HE; thebathgincompany.co.uk
This cosy gin bar has concocted the character of Virginia ‘Gin’ Austen. The bar is overseen by a portrait of a winking Austen, and your gin can be served in teapots, to ramp up the Regency vibes.
THE PUMP ROOM RESTAURANT
Searcys at the Pump Room, Stall Street, Bath BA1 1LZ
Tel: 01225 444477 Web: thepumproombath.co.uk
Celebrate 250 years of Jane Austen with the Pump Room Restaurant’s Jane Austen Afternoon Tea, inspired by her life and era. There is a choice of loose-leaf tea, blended by Gillards of Bath, or fair-trade filter coffee, with complimentary refills on request. You can also add a chilled glass of English Sparkling Wine, or sample the Darcy cocktail made with Earl Grey tea and spiced rum. The savoury afternoon tea selection includes cucumber, mint, sheep milk labneh finger sandwiches; Pump Room Somerset cider roasted gammon and spiced tomato chutney finger sandwiches; and St Ewes egg salad bridge roll and egg yolk confit, as well as plain and fruit handmade scones served with West Country clotted cream and strawberry jam. Sittings run from 12–1.30pm, 2–3.30pm or 4 –5.30pm, accompanied by an hour of live music with the resident pianist or famous Pump Room Trio. Jane Austen Afternoon Tea from £44.50 per guest. Children’s afternoon teas also available, £14.95, when purchased with a full adult tea.
LUCKNAM PARK HOTEL
Colerne SN14 8AZ
Tel: 01225 742777 Web: lucknampark.co.uk
Indulge in a traditional English afternoon tea at this 18th-century mansion set in 500 acres of magnificent gardens and parkland. Tea at Lucknam Park is a firm favourite, whether it’s for a special occasion or a decadent treat after shopping in Bath, which is only six miles away. You will be able to escape the city and enjoy a full English afternoon tea from £48 per person, (£68 with a glass of Joseph Perrier Champagne) served in the library or drawing room overlooking the gardens, or on the terrace on a warm day. Afternoon tea is available Monday to Sunday 1.30pm – 3.30pm. Reservations are recommended.
POSTCARDS
The Pump Room
Refined but welcoming; genteel but with a polished background buzz of conviviality – no visit to Bath would be complete without a visit to the Pump Room. Melissa Blease explores this exclusive comfort stop
If a tour of the Roman Baths site is integral to your discovery of Bath, a refreshment break at the Pump Room (under the same roof) is equally unforgettable. It’s possible, however, to indulge your senses in this elegant, neo-classical salon as a stand-alone, relaxing refuelling zone – as indeed, many Bath locals do, maintaining a Heritage City tradition that began more than two centuries ago.
This bastion of good taste has offered a civilised backdrop to all manner of social intercourse events since 1799. Opening early for breakfast, morning coffee and brunch before afternoon tea (and evening dinner during the summer months), the atmosphere is defined by the exquisitely dignified surroundings with sparkling chandeliers, Corinthian columns and tables adorned with crisp linen and gleaming tableware. Once at your table, polite, efficient staff cater to your every whim, while the Pump Room trio or a pianist provide elegant musical accompaniment. It’s a room with a view, too – either across the Roman Baths from the windows towards the rear of the salon, or over Abbey Square from tables towards the front of the building.
HISTORY
The thirst for ‘partaking of’ the thermal waters of Bath – once believed to offer healing properties – became so popular during the late 17th century that a pump was installed to allow public access water sourced directly from the spring. In the early 18th century, British physician and philanthropist William Oliver persuaded the Bath Corporation to erect buildings where the drinkers could be sheltered – a popular initiative that included the main Pump Room and the Hetling Pump Room, today the location of the Thermae Bath Spa Visitor Shop.
As the popularity of Bath as a spa destination grew, the Pump Room could no longer accommodate the scores of people keen to drink the water, so multiple extensions and improvements were made to the building.
Along with the Lower Assembly Rooms and Sydney Gardens and hotel, The Pump Room eventually completed the triangle of locations that drew Georgian ‘high society’. The original Pump Room building was designed by John Harvey to specifications requested by Bath’s Master of Ceremonies Beau Nash in 1706, before the discovery of the Roman remains. The foundations of the Roman temple precinct were discovered during preparatory excavations for designs by Thomas Baldwin who took the project over from John Harvey, but whose designs were also never completed. When Baldwin was declared bankrupt in 1793, his long-time rival (and official city architect) John Palmer continued the scheme to his own plans. The Pump Room was opened to the public by the Duchess of York in 1795 and finished in 1799.
Live music has been performed here since the opening of the original building in 1706, a tradition upheld by the highly acclaimed Pump Room Trio (the longest established resident ensemble in Europe) today, while the original Pump Room Orchestra is believed to be the first resident band in the country to play in an assembly room. When Baroque composer Handel visited Bath in 1749, he collaborated with Bath-born composer and organist Thomas Chilcot in support of the Pump Room band, English tenor and musician Thomas Linley and astrologer/ composer William Herschel both played in the band during the 1760s, and Gustav Holst was a guest conductor during the early 20th century. The Pump Room became a restaurant during the Second World War, and escaped destruction during the Baedeker Air Raids on Bath in 1942.
Historical figures who have visited to take the waters include Jane Austen (who used the backdrop as a setting for key scenes in
both Northanger Abbey and Persuasion), Charles Dickens (whose iconic character Mr Pickwick in his first novel The Pickwick Papers, published in 1836, was urged to take the waters by his faithful servant Sam Weller), American showman Buffalo Bill and the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, who spent his exile in Bath between 1936–41.
YOUR VISIT
Morning Bakery, Pump Room Brunch (and Sparkling Bucks Fizz Brunch) are served in the Pump Room from 10-11.30am, but it’s Afternoon Tea at the Pump Room (always accompanied by live music courtesy of a resident pianist or the famous Pump Room Trio) that’s not to be missed – there are three sittings: 12-1.30pm, 2-3.30pm or 4-5.30pm.
It’s possible, of course, to simply order a pot of tea and a freshly baked scone and leave refreshed, fulfilled and relaxed. But if you choose to elevate your perspective of afternoon delights to the next level, you’ve most definitely come to the right place; expect to encounter a thoughtful collection of freshly prepared sweet and savoury treats together on one (or possibly several) multi-tiered presentation stands, to be served on exquisite fine bone china. A selection of loose leaf teas or hand-roasted coffee comes as standard and can be refilled as many times as you wish. Searcy’s – the catering company hard at work behind the scenes here are also renowned for their incredible range of Champagnes.
It’s possible, too, to take a free sample of the mineral-rich spa water on which the city’s original foundations were built, freshly drawn by a ‘pumper’ from an ornate fountain at the epicentre of the dining room – but be warned: it’s an acquired taste.
The Pump Room, Abbey Church Yard, Bath BA1 1LZ
Open daily. Morning bakery and brunch, Afternoon Tea, and Summer Evening Dining (See website for times)
Book a table online or tel: 01225 444477
Walk-in tables are available daily
Web: thepumproombath.co.uk
Thermae Bath Spa
Laden with historic legend and offering a gracefully therapeutic experience today, Bath's hot springs are a buoyant natural resource, unique in the UK. Melissa Blease dives into the Thermae Bath Spa
Over the centuries, Bath has been built and developed around the natural, geothermally heated, mineral-rich springs that flow beneath the city’s historical Roman remains. Today, the Thermae Bath Spa – which opened its doors to the public in 2006 – enjoys superstar status at the epicentre of modern-day life in the city, reintroducing the ancient customs of spa culture to locals and visitors alike.
The Thermae Bath Spa brings together two grand baths, a rooftop pool, a wellness suite, a stand-alone pool on a sacred site,
a café, a visitor centre and a shop. This is a sleekly-designed complex where spa facilities and state-of-the-art features flourish together against a ‘uniquely Bath’ backdrop. The Spa offers a memorable, relaxing experience for water babies, those in need of refuge from the stresses and strains of modern life and grand design enthusiasts.
The Thermae Bath Spa neither detracts from nor dominates its surroundings; even though the main building is largely wrapped in stainless steel and multiple sheets of glass, the height and scale pay subtle, respectful homage to the surrounding structures.
YOUR VISIT
Although it tops the ‘Must Do’ list for around 290,000 visitors every year, the Thermae Bath Spa attracts locals as well as tourists. The clever layout encourages visitors to wander freely from space to space, so it’s always possible to find yourself a quiet, secluded oasis of blissful tranquility.
A standard two-hour spa session allows you to experience the Thermae Bath Spa at your own pace: make a gentle splash in the glamorous Minerva Bath (the largest of the baths), relax in the multi-sensory Wellness Suite and float around the spectacular Rooftop Pool, which offers breathtaking views over the city and is naturally warm and steamy at any hour of the day or night.
If you fancy a refreshment break, don’t worry about revisiting your locker for your wallet; purchases at the Springs Café are charged to your TBS SmartBand and paid for on exit. The extensive Spa Treatment menu (which must be booked at the same time as a standard spa session) offers around 20 treatments and therapies, ranging from traditional or hot stone massage to pampering face and body treatments. The Thermae Bath Spa’s array of signature treatments includes the likes of the exotic Frangipani Delight exfoliation ritual to nourish and cocoon the body in moisture, while buffing the skin to reveal a radiant, renewed glow and harmonised mind. Or, if you’re looking for a relaxing evening activity, make the most of the stunning views from the rooftop pool with the Twilight for Two package, which includes a two-hour spa session and a meal for two, plus a relaxing treatment.
Want a quick fix? Pop into the Cross Bath – an intimate, standalone facility with its own open-air thermal bath – for a 90-minute session, and experience instant nirvana.
THE ROMAN STEAM ROOM
HOT TUB IN THE MINERVA BATHS
HISTORY
In 1995 Bath and North East Somerset Council applied to the National Lottery for new project funding to regenerate Bath’s reputation as a modern-day spa destination. Two years later, the Millennium Commission granted the Bath Spa Project £7.78m to restore five historic buildings including the 18th-century Hot Bath, the ancient Cross Bath and the New Royal Bath: the stunning glass and stone edifice designed by internationally acclaimed architects Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, today housing the main spa complex.
Until the spa restoration was completed in 2006, the thermal waters that flowed from the springs, which naturally contain over 42 minerals and trace elements, was rerouted to pour into the River Avon. Today, over one million litres of this natural resource is used in the Thermae Bath Spa.
The Hot Bath (a Grade II* listed building) dates from 1777, designed by architect John Wood the Younger. The Cross Bath enjoys designated Sacred Site status within the World Wildlife
Fund for Nature’s Sacred Land Project. The original site and water source has origins that date back to a time and place before any form of records were kept, but he structure that surrounds the Cross Bath was rebuilt by 18th-century architect to the City of Bath John Palmer and his predecessor Thomas Baldwin in 1789 on the site of a medieval bath and on the original more than 2,000-year-old Roman Cistern.
Standard two-hour session £42.50 (weekday), £47.50 (weekend), includes use of towel, robe.
See web for special packages and add-on treatments
Web: thermaebathspa.com
Tel: 01225 331234
PAMPER yourself in Bath
While in Bath, treat yourself to something luxurious from one of the up-market emporia that have chosen Bath for their flagship stores. Our selection of indulgences include soothing hand balms, fragrant shower gels, elegant colognes, calming diffusers and other pampering essentials.
