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| Bath Information |
| Though only twelve miles from Bristol,
BATH has a very different feel from its neighbour - more harmonious, compact,
leisurely and complacent. The city's elegant crescents and Georgian buildings
are studded with plaques naming Bath's eminent inhabitants from its heyday
as a spa resort; it was here that Jane Austen wrote Persuasion and Northanger
Abbey , and where Gainsborough established himself as a portraitist and
landscape painter. Nowadays Bath ranks as one of Britain's top ten tourist
cities, yet the place has never lost the exclusive air those names evoke. Bath owes its name and fame to its hot springs - the only ones in the country - which made it a place of reverence for the local Celtic population, though it had to wait for Roman technology to create a fully fledged bathing establishment. The baths fell into decline with the departure of the Romans, but the town later regained its importance under the Saxons, its abbey seeing the coronation of the first king of all England , Edgar, in 973. A new bathing complex was built in the sixteenth century, popularized by the visit of Elizabeth I in 1574, and the city reached its fashionable zenith in the eighteenth century, when Beau Nash ruled the town's social scene. It was at this time that Bath acquired its ranks of Palladian mansions and town houses, all built in the local Bath stone , which is now enshrined in building regulations as an obligatory element in any new constructions in the city. Three miles southeast of the centre, near the university campus, Claverton holds a museum of Americana amid gorgeous rolling countryside. The swathes of parkland between Bath's Regency developments lend the city a spacious feel, but the sheer weight of traffic pouring through the central streets can be a major turn-off. Drivers are advised to use one of the Park-and-Ride car parks around the periphery - and if you're coming from Bristol, note that you can cycle all the way along a cycle-path that follows the route of a disused railway line and the course of the Avon. The City Although Bath could easily be seen on a day-trip from Bristol, it really deserves a couple of days on the spot; the city is chock-full of museums, but some of the greatest enjoyment comes simply from the streets, with their pale gold architecture and sweeping vistas. |
| Arrival Information |
| Bath Spa train station and the city's bus station are both on Manvers Street, a short walk from the centre. The tourist office is right next to the abbey on Abbey Churchyard (May-Sept Mon-Sat 9.30am-6pm, Sun 10am-4pm; Oct-May Mon-Sat 9.30am-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm; tel 01225/477101, ). Here you can find a detailed list of accommodation ; most establishments are small, so always phone first. |
| Eating, Drinking and Nightlife |
| Bath has a reputation for gourmet cuisine,
even if too many of the town's restaurants do over-exploit the period
trappings. In the less exalted regions of the price scale, there are several
decent, inexpensive places to eat, and coffee shops and snack bars are
ubiquitous in the centre. For concerts, gigs and other events, refer to Venue , the fortnightly listings magazine (£1.90). Theatre and ballet fans should check out what's showing at the Theatre Royal on Sawclose (tel 01225/448844), which stages more experimental productions in the Ustinov Studio. Bath also has a great range of festivals throughout the year, offering talks, gigs and other events in often sumptuous surroundings, notably the Bath International Music Festival, held between mid-May and June and featuring jazz, classical and World Music; the Bath Fringe Festival, running from the end of May to mid-June, with the accent on art, theatre and music, and Bath Literature Festival, taking place over ten days in Feb/March. For further information on each, check out the individual websites, or call 01225/463362. The best of the town's clubs are Moles on George Street, which has live music and DJs; the Fez Club , The Paragon, which plays funk, trance and old skool, and Club Eros , a gay and lesbian venue situated under the Bath Tap pub. Restaurants Bathtub Bistro 2 Grove St tel 01225/460593, . Round the corner from Pulteney Bridge, this place looks tiny from the outside but reveals several eating areas on different levels. The menu includes