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3. Overnight Reset Serum, L’Occitane, £62 (30ml).
What if you could reset your skin overnight, erase the impact of stress and fatigue, and wake up each morning with fresh, rested healthy-looking skin? Immortelle Overnight Reset Serum is suitable for sensitive skins and is clinically proven to have an instant and long-term effect on glow.
L’Occitane, 13 New Bond Street, Bath BA1 1BE; loccitane.com
11. Seychelles Diffuser, The White Company, £35. Like a warm Indian Ocean breeze, the much-loved scent of soothing Seychelles combines notes of evocative bergamot, bright orange and fresh coconut, with a hint of green jasmine, warming amber and buttery vanilla.
The White Company, 15 Northgate Street, Bath BA1 5AS; thewhitecompany.com
2. English Pear & Freesia Cologne, Jo Malone London, £18 – £122
Orchards steeped in golden sunshine, warming the russet curves of luscious pears. The sensuous freshness of the just-ripe fruit wrapped in elegant white freesias, enhanced with rose and rooted in patchouli.
Jo Malone London, 6–7 Old Bond Street, Bath BA1 1BW; jomalone.co.uk
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4. The Cut, Penhaligon’s, £175 (100ml).
Eau de Parfum fashionable fougère tailored to precision. First, a stitch of mint is threaded to fir balsam, expertly sewn with cypress and cedar. The essential oils of clary sage will swagger down Savile Row to a round of lavender applause.
Penhaligon’s, 14 New Bond Street, Bath BA1 1BE; penhaligons.com
5. Aesop Eleos Aromatique Body Cleanser, £33 (180ml), £43 (500ml). This refreshingly gentle addition to the Body Care range is rich in emollients – and botanicals renowned for their purifying properties.
Eleos Aromatique Hand Balm, An intensely hydrating balm enriched with skin-softening botanical butters and oils. Ideal for weatherwearied, dry or distressed hands. From £27 (for 75ml).
Aesop, 16 New Bond St, Bath BA1 1BA; aesop.com/uk
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6. Mesmerising Oudh Accord & Gold Bath & Shower Gel, Molton Brown, £28 (300ml). Swathe your senses in complete luxury with this opulent opulent body wash; a glistening ode to richly complex oudh, infused with bright bergamot, smoky notes of black tea and honeyed resins.
Molton Brown, 9 Union Street, Bath BA1 1RW; moltonbrown.co.uk
Crystal Rose rounds up a few favourite places for a good pampering session
As you can imagine, Bath’s spa scene is stacked with world-class pampering possibilities. From the UK’s only geo-thermically heated pool to VIP treatments at first class hotels, the city certainly has a lot to offer. With so many choices, Bath is the perfect place to relax and unwind. Whether you’re visiting for a special occasion or to simply tick it off the must-do list, you won’t find these facilities anywhere else. Book in, turn up and switch off.
There are hydro-spa beds, dual treatment rooms, social lounges, sensory and wellbeing experiences to soothe as well as invigorate. And, if that’s not good enough, how about full use of the fitness facilities, a beauty treatment or a swim in a world-class pool? There’s something for everyone, whatever your heart desires and your body craves.
Grab your robe and slippers and dip a toe into our little round-up of the best places around. You may be spoilt for choice, but we promise you won’t be disappointed. After all, you have just landed in the city of spas.
So, put quite simply, enjoy.
THE GAINSBOROUGH BATH SPA
APEX CITY OF BATH HOTEL
James Street West, Bath BA1 2DA Web: apexhotels.co.uk
If it’s heated beds and a pool with a beautiful waterfall feature you’re wishing for then look no further. The Apex City of Bath Hotel offers an oasis of calm in the city. Expect warm ambient temperatures, a relaxing atmosphere and aromatherapy dosing systems, which allow essential oils to be infused into the shower area.
There’s a steam room, sauna and shower experience all situated around the pool area. Look out for the cold bucket treatment that’s designed to rejuventate and reinvigorate tired bodies.
What’s more, you can also head to the state-of-the-art gym within the four-star hotel if it’s a workout you’re in need of. Featuring a range of cardio, free weights and resistance equipment, it’s the perfect place to work up a sweat before unwinding in the spa. Take a break from the stresses and strains of everyday life in this little oasis of tranquility.
As one of the only geo-thermically heated pools in the UK, Spa Village at The Gainsborough Bath Spa is unique. Connect with the city’s thermal water heritage in an day’s indulgent adventure with four different spa packages to choose from. The brand’s philosophy of honouring the healing traditions of the region, while sharing the gift of select signature therapies of the original Spa Villages in Malaysia, makes for a truly special spa experience. With three natural thermal pools of varying temperatures, infrared and traditional saunas, an ice alcove, steam room and elegant relaxation areas, prepare to be truly spoilt for choice. The Gainsborough Bath Spa offers 11 treatment rooms, including a couples room and a VIP suite, and facilites also include a fitness gym and relaxation terrace. The treatments available include exfoliant body scrubs, bespoke facials, aromatherapy, deep tissue and bamboo massages with The Gainsborough’s knowledgable and talented therapists. Round off your day with an elegant afternoon tea served with a glass of prosecco in the brasserie, a perfect end to a day of restorative indulgence.
For complete relaxation, experience a Spa Day package and enjoy the facilities, a 50 minute treatment, a personalised aromatherapy blending session and afternoon tea with a glass of prosecco. Prices from £195 per person
The pool at the Apex City of Bath Hotel’s leisure facility
The thermal pool at the Gainsborough Bath Spa
THE SPA & BATH HOUSE AT THE ROYAL CRESCENT
16 Royal Crescent, Bath BA1 2LS Web: royalcrescent.co.uk/the-spa
Set within the peaceful gardens of The Royal Crescent Hotel, The Spa & Bath House offers a refined retreat devoted to wellbeing. Slip into the warm calm of the relaxation pool or take time to reflect in the vitality pool, before exploring the tranquil spa garden – perfect for moments of stillness in the warmer weather. Inside, a serene atmosphere invites rest and relaxation. Skilled therapists deliver soul-soothing rituals by GROUND Wellbeing, designed to restore both body and mind. Individual treatments are available to non-hotel guests, as are a selection of thoughtfully curated spa days. For those seeking regular self-care, becoming a spa member offers year-round use as well as a host of exclusive benefits. Vist the website to find out more, begin planning your visit or book a treatment.
BATH SPA HOTEL
Sydney Road, Bath BA2 6NS Web: macdonaldhotels.co.uk
Escape from reality and take some time out at Macdonald Bath Spa. Using none other than ELEMIS products, your skin is in great hands here. From the Macdonald Signature Treatment grounding massage and nutrient-rich facial to the Body Nectar Nourish Wrap, the choice is all yours. Or you could release your inner glow with the Pro-Glow Brilliance face treatment or a Couture Touch facial, combining deep tissue massage with a hands on facial. Performed on a pearshaped beanbag that moulds to every bump, there’s also a peaceful pregnancy massage available to restore wellbeing.
With ELEMIS at the spa’s core, all treatments will provide you with the sanctuary that you deserve. Enjoy state-of-theart gym equipment, the sensuous spa and a gorgeous pool to dip into.
LUCKNAM PARK HOTEL & SPA
Colerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 8AZ
Web: lucknampark.co.uk
Expect elegant walled gardens, a 20-metre indoor swimming pool, an indoor and outdoor hydrotherapy pool, thermal cabins, sauna and steam rooms, and a Life Fitness and TechnoGym suite. Make the most of the surrounding countryside with a workout at the outdoor gym or enjoy a relaxing stroll through the charming gardens. The Spa at Lucknam Park has eight treatment rooms where the expert therapists perform a range of personalised and indulgent spa treatments. There’s even a pre-treatment social lounge with a product mixology bar available to help get your experience off to a flying start.
A variety of treatments include a Lucknam Bespoke massage, an anti-cellulite treatment, maternity massages, facials, manicures and pedicures. Or keep the little ones occupied with the selection of children’s and teenage treatments with skilled, friendly therapists and all-natural products...
If looks could kill
Historian Catherine Pitt explores the hair-raising antics of Georgian Bath
If we could turn the clock as far back as 300 years ago, we’d find our Georgian forebears were just as preoccupied with their appearance and youth as we are in the 21st century.
The ideal of beauty in 18th century England was an exaggerated naturalism. A pale complexion denoted that one didn’t work. Sun-tanned skin, freckles and any blemishes were seen as a sign of the lower classes or of disease.
The soft, smooth, white skin of youth was recreated and heightened by an even covering of white ‘paint’ on the face, neck, chest and even hands. Blue veins were then painted on top to create the illusion of skin. Lips were stained red and cheeks highly rouged. Eyebrows were raised high and black crescent-moon shaped beauty spots, patches or mouches were selectively placed on the face. Hair was swept high off the forehead and usually in the form of a powdered wig. This look, incidentally, was aspired to not just by women.
The ladies and gentlemen of Bath would have slathered their faces and skin with various concoctions containing white lead, arsenic, mercury, spermaceti, carmine, and other unpleasant and unhealthy ingredients. Bath shops, such as Mary Purdie’s on North Parade and Richard Warren’s in Alfred Street advertised in local pamphlets and newspapers detailing the cosmetics sold, including Lady Molyneaux’ Liquid Bloom and the popular Gowland’s Lotion, which contained mercuric chloride and stripped back layers of skin in a somewhat extreme 18th-century method of micro-dermabrasion.
As the century progressed, the danger of some cosmetics became more widely apparent with a number of high-profile deaths. In 1776, the actress and courtesan Kitty Fisher, one of the first great British celebrities, died at the age of 26 in Bath, allegedly from the effects of the lead-based make-up she used.
Georgian make-up could cause hair and tooth loss, plus lesions on the face; yet to disguise the damage done people would apply even more make-up thus exacerbating the problems.
By the late 18th century, the consumer looked to more natural organic ingredients, mainly consisting of vegetable dyes. In Bath in 1787, Mr Cratwell and Mr Moore sung the praises in a local paper of their Venus Vegetable Bloom that was now available to purchase from them.
For those not naturally blessed in the looks department, cosmetic aids were available. Eyebrows were often shaved off and painted higher up the face, but for some the use of mouse or moleskin as a false brow was preferred. If one had sagging features due to illness or the ageing process then cork padding could be put into mouth cavities to fill out any sunken areas. False teeth were not uncommon whatever one’s age, and these were made from real
human teeth from the poor or dead, or carved from porcelain or animal ivory. Hippopotamus ivory was much coveted for it was believed to be the nearest colour match to natural teeth.
Makeup had initially been used mainly by prostitutes and actresses, plus was often an aid to disguise disfigurements caused by illness or sexually transmitted diseases. The same was true of facial patches. These could not only indicate one’s political leanings (left cheek for a Tory supporter, right cheek for Whig), but could also, through their position on the face, be a useful communication tool to sweethearts and potential admirers.
A room full of very good Company, swore, That in spite of appearance, t’was very well known, Their hair and their faces were none of their own
Christopher Anstey, Letter XII, Bath, 1766
It is misleading to imagine the balls and gatherings in Bath to be glamorous affairs. Heavy make-up, powdered wigs and unwashed bodies would have created an atmosphere more akin to the description of a Bath Assembly given in Tobias Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker: “Imagine yourself a high exalted essence of mingled odours arising from putrid gums, imposthumated lungs, sour flatulencies, rank armpits, sweating feet, running sores . . . plaisters, ointments . . . spirit of lavender, musk, hartshorn.”
To resolve any odour issue the Georgians wouldn’t have considered immersive bathing, except at the Baths as part of medical treatments, but preferred to mask smells with perfumes and oils. In Bath these could be purchased from specialist perfumers like Mr De Coppa, an Italian dealer who could be found at the sign of the Civet Cat in the Abbey Church Yard.
Hair, like makeup, was dictated by fashion in 18th century Bath. Red or grey hair was unfashionable, and local shops advertised the sale of hair dyes or recipes to change the colour. Hair loss was associated with illness and disease.
William Moore, who operated from the Orange Grove and High Street, did his part to cater for locals who were follically challenged by producing in 1777 a 40-page pamphlet, The Art of Hairdressing and Making It Grow Fast. How successful the outcome of his advice was we do not know.
Ridiculous taste, or the ladies absurdity by Matthew Darly 1771
Both men and women tended to wear wigs, except for the very poorest, and had a plethora of styles to choose from. For men, from the 1720s the full bottomed wigs so favoured in King Charles II’s court gave way to the much shorter, powdered wig, styled into designs such as the sack-wig or campaign-wig. Some women had their natural hair woven into their wigs, but more often than not, for comfort’s sake more than anything else, both men and women shaved their heads.
Women’s hair styles tended to become more flamboyant as the century wore on. Padding of horse-hair, cork or even iron structures, were added for volume and to create styles; plus ribbons, combs and feathers abounded. Eventually women’s wigs got to such an extreme in height and style that they were soon lampooned in print and press by illustrators such as Rowlandson, and writers such as Bath’s own Christopher Anstey.
Dressing, styling and powdering hair was time-consuming. In John Wood’s original home on Gay Street one can still today peer through the window to see an extant Powder-Room where a lady or gentleman would sit, covering their nose, eyes and mouth with a paper cone, while the hairdresser applied powder with a pair of bellows. The powder stuck to the hair and wig by means of a pomatum made of fat or oil. With some hair styles remaining unchanged for weeks if not months, it was not uncommon for wigs to become fetid, and for fleas or lice to hatch inside. A Cornish parson, John Penrose, who visited Bath in 1767 expressed shock that many had their own hair incorporated into these toupees since “(they) do not comb their heads for three months and endeavour to conceal the stink with perfumes, essences, etc.”
The cost of wigs could be very expensive. John Bally sold his in the city for between 16 shillings and 2 guineas each (around £90 to £225 in today’s prices).
“That Beauty lives and ne’er will fade Tis false: Those wanton curls will fail That rosy colour yield to pale… This face, these eyes, Which once could please, they now despise.”
Advice to a Lady, Anon, 1765
They were considered prized possessions, and in fact some Georgians regarded their hair so highly that they left their wigs in their wills to family or friends.
Enough barbers, hairdressers and peruke (wig) makers abounded in the city in the 1750s that it necessitated a Guild being set up. These mainly male frisseurs catered for both male and female clientele. Some came only to Bath when it was the season, much to the chagrin of the local hairdressers. Competition was fierce and the advertisement of exotic credentials or important clients seemed an added enticement. For example, in 1769 a hairdresser simply called Nadal advertised his arrival in the city to Kingston Buildings direct from Paris.
After the French Revolution in 1789, English ideals of beauty and fashion attempted to move swiftly away from any French influences, and instead looked to the countryside and the classical world for a simpler natural style.
In 1795, the government set about taxing hair powder which tolled the final death knell on the excessive appearances of the 18th century. From the 1800s onwards a wig was really only the mainstay of doctors, lawyers and the clergy. Today, the modern barristers’ and high court judges’ horse hair wigs are the last vestiges of an old custom.
Despite the poisonous potions and puffed up perukes available in 18th century Bath, locals and visitors alike could not keep the ravages of age at bay.
DYING OF VANITY:
Actress and courtesan Kitty Fisher died aged 26 – believed to have been poisoned by the makeup she wore, which contained arsenic.
IMAGE: Alamy Stock Photo
Six Stages of Mending a Face. Dedicated with respect to the Right Hon-ble Lady Archer by Thomas Rowlandson. 1792
Clayton’s Kitchen is a perennial favourite for local foodies and discerning visitors to Bath.
Robert Clayton, a Michelin-starred chef and the restaurant’s Chef Patron since its inception in 2012, creates uncomplicated dishes that explore and showcase the freshest and very best ingredients.
Inspired by Mediterranean and modern French cuisine, Robert ensures that every dish is prepared, cooked and presented to perfection.
Special Lunch offer Weds to Friday £32 2 courses, £38 3 courses
To view up-to-date menus, the wine list and to book visit: claytonskitchen.com
15A George Street, Bath BA1 2EN 01225 724386
rob@claytonskitchen.com
food & drink
Bath’s Top Tables
When it comes to eating out, Bath is blessed with a superb range of cuisines and culinary delights from around the world. We go behind the menus of the city’s favourite eateries – Time to chow down!
Bath is paradise for bon viveurs of every persuasion. There are hundreds of all-tastes, all-budgets, panglobal cuisine opportunities, from Michelin flagship restaurants and cutting-edge media darlings to the perfect post-pub bag of hot chips. Eat on the hoof, or lounging on a plush banquette with views across an awardwinning private garden. Take time out for an impromptu lunch in a cosy cafe, or book a table at the coolest dining room in town. Go sixcourse tasting menu or small plate it with tapas. Whatever your appetite, just do it – and prepare to indulge your senses.
BREAKFAST TO BRUNCH
The lavish, Georgian wake-up call so beloved in Jane Austen’s times still impacts on life in Bath today. Breakfast and brunch are big here; from bacon butties or freshly baked pastries to shakshuka via passionfruit pancakes and prosecco. Why not?
Several of the establishments that line leafy, historic Kingsmead Square vie for the accolade of serving the best breakfast in Bath. The city centre branch of the Boston Tea Party was one of this small, independently owned chain’s very first establishments. BTP menus are all good stuff, but the all-day brunch menus hold legendary status. Local produce is pushed to the fore at the Kingsmead Kitchen too, while the Society Café (with its amazing coffee – and damned good almond croissants) is a buzzing Bath hotspot from the minute it opens. Most have outside seating and the vibe is oh so Parisienne –even on a crisp winter’s morning.
According to the little sign hanging on the wall outside the Wild Café (Queen Street), Jane Austen declared the full English breakfast served here to be “the bestest in town.” Okay, so Austen might not have actually said that but the Wild Café’s breakfast menu is, indeed a thing of beauty, try the full English blowout via pancake stacks and Eggs Royale, Florentine or Benedict. Vegetarian options abound and pretty much everything is made on the premises to order, using local, seasonal ingredients.
OUT FOR LUNCH
Small plates, soups and sarnies make a popular lunch option and Bath will not disappoint in its effort to satisfy every taste. For some lunchtime spice why not step into a world of culinary delight at Sarthi, an Indian vegan and vegetarian restaurant nestled within the grand walls of a vaulted former chapel in Walcot Street, or try the super Indian kitchen of Bandook in ShiresYard, serving the tastiest selection of small plates and street food. For tapas-style French nibbles and snacks with the cheese and charcuterie boards make
your way to Comptoir+Cuisine on George Street. But if it’s a Brit lunch you need, there’s no better place to enjoy the best ever fish and chips than at The Scallop Shell in Monmouth Street – it’s an attraction in itself and an absolute must when in Bath. For quick bites and take-out sarnies there are brilliant delis and coffee shops to enjoy such as Chandos Deli on George Street, The Fine Cheese Company on Walcot Street, or Picnic Coffee on the corner of Saracen and Walcot Street, serving locally sourced and wrapped sandwiches, all ready to go.
TEA, COFFEE AND CAKES
When in Bath you do need to take on some afternoon treats, either to make an occasion of your stay or to take a well-earned break from walking the city and boost your energy levels. Nothing beats the prospect of a cosy, treatsome afternoon tea – and variations of the afternoon delights theme are abundant in Bath. Go grand at the Pump Room in Abbey Churchyard – their Beau Nash cream tea includes smoked Scottish salmon and cucumber pikelet with Cuvée Brut. Alternatively try a spectacular assortment of sandwiches, pastries and cakes at the Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel on Beau Street, or escape the city walls to The Bath Priory (Weston Road) or relish in the splendour of the Royal Crescent Hotel. Go modernelegant at The Ivy Bath Brasserie on Milsom Street with options such as truffled chicken brioche roll and freshly baked scones. Do the Jane Austen-style thing at the Regency Tea Rooms on Gay Street – served by figures in regency regalia, you can indulge in Mrs Bennet’s cake, or sample a characterful taste of the city’s history at Sally Lunns on North Parade Passage (the etiquette here is to eat your bun with a knife and fork). You can also dive into a huge pot of tea and a massive slab of homemade scrumptiousness at Café Lucca (Bartlett Street), Mokoko (Abbey Churchyard), or a pretty, little, sweet-treat Mecca that is the aptly-named Sweet Little Things (Old Bond Street.) But don’t go overboard because dinner is just around the corner...
BISTROS, PUBS, DINERS, TRATTORIAS AND TAVERNAS – THE WORLD ON A PLATE
Don’t overlook dining at one of Bath’s glorious gastropubs in your search for a superb suppertime experience. The Griffin Inn (Monmouth Street, close to the Ustinov Studio) and the Garrick’s Head (to the side of the Theatre Royal Bath) is conveniently placed for a pre-theatre fast fix, while The Marlborough Tavern (Marlborough Buildings) is just a short hop from the Royal Crescent and has one of the best pub menus in Bath. If you want an all-things-to-all-people experience, from upper-crust ➲
THE DINING ROOM AT EMBERWOOD
CONVIVIAL HOSTS: RICHARD AND MARTY AT CORKAGE
SLICE OF HEAVEN: BATH PIZZA CO
MICHELIN STARRED: RESTAURANT HYWEL JONES AT LUCKNAM PARK
GREAT STEAKS: HUDSON STEAK HOUSE
A POPULAR CHOICE: THE CIRCUS RESTAURANT
incarnations of pub classics to full-on foodie fabulous menus, try The Raven in Queen Street – a great pub for a pie and a pint – or the tiny Coeur de Lion in Northumberland Place is a quirky little joy.
Many of Bath’s best restaurants are perfect for pre-theatre suppers and semi-posh early evening dining, there’s the elegant Woods in Alfred Street – a Bath institution, the much media reviewed (and revered) Beckford Canteen in Bartlett Street, the recently opened, warm character of Emberwood (at The Francis Hotel), you’ll love the Green Park Brasserie and Bath Pizza Co., both in Green Park Station, the smart Italian bistro La Terra in John Street and pasta at Solina are all great good places to start; but make some time for the well-loved, delightful bistros of Corkage on Chapel Row or Chez Dominique on Argyle Street... in fact, with wine-lists like these, cancel all other plans... you probably want to stay the whole evening.