one hundred percent-beef hamburgers, vegetarian dishes and spiced ice cream. BYOB Mon & Tues. Inexpensive to moderate. Demuth's 2 North Parade Passage tel 01225/446059. Bath's favourite eating place for veggies and vegans, offering original and delicious dishes, as well as organic beers, wines and coffees. Decor is bright and modern. No smoking. Booking advisable at weekends. Moderate to expensive. Café Retro 18 York St. A laid-back place near the Abbey offering an inventive international menu, all to mellow sounds. Also a good spot for a cappuccino break during the day. BYOB. Moderate. Eastern Eye 8 Quiet St tel 01225/422323, . Just off Milsom Street in the centre of Bath, this designer curry house occupies a Georgian bank, with a spectacular vaulted ceiling. The food's good too, impeccably presented and served. Moderate. Pimpernel's Royal Crescent Hotel , 16 Royal Crescent tel 01225/823333. English-based classics with Mediterranean influences make this the best restaurant in Bath, all in sumptuous surroundings. Non-smoking. Very Expensive. Popjoy's Restaurant Sawclose tel 01225/460494. Though somewhat twee, this restaurant is worth the splurge for its prime location next to the Theatre Royal, and for the curiosity value of being Beau Nash's house (it's named after his mistress). The food is high-quality Modern British, with great desserts, and there's a good-value pre-theatre menu. Closed Sun. Expensive. Pump Room Abbey Church Yard tel 01225/444477. If you don't want to splash out on an Eggs Benedict brunch, you might succumb to a Bath bun here in the morning, or a bewildering range of cream teas in the afternoon, or the excellent lunch-time menu, all to the accompaniment of a classical trio. You get a good view of the baths, and a chance to sample the waters, though be prepared to queue. Open daytime only, plus evenings during the Bath Festival. Inexpensive to moderate. Tilley's Bistro 3 North Parade Passage tel 01225/484200. Informal, rather cramped French restaurant with starter-sized and -priced portions to allow more samplings, good set-price lunchtime menus and a separate vegetarian menu. Closed Sun. Moderate. Walrus and Carpenter 25 Barton St. Popular spot near the Theatre Royal, serving steaks, burgers, poultry dishes and a full vegetarian menu. Moderate. Pubs and Cafés The Bath Tap 19-20 St James's Parade. Home of Bath's gay and lesbian scene, though without so much of the "scene". It's lively but relaxed, with a mixed crowd enjoying the regular cabaret. The Bell 103 Walcot St. Excellent pub with a garden, live music three times a week (Mon & Wed eve, plus Sun lunchtime) and bar billiards. The George Mill Lane, Bathampton. Popular canalside pub twenty minutes' walk from the centre. Better than average bar food. Hat & Feather London St. Further up from Walcot Street, this drinking hole continues the quarter's alternative theme, with table football, DJs and live music on some nights. Pig & Fiddle corner of Saracen and Walcot streets. Real ales and outside terraces, north of Pulteney Bridge. Table football and food helps to pull in the crowds. The Porter Miles Buildings, George St. Part of Moles club, this is the only vegetarian pub in Bath, though it feels more like a café. Live music twice weekly & DJs other nights in the cosy cellar bar. |
| Exploring Bath |
| Assembly Rooms The younger John Wood's Assembly Rooms , east of the Circus on Bennett Street, were, with the Pump Room, the centre of Bath's social scene. A fire virtually destroyed the building in 1942, but it has now been perfectly restored and houses a Museum of Costume (daily 10am-5pm; £4.20, or £9.50 with Baths), an entertaining collection of clothing from the Stuart era to the latest Japanese designs. Bath Abbey Although there has been a church on the site since the seventh century, Bath Abbey (daily 9am-5pm; closes 4pm in winter; requested donation £2) did not take its present form until the end of the fifteenth century, when Bishop Oliver King began work on the ruins of the previous Norman building, some of which were incorporated into the new church. The bishop was said to have been inspired by a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven, which the present facade recalls on the turrets flanking the central window. The west front also features the founder's signature in the form of carvings of olive trees surmounted by crowns, a play on his name. The