For a wallet-friendly, casual theme, Dough Pizza (Kingsmead Square and The Corridor) has dough choices including turmeric, hemp and seaweed, or try the bargain-priced Yum Yum Thai (Kingsmead Square) – their in-the-wok stir-fries are divine.
Staying with Eastern delights - and also on Kingsmead Square – is Bath’s best Chinese restaurant: Peking – or make your way to the super-charming Noya’s Kitchen on St. James Parade serving up the most devine Vietnamese dishes. Try the superb Japanese inspired menu of Robun on George Street – you’ll love it, go for the topnotch East-West gourmet dining experience at the Gainsborough Brasserie, at The Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel... fusion food at its very best... and an occasion to savour.
Sitting comfortably between constant delights and best bib‘n’tucker destination diners you can’t go wrong at the chic and stylish Circus Restaurant in Brock Street (leave room for the excellent desserts), the casual elegance of Clayton’s Kitchen on George Street is highly acclaimed with amazing food as is Hudson Steakhouse (Walcot Street) that serves the best steak in town (great cocktails too), but do try the Brasserie Beau at The Indigo Hotel or get a brilliant burger fix from The Beefy Boys and for stylish all day dining the ‘artisan quarter’ of Walcot Street is home to Walcot House.
INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED
Many folk visit Bath to pay homage to the big-name chefs who have earned themselves a national reputation. Superchef Chris Cleghorn has again retained his much deserved Michelin Star for his work at The Olive Tree at the Queensberry Hotel. Elsewhere, Robert Clayton at Clayton’s Kitchen, Martin Blake – head chef at Montagu’s Mews at the Royal Crescent Hotel and Hywel Jones at his eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant at Lucknam Park all are well-known as ultimate dining destinations with flamboyant, memorable tasting menu/wine flight experiences that showcase why they are at the top of their gourmet game.
There’s simply no excuse for being hungry in Bath.
Need more inspiration? Turn the page for our Eating Out Guide or access all the information while you’re out and about at: postcardmagazine.co.uk
COOKING WITH PASSION: CHEF ROB CLAYTON, CLAYTON’S KITCHEN
CHIPS AHOY! THE SCALLOP SHELL
The best places in Bath to eat, drink and enjoy
Looking for great places to eat and drink in Bath? Here are our recommendations to the city’s finest foodie destinations to suit your mood, appetite and pocket.
GREEN PARK BRASSERIE
Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB
Tel: 01225 338565 Web: greenparkbrasserie.com
Having become a must-visit destination over its 33 years, “the Braz” is a lively bar and restaurant with 4 nights of live music every week. Located in a funky old railway booking hall with a casual dining atmosphere and two terraces (perfect for sipping cocktails and watching the world go by) this independent business is proud to serve quality local produce and is also popular for its Sunday Roast and Bottomless Brunch - not to mention it’s sister kitchen Bath Pizza Co. Live music runs every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 6.30pm onwards. Booking advised, walk-ups available.
BATH PIZZA CO
Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB Tel: 01225 588886 Web: bathpizzaco.com
It’s a “welcome to the neighborhood party and you’re invited” kind of vibe here. Bath’s must visit pizzeria, Bath Pizza Co is located in the funky historic Green Park Railway Station. Locally loved, Bath Pizza Co have featured in the National Pizza Awards for three years on the spin landing podium finishes in two of them. Swing by when best suits you for alfresco or indoor dining to soak up the busy atmosphere year round; perfect for lazy lunches and buzzing evenings with live music, cocktails, beers and of course… outstanding pizza.
A new neighbourhood bar & kitchen from the owners of The Scallop Shell, Sydney’s can be found just next door at the former New Inn. Accessible and relaxed, Sydney’s puts simple sharing dishes at its heart, paired with a selection of classic cocktails, elegant wines, beer, cider and spirits. Occupying two floors, leading to a sun trap terrace overlooking Bath’s rooftops, Sydney’s celebrates beautifully British ingredients, infused with a relaxed Mediterranean vibe. The daily-changing menu features the likes of ham hock terrine with cornichons; roasted portobello mushroom with aubergine caviar and spiced tomato sauce; and seafood favourites such as whole, shell on prawns and crisp fried haddock goujons with roasted garlic aioli. Breakfast and takeaway coffee are served daily from 8am, with Sunday roasts and live music in the pipeline.
THE SCALLOP SHELL
22 Monmouth Place, Bath BA1 2AY
Tel: 01225 420928 Web: thescallopshell.co.uk
The Scallop Shell is a much-loved AA Rosette fish restaurant, serving lightly battered and grilled fish and chips and seasonal seafood. Flying the flag for a fresh, sustainable catch from UK waters, the menu changes daily depending on the coastal landings, with fish and shellfish displayed for customers to see in an ice-filled roll-top bath. Opt for classic north Atlantic cod loin served with mushy peas and homemade tartare sauce or make it more of a foodie experience with shared shellfish plates or the likes of oysters followed by Cornish monkfish tail or line-caught wild sea bass, with a great selection of wines sold by the bottle and glass. Up on the first floor, find The Little Scallop, a fullyheated twinkly terrace with its own dedicated open kitchen, perfect for festive get-togethers and events.
CORKAGE
Thanks a brunch!
T he lavish Georgian wake-up calls, so beloved of Jane Austen times, still impact on life in Bath today. For a special breakfast or brunch treat, try the Ivy for a great Eggs Benedict, Walcot House for a fab Full English, or Bandook’s bottomless streetfood brunch with free-flowing prosecco at weekends... Oh yes!
CHEZ DOMINIQUE
15 Argyle Street, Bath BA2 4BQ
Tel: 01225 463482 Web: chezdominique.co.uk
Ever popular, Chez Dominique is a family-run restaurant serving local and seasonal French and European food. Included in the latest Good Food Guide, it has been granted a certificate of achievement from Hardens for its high-quality food. This cosy, casual bistro is ideally located on the beautiful Argyle Street just over Pulteney Bridge, and the private dining room – comfortably seating eight – overlooks Pulteney Weir. Chez Dominique offers a prix fixe menu at lunchtime, an à la carte dining in the evenings, and there’s also a very carefully chosen wine list. Enjoy great food and drink in a relaxing and friendly atmosphere. Bookings - lunch: Monday to Saturday 12-3pm, Sunday 12-3pm. Evenings: Sunday to Thursday 5-9pm, Friday and Saturday 5-9.30pm.
Corkage is an award-winning independent restaurant, bar and bottle shop in central Bath. Think creatively cooked, locally sourced seasonal plates and daily specials, with a broad range of exquisite wines from around the world, by the glass and bottle. You can sip crisp English fizz with a plate of pasta or day boat fish, or go for a multicourse experience, featuring the likes of oysters with Bloody Mary granita, roasted pigeon breasts with cabbage, bacon and red wine jus, and pistachio cake with citrus, goat’s cheese ice cream and honey. They run regular wine tastings and popular weekly events from an early evening menu (Monday to Thursday) to a steal of a set lunch, Wednesday to Friday. With a beautiful, covered fairy-lit terrace and courtyard garden, it’s one of those special places to enjoy year-round.
WALLED GARDEN RESTAURANT AT LUCKNAM PARK
Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa, Colerne SN14 8AZ Tel: 01225 742777 Web: lucknampark.co.uk
Set among the 500-acre Lucknam Park estate, The Walled Garden Restaurant at Lucknam Park is a foodie dining destination that illuminates the very best local produce, with its own kitchen garden providing vegetables alongside supplies from some of the best farmers in the country. The green, light-filled dining space has calming, natural views of the courtyard and gardens beyond and has all the romance and serenity of an English country garden. Open daily (breakast 7.30am-10.30am; lunch 12pm-2.30pm; dinner 6pm-9.30pm)
BRASSERIE BEAU AT HOTEL INDIGO BATH
Hotel Indigo Bath, 2-8 South Parade, Bath BA2 4AB Tel: 01225 460441 Web: brasseriebeau.co.uk
The Ivy Bath Brasserie, located within the heart of the city offers sophisticated and friendly all-day dining to both residents and visitors alike. Situated on the popular Milsom Street, within close proximity to many of the town’s most famous destinations and iconic landmarks. The Ivy Bath Brasserie occupies a beautiful Georgian building with striking high ceilings and original features of the historic banking hall, with the bar and interiors designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. Open seven days a week, there’s an all-day menu, serving modern British classics, including breakfast, weekend brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, light snacks, dinner and cocktails. The Ivy Bath Brasserie is accessible and relaxed, and alongside the main restaurant and bar, the venue features a private dining room, as well as a beautiful al fresco terrace.
Brasserie Beau at Hotel Indigo Bath. Nestled within the gorgeous Grade I listed Hotel Indigo Bath, Brasserie Beau is a wonderful new restaurant in the city. Overseen by Head Chef, Yoel Gorrita and his team, Brasserie Beau champions wild food and support small producers – being guided by the seasons and availability of ingredients, the menus evolve daily. Brasserie Beau also extends outside to the terrace, so whether a cosy intimate meal in the brasserie, or on a warm sunny day outside, diners can enjoy a leisurely brunch, a quality steak or classic Sunday lunch. Pair your experience with a tipple from the extensive wine list or enjoy cocktails at the cocktail bar. The restaurant can cater for all occasions from large groups to those seeking an intimate setting. Open seven days a week, the brasserie offers visitors a sanctuary where they can eat, drink, and unwind away from the bustling city centre.
THE SEPOY CLUB
York Buildings, 1 George St, Bath BA1 2EB
Tel: 01225 444450 Web: thesepoyclub.com
The Sepoy Club is Bath’s best awarded Indian restaurant, offering a refined and authentic dining experience in the heart of the city. Inspired by the regal kitchens of colonial India, their menu blends rich heritage with modern elegance, using fresh, locally sourced ingredients and traditional cooking techniques.Whether you’re enjoying a romantic dinner or a special gathering, The Sepoy Club promises exceptional service and unforgettable flavours.
PEKING RESTAURANT
1–2 New Street, Kingsmead Square, Bath BA1 2AF
Tel: 01225 466377 Web: pekingrestaurantbath.co.uk
Since opening in 1985, this family-run, independent restaurant is the number-one choice for local, authentic Chinese food. The master chef has created an extensive menu of fresh, healthy and innovative dishes selected from Cantonese, Szechuan and Peking cuisines, using local ingredients wherever possible. As well as the traditional flavours of sweet and sour, ginger and spring onion, Peking also offers muchloved lobster and crab dishes. The chef also prepares special dishes on request. The friendly, skilled staff at Peking strive to provide a genuine Chinese experience with a promise to put their hearts and souls into everything they do.
Clayton’s Kitchen is a firm favourite with locals and a must for visitors to Bath seeking a wonderful culinary experience. This charming, relaxed and stylish restaurant is led by chef-patron Robert Clayton, who has achieved two Michelin Stars while running retaurants in Bath. Inspired by Mediterranean and modern French cuisine, Robert creates uncomplicated but sublime dishes; prepared, cooked and perfectly presented using the freshest, highest quality ingredients. To reflect this, the beautifully compiled menu changes seasonally and is accompanied by an excellent wine list. Enjoy a fantastic lunch or dinner – you’ll want to return. Special lunch offer Wednesday to Friday: £32 2 courses, £38 3 courses. Open Wednesday to Sunday. Weds–Thurs: 12–2.30pm and 6–9.30pm. Fri–Sat: 12–2.30pm and 5.30–10pm. Sun: 12–3pm and 5.30–8.45pm.
Fresh, local ingredients, refined flair and flawless service. A place to pause, unwind, and enjoy experiences that linger long after the last bite. Montagu’s Mews blends an elegant restaurant with a glamorous bar, where classic cocktails are expertly crafted and the wine list is thoughtfully curated. Head Chef Martin Blake and his team create seasonal dishes and tasting menus that highlight great produce and bold, balanced flavours, alongside a casual all-day menu. From January to March 2026, a set-price Winter lunch and dinner menu (£38 for two courses, £45 for three) will be presented in place of the all-day dining menu, alongside the choice of tasting dinner menus.
RESTAURANT HYWEL JONES AT LUCKNAM PARK
Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa, Colerne SN14 8AZ
Tel: 01225 742777 Web: lucknampark.co.uk
Restaurant Hywel Jones offers an unforgettable dining experience. Enter through the mile-long driveway lined with beech and lime trees before you commence your evening of fine dining from the seven-course tasting menu or a la carte menu. Executive chef Hywel Jones has held a Michelin Star at the restaurant since 2006 and uses the finest ingredients to ensure the fullest flavours. Supporting and using fresh, local produce helps enhance the subtle flavours of the cooking. Restaurant Hywel Jones is open from 6.30pm, Wednesday to Saturday.
A small, very busy, much-admired family-run business, The Circus Restaurant is one of Bath’s sparkling culinary gems, serving seasonal, locally sourced, freshly cooked English food. It has a carefully chosen wine list, and exceptionally welcoming staff. Set in a fine Georgian house – between The Circus and the Royal Crescent – you will find sensible and honest prices, and you’ll leave wanting to return some time soon. Voted number four in the UK in The Times’ 20 Secret Restaurants That Foodies Love. Open Monday to Saturday, 10am to midnight (closed Sunday). Booking is advised.
Proudly independent, family-run pizzerias, with venues in Kingsmead Square and The Corridor, Dough combines years of expertise and the best ingredients to bring you first-rate pizza, every time. With a focus on pizza for everyone, Dough offers 12 alternative health-giving bases, from kamut to hemp, grano arso, multigrain and more, alongside traditional sourdough. Gluten-free and allergy friendly pizzas are a particular speciality. You’ll find all the classics from Margheritas to marinaras alongside pizza parcels, star-shaped pizzas and gourmet specials such as La Gina with mozzarella, caramelised onions, crispy speck, olive pâté, ricotta, pistachios and parmesan discs, based on turmeric dough. Warm, family-friendly service, dough-spinning entertainment and plenty of Italian charm ensures that any visit to Dough is a memorable one.
Did you know...?
Margherita pizza was named after a queen. In 1889, King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Italy visited Naples and asked for pizza as a way of escaping the fancy food she was used to eating. She found ‘pizza mozzarella’ delicious, a pie topped with soft white cheese, tomatoes, and basil. So the Margherita pizza came to be.
Hudson Steakhouse has been serving the people of Bath the best steaks for over a decade, offering its diners prime dry-aged steaks, starters with a fusion influence and classic dishes, all served in a sympathetic conversion of a oncenotorious Victorian pub. Owner Richard Fenton took on this run-down building and has created a destination that has consistently won bestrestaurant awards locally and nationally. Cocktails, premium beers and world wines are served under sparkling chandeliers and the upstairs grill room has an open kitchen which looks out over Hedgemead Park.
18 GREEN STREET WINE CO
18 Green Street, Bath, BA1 2JZ Web: 18greenstreet.co.uk
A small, atmospheric candle-lit wine bar and shop set in a 300 year old building in the centre of historic Bath. Over 450 bottles line the shelves, stretching up the double height storey walls and the mature cellar houses Lafite Rothschild and Coche Dury, amongst other treasures. Located on thriving Green Street, the unpretentious and homey surroundings take you straight to the wine caves of France and the knowledgeable staff will help you pick the perfect bottle, whether it’s chilled white, full-bodied red or crunchy, unfiltered orange.
The Olive Tree is currently Bath’s only Michelin star restaurant, an accolade first awarded in October 2018. Sitting below The Queensberry Hotel, The Olive Tree, in addition to being the city’s most celebrated restaurant, is one of its longest established, offering relaxed fine dining in a contemporary British setting. Head chef Chris Cleghorn honed his skills and developed his own unique style under world-renowned Michelin star chefs. For more than ten years he has, with his team, been creating amazing meals using seasonal ingredients from high-quality local producers.
The Olive Tree’s wine list is also award-winning; it eclectically balances traditional and new, and the restaurant’s warm opulence perfectly complements the quality and style of food.
LA TERRA
2 John Street, Bath BA1 2JL Tel: 01225 482070
Web: laterra.co.uk
Having just received its first Rosette Star, La Terra is an independent restaurant in the heart of Bath, run by business partners Vito and Alessandro serving up Italian cooking with a modern approach. Using local and fresh produce, the menu reflects the seasons and highlights many different aspects of Italian dining and is complemented by an extensive wine list covering all regions of Italy as well as serving some classic French and Spanish wines. Service is attentive and friendly, providing a comfortable, happy and relaxed atmosphere. Vito Scaduto heads the front of house and has over 30 years experience managing some of the most renowned restaurants and hotels in the UK, receiving accolades at The Bath Priory, the Three Gables in Bradford on Avon, The Royal Crescent and many more. Running the kitchen is Alessandro Scola, from Lake Como in northern Italy. Alessandro spent his childhood surrounded by people cooking real Italian food, including making fresh pasta with his grandma, so he was always destined to be a top chef. The food at La Terra is absolutley delicious. Be a customer!
COMPTOIR+CUISINE
5 George Street, Bath BA1 2EJ Tel: 01225 684733
Web: comptoirpluscuisine.com
Comptoir+Cuisine offers a relaxed dining experience in a cozy, French-inspired setting. The extensive and carefully curated wine list features over 30 wines by the glass and a rotating selection of more than 100 French wines. If you’re looking for expert guidance or simply some inspiration, speak to Pablo, Comptoir+Cuisine’s passionate and expert manager. A true wine enthusiast, Pablo is the creative force behind the bistro’s exceptional wine list – crafted especially for wine lovers. For both lunch and dinner, Comptoir+Cuisine’s tempting menu includes cheese and charcuterie boards, baked Camembert, and its latest addition – fondue, a deliciously social dish that’s perfect for sharing. There’s also a wide variety of tapas-style dishes served; From meat and fish to a generous selection of imaginative vegetarian options, each plate is prepared with originality and unmistakable French flair. The highly talented and inventive chef refreshes the menu with the seasons – at least twice a year – bringing exciting new flavours to the table. The bistro’s warm and welcoming team is on hand to make every visit truly memorable. This is a popular and lovely little bistro where you can experience a little slice of France in the heart of Bath.
Described by The Michelin Guide as ‘a smart, spacious restaurant with a distinctly modern, glitzy style,’ Mint Room provides daringly different, high-end dishes, made with first rate British ingredients. Founded by Luthfur Rahman in 2011, the restaurant's menu places emphasis on distinctive, adventurous dishes inspired by traditional and modern Indian cuisine - from the rich tomato and lamb-based dishes of the north and east, to the coconut milk and mustard seed flavoured seafood of the south. Combined with an uplifting ambience, chic surroundings and first-rate service, the dining experience here is a memorable one.
Credit Paolo Ferla
THE ELDER
1 South Parade, Bath BA2 4AB
Tel: 01225 530616 Web: theelder.co.uk
The Elder is a truly elegant restaurant situated in the historic centre of Bath. With the expertise and passion of Mike Robinson and Head Chef Yoel Gorrita at the helm, the focus is on sustainability, seasonality and British wild produce. The constantly changing menu is a celebration of seasonality, featuring ingredients sourced locally and prepared with care. Whether you enjoy meat or prefer a vegetarian option, there’s something for everyone. At The Elder, you will be treated to a unique dining experience like no other, indulge in bespoke cocktails and a showcase of the best of British wild food.
Sarthi will take you on a journey of authentic flavours, where every meal tells a story of India. Located in the heart of Bath, Sarthi brings together the vibrant tastes of India with a modern vegan and vegetarian friendly menu. The superb menu celebrates traditional Indian recipes crafted with fresh, locally sourced ingredients and a passion for pure, wholesome food. From fragrant curries to crisp dosas and sizzling street snacks, every dish reflects the restaurants love for flavour and authenticity. Whether you’re a lifelong vegetarian or simply exploring plant-based dining, Sarthi offers a warm welcome and a truly satisfying culinary experience.
WOODS RESTAURANT
9–13 Alfred Street, Bath BA1 2QX
Tel: 01225 314812 Web: woodsrestaurant.com
This is quite simply a Bath institution. With Georgian elegance and a warm informal atmosphere, Woods has created an enviable reputation as one of Bath best independent restaurants, a firm favourite with locals and a must for visitors to Bath. Established in 1979 by David and Claude Price, they work alongside the head chef of 30 years Stuart Ash and Gaston Price who runs the front of house. A truly family-run business offering personal service, dazzling food, modern British cooking with a classic French influence, and sourcing local ingredients to give you a mouth-watering sensation that will leave you coming back for more. The menu changes seasonally with specials of the day. The wines that accompany the delicious dishes are specially selected and tasted by David. Woods caters for all: the small terrace and bar are great to meet friends for a glass of wine, a dish of olives and a catch-up; the main dining room is ideal for intimate or informal dining; and the private room is perfect for corporate entertainment, family celebrations or weddings. Woods also has a Wine Shop and Deli (which runs from Weds to Sat) to eat in or take away, and you can enjoy a Sunday lunch on the first Sunday of every month.
PLATE is a vibrant, community-focused restaurant that serves up delicious, ethically sourced dishes. Sustainability is at the heart of everything they do, which takes pride in supporting local farmers and fishermen. The menu features locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, ensuring a fresh and unforgettable dining experience. Guests can expect classic dishes with a mischievous twist, all crafted to challenge their taste buds. PLATE's commitment to sustainability and community makes it a must-visit destination for those seeking a sophisticated dining experience that is both delicious and planet-friendly.
Located in the Francis Hotel on Queen Square, Emberwood is Bath’s most talked about and loved dining experience that brings together seasonal ingredients, local provenance, and a passion for honest cooking. Celebrating modern British cuisine with bold, smoky flavours, every dish is a reflection of Emberwood’s pride in Bath. You’ll taste it in the ingredients sourced from local farmers, in the dishes crafted over their open hearth, and in the cocktails inspired by the city’s rich cultural scene. And just like any true Bathonian, they believe in a warm welcome. So no matter how long you’re here for, settle into a seat by the fire and enjoy.
Robun is a celebration of authentic Japanese food and drink, specialising in a modern take on Yakiniku – the art of grilling meat, seafood and vegetables over a traditional charcoal fire. From delicate sashimi and perfectly grilled wagyu beef, to artisanal sushi rolls and exquisitely presented small plates, each dish is meticulously crafted using only the freshest and finest ingredients. There’s also an extensive selection of premium sake, Japanese whiskey, and cocktails on offer, handpicked to complement the cuisine. For something special, Robun’s Afternoon Tea swaps sandwiches for sushi and scones for bao buns.