interior is in a restrained Perpendicular style, and boasts splendid fan vaulting on the ceiling, which was not properly completed until the nineteenth century. The floor and walls are crammed with elaborate monuments and memorials, and traces of the grander Norman building are visible in the Norman Chapel Paragon From the Assembly Rooms, Alfred Street leads to the area known as the Paragon , at the top of Milsom Street. Here, an old Methodist chapel houses the Building of Bath Museum (mid-Feb to Nov Tues-Sun 10.30am-5pm; £4), an educational explanation of the construction and architecture of Bath. At the bottom of the Paragon, off George Street, lies Milsom Street , a wide shopping strand designed by the elder Wood as the main thoroughfare of Georgian Bath. River and Great Pulteney Street The flow of the River Avon - a crucial ingredient in the city's charm - is interrupted by a graceful V-shaped weir just below the shop-lined Pulteney Bridge , an Italianate structure designed by the eighteenth-century Scottish architect Robert Adam. The bridge was intended to link the city centre with Great Pulteney Street , a handsome avenue originally planned as the nucleus of a large residential quarter on the eastern bank. The work ran into financial difficulties, however, so the roads running off it now stop short after a few yards, though there is a lengthy vista to the imposing classical facade of the Holburne Museum at the end of the street (mid-Feb to mid-Dec Tues-Sat 11am-5pm, Sun 2.30-5.30pm; £3.50; ). The three-storey building contains an impressive range of decorative and fine art, mostly furniture, silverware, porcelain and paintings (including the newly acquired Byam Family portrait by Gainsborough) from the eighteenth century, plus a good collection of twentieth-century craftwork. Behind Holburne House, Sydney Gardens make a delightful place to take a breather. When Holburne House was a bustling hotel, the pleasure gardens were the venue for concerts and fireworks, as witnessed by Jane Austen, a frequent visitor here - the family had lodgings across the street at 4 Sydney Place in the autumn of 1801. Today, the bosky slopes are cut through by the railway and the Kennet and Avon Canal. From here, it's a pleasant one-and-a-half mile saunter along the canal to the George pub. If you want to explore the river itself, rent a skiff, punt or canoe in summer from the Victorian Bath Boating Station at the end of Forester Road, behind the Holburne Museum (about £6 per person per hour). Organized river trips can be made from Pulteney Bridge and weir, and there are cruises on the Kennet and Avon Canal from Sydney Wharf, near Bathwick Bridge. A two-mile nature trail winds along the banks of the restored canal, which itself extends east as far as Reading. Roman Baths Bath's centrepiece is, naturally enough, the Roman Baths located in front of the abbey in the pedestrianized Abbey Church Yard (daily: March-June, Sept & Oct 9am-6pm; July & Aug 9am-10pm; Nov-Feb 9.30am-5.30pm; £7.50, £9.50 combined ticket with Museum of Costume). Although the tickets are pricey, there's two or three hours' worth of well-balanced, informative entertainment here, with a taped commentary provided on handsets allowing you to wander at your own pace around the temple and bathing complex, where a spring still issues water at a constant 46.5°C. Highlights of the remains are the open-air (but originally covered) Great Bath, its vaporous waters surrounded by nineteenth-century pillars, terraces and statues of famous Romans; the Circular Bath, where bathers cooled off; the Norman King's Bath; and part of the temple of Minerva. Among a quantity of coins, jewellery and sculpture exhibited are the gilt bronze head of Sulis Minerva, the local deity, and a grand, Celtic-inspired gorgon's head from the temple's pediment. Models of the complex at its greatest extent give some idea of the awe which it must have inspired, while the graffiti salvaged from the Roman era - mainly curses and boasts - give a nice personal slant on this antique leisure centre. You can get a free glimpse into the baths from the next-door Pump Room , the social hub of the Georgian spa community and still redolent of that era, housing an excellent tearoom and restaurant. Beau Nash and Regency Bath Richard "Beau" Nash was an ex-army officer, ex-lawyer, dandy and gambler, who became Bath's Master of Ceremonies