BECKFORD CANTEEN
11-12 Bartlett Street, Bath BAI 2QZ
Tel: 01225 338470 Web: beckfordcanteen.com
Set in a former Georgian greenhouse, with a pretty garden, Beckford Canteen is a space for people to come together and share the joys of delicious food and great hospitality. Sitting on bustling Bartlett Street, in one of the prettiest parts of Bath, the restaurant offers a light and airy space bedecked with banquettes, leather clad dining chairs and window countertops to watch the world go by. Having received a rave review from Giles Coren in The Times, (and so many more since) Beckford Canteen is the perfect stop for a quick, tasty bite or a longer, more indulgent dining experience.
BANDOOK
3-7 Milsom Place, Bath BA1 1BZ
Tel: 01225 300600 Web: bandookkitchen.com
Perched in Milsom Place, just off Milsom Street in central Bath, Bandook offers an oasis of superb Indian street-food and hospitality. The story began when the team behind the award-winning fine dining Indian restaurant Mint Room had a vision to create a modern, casual dining, Indian street-food restaurant, one that would be fun and relaxed and yet create a 'wow' factor with its cooking. Bandook is the perfect off-the-beaten-track spot to dine and enjoy drinks in a stylish interior inspired by the colonial era. As well as the great food, keep an eye out for the special jazz nights, bottomless brunches at weekends and much more. This is a vibrant, fun, and really great place to enjoy excellent Indian food... Just fantastic!
Since retiring from the well-loved restaurant Casanis, chef Laurent Couvreur offers personal services for special occasions. From cheffing on board Northabout in the Arctic for adventurer David Hempleman-Adams to recreating favourite restaurant dishes in local homes, Laurent uses wonderful local produce to recreate his southern French style of cooking with a twist. Le Chef Privé takes all the stress out of your dinner parties, presenting awardwinning restaurant-quality food in the comfort of your own home. Chef Laurent proudly reads us a note from one of his customers: “Thank you for a truly wonderful evening, I cannot imagine a better way to have celebrated my birthday. The food was (unsurprisingly) marvellous and the entire evening flowed beautifully, from canapés to dessert. All our guests have expressed their delight at the dinner.” He adds, “We look forward to bringing incredible flavours and a ray of French sunshine to our diners’ homes.”
SOLINA PASTA
The Empire, Grand Parade, Bath BA2 4DF Email: info@solinapasta.com Web: solinapasta.com
A neighbourhood pasta restaurant in Bath, Solina serves up delicious homemade pasta, cocktails and draughts, and the best tiramisu in town. They don’t take reservations, so drop in and they’ll find you a table. Solina serves delicious, quick, and affordable handmade pasta. The menu champions Italian flavour combinations and British produce, with meat supplied by the Walcot Group’s own butcher’s shop. Guests can expect tasty dishes including ragus, ravioli, and cacio e pepe.
Pre-theatre deals
Many of Bath’s best restaurants offer pre-theatre supper deals, and early bird set menu bargains abound between 5.30–7pm, including elegant Bath institution Woods, the brilliant Chez Dominique, enjoy small plates at Corkage, try Dough Pizza (with dough choices including turmeric, hemp and seaweed) and not forgetting the tempting menu at Green Park Brasserie, housed in the restored train station ticket hall.
Noya’s Kitchen serves up delicious Vietnamese home cooking in a stylish and beautiful Grade II listed building in central Bath. Voted one of the UK’s Top 5 Independent Restaurants by Gousto in 2021, and judged Bath’s Best Restaurant in 2022, advance bookings in the evenings and at weekends are essential! Vietnamese food lovers can enjoy delicious dishes like Pho, Vietnamese curries, noodles and summer rolls on Tuesday–Sunday from 12–3pm, and Tues–Thurs and Sat evenings from 5.30–9pm. There’s always something new and delicious on the Specials board in the restaurant, or tune in to the social feed for Noya’s Kitchen to hear about them. The menu changes regularly depending on locally sourced ingredients, the weather and Noya’s inspiration. Book online or call in, you’ll be warmly welcomed.
LUDO SPORTS BAR & KITCHEN
9 Brunel Square, Bath BA1 1SX
Tel: 01225 335972 Web: ludobath.co.uk
Ludo Sports Bar & Kitchen is Bath’s leading premium sports bar, offering a showstopping sports viewing experience with ultra high definition screens and stateof-the-art sound, combined with high-quality dining, an impressive drinks menu and two large outdoor terraces. A friendly and inclusive atmosphere where top-tier entertainment and an eclectic menu meet under one roof, Ludo has become a beloved local hangout for locals, tourists, sports fans and casual diners alike. From football and rugby to Formula 1 and beyond, Ludo Bath delivers every goal, try, and win with the best views, unique drinks, and unforgettable gatherings.
Oak restaurant is an independent vegetarian restaurant in the heart of Bath’s historic Abbey quarter. Oak focuses on local seasonal cooking with a menu that is ever changing in response to what is available from local suppliers and their garden. As growers, grocers and cooks they sell, produce and serve food that is simple and thoughtful, with vegetables that not only look and taste great, but also come from land that has been farmed properly, without chemicals or over cultivation. The wine list is made of natural wines that tell a story, from growers that use low intervention methods. Oak serves lunch and dinner seven days a week.
Located just a stone’s throw from the Royal Crescent, The Marlborough Tavern combines the atmosphere of a local pub with the food quality of a top restaurant, making it a firm favourite in Bath. The menu uses local produce to create greattasting, simple dishes where the quality of the produce speaks for itself. The Marlborough has held two AA rosettes for food quality since 2009, and features in the Michelin Guide. While it holds accolades for its food, it’s still very much a pub and offers local ales and craft beers. Outside, it boasts a beautiful pub garden – a walled courtyard space that’s just perfect for alfresco lunching and drinking with good friends.
THE PIG-near Bath is a buzzing restaurant with rooms – with the Kitchen Garden at its heart – nestled between Bath and Bristol on the edge of the village of Hunstrete. With a serious commitment to the community and surrounding area, THE PIG-near Bath celebrates all things Somerset. The food is driven by home grown clarity of flavour, true to the seasons and influenced by location. The Garden and Kitchen teams work hand-in-hand to create the restaurant’s 25 mile menu, which is supported by passionate local farmers and small producers, who supply anything that the team cannot grow or produce themselves. This commitment not only supports their local suppliers, but means they can be 100% honest on the provenance of their ingredients.
One of Bath’s original late-night bars, The Common Room has been an institution on the city's party scene since the 1960s. These days, it's open from 5pm, six days a week (and 10pm on Sunday) and the retro glam surroundings are buzzing well into the early hours. With a love for rum, you’ll find over 150 variations from around the world, alongside a fully vegan cocktail list, an extensive spirits selection, draught beers, cider, fine wines and more. There’s DJ action at weekends, with a host of events throughout the month, from live music nights to artisan markets.
Opened in 2016, The Hideout is a whisky den which takes its cue from the lawless thieves, highwaymen and opportunists who might have met there in the past. It was the perfect hideout. Nearly 10 years on, it still has the feel of one of those 'secret' places you don't want to share, with its cosy, vaulted surroundings, 300 odd whiskies on the shelf and a forward-thinking team with larger-than-life personalities and a fondness for hip-hop. Of course, you don't have to be a whisky aficionado to love The Hideout, there are crazy good cocktails - which put it at No.9 in the Top 50 Cocktail Bars in the UK listbeers, ciders and top-notch wines to sip outside in the sunny courtyard too.
THE RAVEN OF BATH
DOS DEDOS
Edgar Mews, Bartlett Street, Bath BA1 2QZ Web: dosdedos.co.uk
Dos Dedos is a lively Mexican cantina in the heart of Bath, with a focus on tequila, mezcal and creative cocktails. You’ll also find signature street food staples of Mexico City, with a small selection of tacos and nachos, which are great to share. A cool city hangout, with a reclaimed vibe, bartenders are supremely knowledgeable, there's a dogs-allowed policy and children are welcome ’til 6pm. There are no advance bookings, so simply rock up to get the best margarita and taco fix in town.
The Raven is a lovely family-owned free house with a strong sense of its own indie spirit – “we can do exactly what we want to do, and we do!” they cry on the website. Just a few steps from bustling Milsom Street, it’s a traditional sort of place – you won’t find loud music, slot machines or giant TV screens here. Fancy a bite? Go with a piping-hot pie made with the best local meat and veg, on a bed of buttery mustard mash and gravy. There are the classics, of course, like beef and Raven ale, steak and blue, and chicken and mushroom, as well as gluten-free options to boot.
... after earning the only standing ovation from judges Penn & Teller, she was immediately cast as a ‘Wizard Regular’ for the rest of the series.
Every little thing she does is...
Billy Kidd is a magician whose sleight of hand skills, stage shows and street magic have seen her perform in theatres and on television screens worldwide. Billy performs weekly at Bath’s Krowd Keepers Magic Theatre
Venture to a secret, upstairs room in Bath’s Ale house Pub on a Friday or Saturday night and you’ll discover an intimate bar space that feels more speakeasy than stage show.
In the dimly-lit room, a small audience has gathered to enjoy the world-class magician –Billy Kidd. A sleight-of-hand sorceress, comedy mischief-maker, and one of the very few women thriving in the still-maledominated world of magic, Billy’s performances are part theatre, part comedy and an added touch of danger. There are no rabbits being pulled from hats, but she does conjure up plenty of laughs from the captivated audience, and with her slightly risqué delivery, her performances can leave you wondering whether you’ve just been fooled, flirted with, or simply gobsmacked. Welcome to Krowd Keepers Magic Theatre – you will be entertained!
Billy Kidd’s story begins a world away from Bath. Born in Canada to parents from Poland and the Philippines, she was immersed in performance almost before she could read. By the age of 11, she was working professionally as an actor, cutting her teeth in theatre, dance, music, and even stage combat. “I was lucky,” she reflects. “Acting was the only job I had until I found magic. Getting paid to play as a child was the best job I ever had.”
“The first time I was introduced to magic I was in my midtwenties. I had never experienced the art-form before but it opened up a whole new world of performance for me. In fact it took over my life. When your hobby is all you think, dream, and breathe it eventually becomes you.”
Acting, she admits, gave her a head start. “It wasn’t just about the tricks – it was about how to hold an audience, how to build tension, how to make them laugh”.
Billy arrived in Bath in 2008; drawn by the city’s reputation as one of the UK’s most busker-friendly spots. She began performing on the city’s cobbled streets – fine tuning her craft in the most critical performance space of all – where audiences can either gather round and enjoy, or pass by, largely unimpressed. Those early busking days helped shape her, and Bath became the place where Billy Kidd the magician was born.
Billy soon realised that magic alone wasn’t enough. “People would admire a clever trick, but it’s the laughter that makes the act complete”. So she began building her shows around comedy – fast, irreverent and wickedly enjoyable. “If the magic doesn’t blow their minds, at least they’ll be laughing,”
It’s a method that works. Her shows aren’t just about mystery; they’re about fun and making mischief; and with her edgy banter she is more likely to tease the audience than ask for their applause.
From Bath to the Far East, West Coast USA and back to Europe, Billy’s career has taken her all around the world. She loves the unpredictability of being on tour, and recalls plenty of anecdotes –on and off stage – “After a show in Istanbul, a pack of eight dogs stalked me all the way back to my hotel. The next morning I woke up with baklava in my hair. I can only assume the two things are connected.”
Billy divides her time equally between performing her stage shows in Bath with close-up magic at corporate events, festivals, cruise lines and with captivating audiences with her TV appearances here in the UK and networks across the world. Billy competed in Wizard Wars – a highly acclaimed TV show in the USA, and after earning the only standing ovation from judges Penn & Teller, she was immediately cast as a ‘Wizard Regular’ for the rest of the series.
With the fame comes modesty and she’s the first to admit that the magician’s life isn’t all glamour. “The best part is the freedom. The chance to travel, to perform for all kinds of people. The lifestyle is incredible.” And the worst thing? The insecurity. “You never know when your next gig is. But even that’s part of the thrill.”
Magic remains a male-dominated business. Billy is one of the very few women at the top of their game, but she refuses to let that define her. “The magic industry is dominated by men. I have no idea why women do not want to become magicians. I do believe that men are naturally drawn to things that women are not interested in. It is a mystery.”
For her, the real rebellion isn’t being a woman in the industry –it’s refusing to be just ‘another’ magician. She doesn’t do tired, wornout tricks or clichéd, naff puns. “I try not to be like those stereotypes of magicians, finding my own voice is the only way I can properly express myself. Creating magic from my own experiences is far more satisfying than copying what everyone else is doing.”
Her heroes in the craft read like a roll-call of magic's great rebels: Juan Tamariz, Vincent Gambini, Steve Valentine and Derren Brown – the ones who make magic an art rather than a gimmick. She admires their creativity and refusal to play it safe – qualities she insists are vital for any magician. “You have to be able to adapt, to connect, to be original. That’s the real magic.”
Her audiences never quite know what they’re in for. One night it might be escapes, another, it’s mind-blowing sleight-of-hand and it’s always laced with the sharpest wit. And that, perhaps, is her greatest trick, and the reason why audiences keep coming back – No one performs magic like Billy Kidd.
Billy runs Krowd Keepers Magic Theatre every Friday and Saturday upstairs at the Ale House Pub, Terrace Walk, Bath. Website: krowdkeepers.com; billykiddshow.com
Theatre Royal Bath
The Theatre Royal Bath is one of the oldest working theatres in Britain. Known locally as TRB, it first opened its doors over a century ago. Melissa Blease gives the theatre’s dramatic backstory
It would be easy to imagine that it’s a small theatre, but beyond the glittering facade there’s a lot of drama. A 900capacity auditorium featuring four plush boxes, a trompe-l’œil ceiling and a glittering chandelier are at the heart of the action. The theatre’s complex is also home to a dedicated young people’s theatre, an innovative studio theatre, a suite of elegant function rooms, several bars, a stand-alone pub... and a resident ghost. But as is generally the case with all the best theatrical productions, there’s an interesting back story.
In 1747, Bristol-based actor John Hippisley published proposals for the building of a new theatre in Bath that would rival the theatres in the capital. He opened the Orchard Street Theatre –the original Theatre Royal – in October 1750 with a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II. The theatre was so successful that in 1768 a special act of Parliament granted Hippisley’s initiative the illustrious Royal Patent.
As popular as the theatre was, its location didn’t do it any favours. As Bath’s population grew, the city’s cultural cognoscenti began to migrate north-west, and the area around Orchard Street became unfashionable. So, in 1804, construction of the New Theatre Royal on Beaufort Street was announced, and in 1805 the Orchard Street Theatre closed its doors.
Today, the old building is a Masonic Hall. Take a tour there, and you can stand on the stage where Sarah Siddons – 18thcentury ‘tragedienne’ – received the adulation of her audiences
and take a trip ‘backstage’ to see the original scenery loft.
Thanks to an illustrious roll-call of project shareholders including George III’s eldest son, George, HRH the Prince of Wales, the cornerstone for the new theatre was laid in December 1804 and opened to the public on 12 October the following year with a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III.
While not immediately successful, the New Theatre Royal’s popularity grew as it hosted visits from leading actors including Edmund Kean, Dorothea Jordan, William Macready and Joseph Grimaldi in entertainment from serious dramas to pantomime by way of operas, thrillers and comedies.
Around 1820, the rise in popularity of at-home suppers, travelling circuses and pleasure gardens were increasingly dominating the social calendars, while social and political reform was threatening economic stability. Meanwhile, poor ticket sales were compounded by rising fees for actors. As the 19th century progressed, the theatre fell into a period of decline – and then, on 18 April 1862 the theatre was destroyed by a fire. However a lavish, ornate phoenix was set to rise.
On 7 May, a limited company to rebuild the New Theatre Royal was formed. Bath-based architect C. J. Phipps redesigned it, and he added an Italianate, three-bay arcaded entrance on Sawclose.
The fully refurbished theatre opened on 3 March 1863, with Charles Kean and Ellen Terry headlining in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But despite performances by theatre
TRB appearances: Brian Cox in The Score, Ralph Fiennes recently performed in, and directed a season of plays at the TRB, and Anna Chancellor in Playhouse Creatures
Photography: left, Manuel Harlen; centre, Hugo Glendinning, right, Ellie Kurttz
superstars including Sybil Thorndike, John Gielgud, Sarah Bernhardt, Irene Vanbrugh and ballerina Anna Pavlova, audiences declined and the theatre still struggled to make a profit; for several decades, the New Theatre Royal Bath was little more than a dusty, dilapidated provincial theatre.
In March 1979 philanthropic entrepreneur Jeremy Fry purchased the theatre on behalf of a trust. In 1980, an appeal was launched to renovate the whole site, including the rebuilding and modernisation of backstage systems to allow major touring companies to be booked. Financial support came from supporters including the Arts Council England, the Bath Preservation Trust, the city council and many individuals, and later loans were negotiated. On 30 November 1982 the theatre reopened again, with another performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring a cast from the National Theatre... and HRH Princess Margaret in the audience. Fry had saved the theatre from virtual collapse.
In 1997, a 126-seat studio theatre was built at the rear of the Theatre Royal on Monmouth Street, named in honour of the actor Peter Ustinov, who led the fundraising programme. In 2005, the results of a major refurbishment of the former cinema and church hall that once inhabited the corner space between the theatre’s main house and the Ustinov on St Johns Place was unveiled and The Egg Theatre was hatched: a unique, innovative venue for children’s, young people’s and family theatre with a 120-seat auditorium,
family-friendly café, workshops and rooftop rehearsal studios. Today, The Egg is a nationally recognised hub for outreach work with young people, schools and colleges.
In 2009, yet another major refurbishment appeal was launched by the TRB’s Royal Patron Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, now Her Majesty The Queen. The foyer was expanded, the décor was given a facelift and the theatre’s bars were refurbished to include the Jeremy Fry Bar. The reopening ceremony was performed onstage by actors Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles, who were starring in the TRB’s own production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals, which is set in and around 18th-century Bath, and served as a rather touching tribute to the origins of the theatre.
This splendid theatre, which has repeatedly fought every adversity, has staunchly refused to allow the curtain to fall on it for good. Today it takes centre-stage as the cornerstone of Bath’s contemporary cultural and social scene.
Theatre Royal Bath, Sawclose, Bath BA1 1ET
For performances, information and to book tickets, contact the Box office: Tel: 01225 448844
For The Egg Theatre: Tel: 01225 823409
Web: theatreroyal.org.uk
Image: Freia Turland
THEATRE
Alas poor Romeo
So hilarious were his performances, Bath theatregoers queued to see him.
Historian Catherine Pitt tells the story of a man considered to be the worst actor in history
Bath, 1808 – genteel, sedate, elegant. The social season began unhindered, the glorious buzz of the Beau Nash years a faded memory. Into this calm stepped an exotic character, the self-styled Amateur of Fashion, a man who was soon to be considered “the worst actor in English theatrical history”. Allow me to introduce to you – Robert ‘Romeo’ Coates.
Born in 1772 in Antigua, the only surviving child of plantation owners, Coates was educated in England but returned to the West Indies after his parents refused to allow him to pursue a military career. When he wasn’t travelling, Coates would dabble in amateur
SHAKESPEARE:
dramatics. After his father’s death in 1807, Robert rapidly headed for England, first to London and then to Bath.
When Coates appeared on the peaceful city streets in 1808, few had seen his like before. Even in the period of Regency dandyism his flamboyant appearance raised more than a few eyebrows. He wore vast furs in all weathers. In the evenings he would appear in the Pump Room and Assembly Rooms in a sky-blue coat, yellow breeches, a multi-coloured cravat and feathered hat. He embellished every element of his attire, from shirt buttons to shoe buckles and walking cane, with hundreds of diamonds, gaining him the moniker of ‘Diamond’ Coates.
To add to this, Coates chose to travel in a carriage of his own design: a two-wheeled chariot (known as a curricle) pulled along by two white horses. Atop the curricle was Coates’ mascot and motto – a crowing fighting cockerel, wings outstretched, and underneath the boast: “Whilst I live I’ll Crow”.
Despite his noticeable presence in Bath, few knew who he was or where he was from; all they knew was that he must be a man of wealth to indulge in such eccentricities.
There are conflicting views as to where exactly he lodged in Bath, but what is certain is that he could be found, daily, enjoying breakfast and lunch at York House on George Street, a large coaching inn, still a hotel today. Here, according to Pryse Gordon, a man who takes the claim for introducing Coates to the Bath stage, he approached Coates when overhearing him rehearsing passages from Shakespeare. Correcting Coates on a line, he was met with the words, “Aye, that is the reading I know... but I think I have improved upon it.”
Gordon discovered Coates’ passion for Shakespeare and for amateur dramatics. Currying favour with this wealthy eccentric, Gordon offered to introduce Coates to the manager of the Theatre Royal, William Wyatt Dimond. Coates declared that he was “ready and willing to play Romeo to a Bath audience.”
Dimond was unwilling to risk the theatre’s reputation on an unknown, but after reassurance from Gordon that seats would be filled and probably some monetary reassurance from Coates, Dimond agreed. Playbills were plastered around the city announcing that on 8 February 1809 a new production of Romeo and Juliet was opening and that the male lead was to be played by “an amateur actor from the fashionable world”.
As word spread of Coates’ acting debut, seats began to fill up fast. On the evening of the production the Theatre Royal was packed with curious Bathonians, with many more turned away at the door. Inside the anticipation was palpable.
CORRECTING
Robert Coates told Theatre Royal manager William Wyatt Dimond that he’d improved Shakespeare’s original text
On Coates’ entrance the audience were at first dumbfounded at the vision stood before them, described by an observer as “one of the most grotesque spectacles ever witnessed upon the stage”. Romeo wore “a spangled coat of sky-blue silk, crimson pantaloons,” diamond additions; plus a huge baroque wig. Balanced on top was a white trimmed hat with plumes of ostrich feathers. Coates took a nervous bobbing bow, grinning away, and the audience burst into peals of laughter and roars of applause.
Unfazed Coates proceeded, though it was like no version of Shakespeare’s play ever seen before or since. Coates had a tendency to forget his lines, add in his own where he thought they needed improving, and would alternately whisper sections to just one box in the theatre. During the famous balcony scene, Coates turned away from Juliet, pulled out his snuff box and took a pinch. As the public roared their approval he offered the snuff box to a number of ladies and gentlemen in the audience.