in 1704, conducting public balls of an unprecedented splendour. Wielding dictatorial powers over dress and behaviour, Nash orchestrated the social manners of the city and even extended his influence to cover road improvements and the design of buildings. In an early example of health awareness, he banned smoking in Bath's public rooms at a time when pipe-smoking was a general pastime among men, women and children. Less philanthropically, he also encouraged gambling and even took a percentage of the bank's takings. Nonetheless, he was generally held in high esteem and succeeded in establishing rules such as the setting of specific hours and procedure for all social functions. Balls were to begin at six and end at eleven and every ball had to open with a minuet "danced by two persons of the highest distinction present". White aprons were banned, gossipers and scandalmongers were shunned, and, most radical of all, the wearing of swords in public places was forbidden, a ruling referred to in Sheridan's play The Rivals , in which Captain Absolute declares, "A sword seen in the streets of Bath would raise as great an alarm as a mad dog." By such measures, Nash presided over the city's greatest period, during the first four decades of the eighteenth century. He lived in Bath until his death at the age of 87, by which time he had been reduced to comparative poverty. Next to the innovations of Nash and the architectural creations of the two John Woods, the name of William Oliver should not be forgotten in the story of Regency Bath. A physician and philanthropist, Oliver did more than anyone to boost the city's profile as a therapeutic centre, thanks to publications such as his Practical Essay on the Use and Abuse of Warm Bathing in Gouty Cases (1751), and by founding the Bath General Hospital to enable the poor to make use of the waters. He is remembered today by the Bath Oliver biscuit, which he invented, and by the use of Olivers as the exchange currency in a local community bartering scheme. To The Circus and The Royal Crescent From Abbey Church Yard, the elegantly colonnaded Bath Street leads onto Hot Bath Street; turn right here to reach Westgate Street and Sawclose, where you can take a glance at the Theatre Royal , opened in 1805 and one of the country's finest surviving Georgian theatres. Next door is the house where Beau Nash spent his last years, now a restaurant. Up from the Theatre Royal, off Barton Street, the gracious Queen Square was the first Bath venture of the architect John Wood , who with his son (also John) was chiefly responsible for the Roman-inspired developments of the areas outside the confines of the medieval city. Wood himself lived at no. 24, giving him a vista of the northern terrace's palatial facade. West of Queen Square, the typical Bath townhouse at 19 New King St was where the musician and astronomer Sir William Herschel, in collaboration with his sister Caroline, discovered the planet Uranus in 1781. You can take a brisk whirl around the small Herschel Museum here (March-Oct daily 2-5pm; Nov-Feb Sat & Sun 2-5pm; £3.50), showing contemporary furnishings, musical instruments, a replica of the telescope with which Uranus was identified and various knick-knacks from the Herschels' life. Up from Queen Square, at the end of Gay Street, is the elder John Wood's masterpiece, The Circus , consisting of three crescents arranged in a tight circle of three-storey houses, with a carved frieze running round the entire circle. Wood died soon after laying the foundation stone for this enterprise, and the job was finished by his son. The painter Thomas Gainsborough lived at no. 17 from 1760 to 1774. The Circus is connected by Brock Street to the Royal Crescent , grandest of Bath's crescents, begun by the younger John Wood in 1767. The stately arc of thirty houses is set off by a spacious sloping lawn from which a magnificent vista extends to green hills and distant ribbons of honey-coloured stone. The interior of No. 1 Royal Crescent , on the corner with Brock Street, has been restored to reflect as nearly as possible its original Georgian appearance (mid-Feb to Oct Tues-Sun 10.30am-5pm; Nov Tues-Sun 10.30am-4pm; £4; ). At the bottom of the Crescent, Royal Avenue leads onto Royal Victoria Park , the city's largest open space, containing an aviary and botanical gardens. |
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