Half way through the play, during the rendition of an impassioned speech, the seams at the seat of his tight red breeches, bursting open to reveal a “quantity of white linen sufficient to make a Bourbon flag!”
On appearing at the tomb of Juliet, Coates took out a silk handkerchief, laid it on the boards, put his hat down to act as a pillow and then went through a most lengthy and, apparently from his grimaces and groans, agonising ‘death’ before carefully laying himself out on stage.
Convulsed with laughter, members of the audience shouted out “Die Again, Romeo” and Coates obliged, not once but twice more. He was about to attempt a third when Juliet appeared from the wings and stopped him. Dimond hastily dropped the curtain
bringing the play, finally, to an end. Meanwhile on stage Coates ran around, hanging off boxes, shouting “Haven’t I done well?”
The jeers and heckles that Coates received made little impact on him. He was buoyed by what he considered his success in Bath, so much so that he decided to tour his production of Romeo and Juliet around the country, including playing the Haymarket Theatre in London.
Although a subject of mockery and satirisation, Coates still considered himself just an amateur actor and did not take a wage. His reputation preceded him so theatres were packed. Any profits Coates would request went to charity.
In December 1816 Coates headed to Bath, and the theatre where it had all began, for the final act. Over three days he performed another of his favourite plays, The West Indian, but for the final public performance Coates chose Romeo and Juliet
It was said by audience members that he was much improved. As before, Coates was jeered, but this time he paused and declared that people could request their money back if they were not happy, but that his intention was that the money from this play were to go to the local Pierrepont Street Charity. Shamed into silence, a more reverent crowd allowed Coates to continue.
After 1816 he would do the occasional private charitable performance, but it was the last the public would see of ‘Romeo’ Coates. Dogged by debt collectors during the financial troubles of the 1830s, Coates took refuge in Boulogne for a few years where he was often spotted in his furs.
His death, in February 1848, was as bizarre as his life had been – he was crushed between two carriages in London’s Covent Garden after a night at the Opera. Alas, Poor Romeo!
That’s Entertainment
Bath transforms into an enchanting, grown-up playground when the sun goes down. Our very own bonne vivante, Melissa Blease loves to put her party frock on and venture out after dark
Bath is home to an abundance of restaurants, pubs and bars that are all too easy to lose yourself in until it’s time for bed. But as alluring as eating, drinking and being merry may be, there’s yet far more to the city’s nightlife scene to explore.
STARTER’S ORDERS
• Vino Vino
For Bathonians who like to keep an eye on who’s out-and-about in town, with whom, and why, wine and cocktail bar Vino Vino acts as a life-as-it-happens Bath gossip column HQ. Heated
parasols on the spacious terrace turn winter chills into a warm glow, while indoor tables adjacent to the big picture windows guarantee that you won’t miss a trick even when terrace tables are taken. Fine wine and cocktails are a speciality here and the fizz flows in abundance, while chic charcuterie and stylish sharing platters presented in picture-perfect portions fortify you up for the rest of the evening’s entertainment ahead.
• Find it on: Saw Close. Open until: midnight Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 11.30pm Wednesday; 1am Friday–Saturday; 11pm Sunday
• Green Park Brasserie
There’s something unselfconsciously, comfortably cool about the whole affair; it’s a ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ party and everybody’s invited. Under the glass canopy of the old Green Park Station, enjoy live music 4 nights a week, special offers on cocktails, and great food, this is the perfect place to start your evening – and you’ll probably want to stay longer.
• greenparkbrasserie.com
HOT TICKETS
• Komedia, Westgate Street
Hosts/producers of 400+ events every year, Komedia has put Bath on the live entertainment map. Comedy, music, cabaret and club nights all vie for attention on the programme, while the legendary Krater Comedy Night puts three of the best national circuit comedians centre stage every Saturday night before neatly segueing into the equally legendary Big Disco or Motorcity club night events, which pump up the dancefloor volume until the small hours.
• komedia.co.uk/bath/whats-on
• Chapel Arts Centre, Lower Borough Walls
Bath’s leading alternative ‘not-for-profit’ grass roots arts venue plays host to a varied array of performance and visual arts events, including live music, theatre, dance, film and cabaret. The majority of events are seated cabaret (small round tables). The venue has excellent natural acoustics, a sprung dance floor and a well-stocked bar within the Auditorium.
• chapelarts.org
• The Forum, St James Parade
Purpose-built as an art deco cinema in 1934, The Forum is Bath’s biggest venue and the third largest seated auditorium in the south west of England. The remarkable interiors represent typical art
deco-era splendour including lacquered wood fittings and goldleafed flourishes, while iconic green cinema seats offer a luxurious audience experience in the elegant auditorium. One-night-only special events pack The Forum’s schedule, including live music, tribute acts, brass bands, orchestras and ‘in conversation’ events with visiting celebrities.
• bathforum.co.uk
• Little Theatre Cinema, St Michael’s Place
Proudly maintaining an independent vibe far removed from the commercial, multiplex behemoths, this trad-contempo cinema house flies the flag for the very best arthouse, cult and mainstream movies alongside regular special event screenings. Meanwhile, the lovely little (no pun intended) fully licensed refreshment kiosk negates the need for sneaking stinky takeaways and commercial confectionary wrapped in inconsiderate crackly plastic in under your coat.
• picturehouses.com/cinema/The_Little
• Everyman Cinema, SouthGate Centre
Located in the Southgate centre, near Bath Spa Station, Everyman Bath is a plush and swanky art-house cinema experience. Featuring four cinema screens, a grand bar mixing smart cocktails and you can enjoy delicious burgers and sharing plates served directly to your cinema seat. What’s not to like?
• everymancinema.com
• Theatre Royal Bath and The Ustinov Studio, Saw Close
The Theatre Royal Bath, (not to be confused with Bath’s Old
Theatre Royal) – opened its doors over a century ago. The theatre offers the cream of the UK’s touring company crop, while the Ustinov Studio on Monmouth Street specialises in acclaimed programmes of world and UK premieres alongside small-scale touring productions, live comedy, music and dance.
• theatreroyal.org.uk
And after all that...
SUPER-SMART LATE NIGHT COCKTAILS
• The Dark Horse
The deliciously devilish subterranean prohibition era-style speakeasy on leafy, historic Kingsmead Square casts a seductive spell over a bewitching cocktail menu, many created using locally sourced produce and ingredients including fruit and herbs foraged from the bountiful meadows nearby. Late night bar snacks available too.
• Find it on: Kingsmead Square. Open until: 12.30am Monday-Thursday; am Friday-Saturday; 11.30pm Sunday
• darkhorsebar.co.uk
• Montagu’s Mews at the Royal Crescent Hotel
Stylishly seductive and subtly convivial, Montagu’s Mews is an oasis of modern luxury. Relax in the elegantly modern bar or take a table on the heated, partially covered terrace in the hotel’s breathtakingly pretty garden and prepare to choose from the extensive cocktail menu, artisan botanicals, small batch spirits and imaginatively curated wines and beers.
• Find it on: The Royal Crescent (no.16). Open: residential hotel hours
SHOWTIME AT KOMEDIA
THE EVERYMAN CINEMA LOUNGE
• Emberwood
A well-considered ambience of understated glamour (subtle lighting; beautiful decor; bar staff who make you feel like they’ve been waiting to greet you, and only you, all day) combine to offer a seductively warm and sophisticated welcome at Emberwood. If you’re after that “make me feel like a million dollars” buzz, you’ve come to the right place. Located right in the heart of Bath, this opulent restaurant and sparkling bar is a cool oasis of city chicness serving expertly curated cocktails in style.
• Find it at: The Francis Hotel Bath, 5 Queen Square. Open until: 11pm
• The Bath Distillery Gin Bar
The vibe throughout this quirky, intimate split-level gin lovers paradise – home to the Bath Gin Company – is thoroughly beguiling. The recipe for the company’s eponymous spirit was developed here, and is used as the basis for its signature cocktails alongside a massive range of contenders for the gin throne. If gin doesn’t make you grin, there are plenty more options.
• Find it on: Queen Street. Open until: midnight, Monday–Saturday
• The Old Q Bar at the Queensberry Hotel
The Queensberry Hotel’s Old Q bar is one of Bath’s most subtly glamorous hidden gems and the cocktail list a connoisseur’s joy to behold – there are no budget blends or middling mixers sullying the alcohol-infused waters here, and if you can’t see exactly what you want on the list, expert mixologists are on hand to offer recommendations. The fizzbased specialities are fabulous, and the Manhattan is reputed to be the best in our non-stateside town.
• Find it on: Russel Street. Open until: residential hotel hours
• The Hideout
The Hideout is a whisky den which takes its cue from the lawless thieves, highwaymen and opportunists who might have met there in the past. It was the perfect hideout. Since opening in 2016, it still has the feel of one of those ‘secret’ places you don’t want to share, with its cosy, vaulted feel, 300 odd whiskies on the shelf and a forward-thinking team with larger-than-life personalities and a fondness for hip-hop. Of course, you don’t have to be a whisky aficionado to love The Hideout, there are crazy good cocktails – which put it at No.25 in the top 50 cocktail bars in the
UK list – beers, ciders and top-notch wines to sip outside in the sunny courtyard too.
• Find it on: Lilliput Court, off North Parade Passage. Open until: 11pm, seven nights a week
• The Common Room
One of Bath’s original late-night bars, The Common Room has been an institution on the city’s party scene since the 1960s. These days, it’s open from 5pm, six days a week (and 10pm on Sunday) and the retro glam surroundings are infused with a tiki vibe. With a love for rum, you’ll find over 100 variations on the pirate’s tipple of choice, alongside a fully vegan cocktail list, an extensive spirits selection, draught beers, cider, fine wines and more. There’s DJ action at weekends, life drawing on Wednesdays with regular music nights showcasing local upand-coming bands.
• Find it on: 2 Saville Row, Bath BA1 2QP. Open: 5pm–2am, Mon-Thurs; 5pm–3am Fri-Sat and 10pm–2am Sun
• Fidel’s
If rum is the latest cool spirit to set the tongues of influencers across the globe wagging (which it is), this intimate, easygoing little bar is the place to acquaint yourself with all manner of varieties of this legendarily characterful tipple. The cocktails are superb, and the staff super-friendly, knowledgeable, welcoming and more than happy to rustle up a little snifter of something else for the rum-reluctant.
• Find it on: Trim Bridge (Queen Street). Open until: midnight Tuesday–Saturday
AND WHEN HUNGER STRIKES
• Late night nibbles
‘Formal’ late night/early morning dining options are scarce in Bath. But if hunger strikes before bed time, grab yourself a tasty burger from local legend Schwartz Bros (Saw Close and Walcot Street), a cool kebab from Al Falafel (Monmouth Street), a Greek treat from Taka Taka (Broad Street) or even a carton of cheesy chips from Mr D’s Burger Van (found at St George’s Place on the Upper Bristol Road). Until you’ve ended an evening in Bath chowing down on one of the city’s original street food fast fixes, you’ll never be a true Bathonian. Sweet dreams.
THE HIDEOUT
THE BATH DISTILLERY GIN BAR
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