Bath City Guide

Roman Baths, Circus & Royal Crescent

From the station along the river to Pulteney Bridge, one of the world's few bridges lined with shops along its full length. Then into the heart: the abbey with its ladders of angels, the Roman Baths above Britain's only hot springs – drinking the thermal water included. Uphill through Jane Austen's streets to the Circus with its stone acorns and to the Royal Crescent, the most famous crescent in architectural history. If your legs allow: steep steps to Alexandra Park, where the whole city lies in the valley below.

1. Pulteney Bridge & Parade Gardens – The opener belongs to England's most famous bridge picture: Robert Adam completed Pulteney Bridge in 1774 on the model of the Ponte Vecchio and the Rialto – it belongs to the handful of bridges worldwide lined with shops on both sides along their full length. Crossing it, you barely notice the Avon flowing beneath you. The classic photo is taken from Grand Parade, with the horseshoe-shaped weir in the foreground. Directly below lie the Parade Gardens, a riverside park with deckchairs and a bandstand of 1925 – a small charge for non-residents, but with the best lawn view of bridge and abbey.
2. Bath Abbey – Look up at the west front before entering: stone angels climb two ladders towards heaven there – the "Jacob's ladder" said to have appeared to Bishop Oliver King in a dream around 1500, which he promptly commissioned. Inside, one of England's finest fan vaults spans the nave, the work of the royal master-builder brothers Vertue, who themselves reckoned there would be "none finer". Climb the 212 steps of the tower tour and you stand behind the clock face and above the city's rooftops. On Sundays the house belongs to its services.
3. Roman Baths & Pump Room – Britain's only natural hot spring rises here: rain that fell on the Mendip Hills millennia ago comes back to light at 46 degrees – over a million litres a day. The Romans built their temple precinct for Sulis Minerva above it, and today you walk on original Roman paving around the steaming Great Bath, past finds like the lead curse tablets of robbed bathers. Bathing is strictly forbidden – but drinking is allowed: in the Pump Room next door a fountain taps the warm spring water with its 43 minerals. The taste is, to put it kindly, historic. For a real bathe, remember the thermal spa at the end of the route.
4. Jane Austen Centre & Gay Street – Uphill, Georgian Bath begins – and Jane Austen right in the middle of it: she lived in the city for five years from 1801, always renting at changing addresses, among them a few doors up at 25 Gay Street. The Centre at number 40 is not a residence but an affectionate exhibition on her Bath years – with costumed guides and the question of why "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion", of all novels, are set in this city. Honest note: if Austen means nothing to you, simply stroll further up Gay Street; the street itself is Georgian picture book enough.
5. The Circus – A perfect circle of townhouses, cut into three arcs: the Circus was John Wood the Elder's grand idea – he believed Bath to be an ancient druid centre and is said to have matched the diameter to the stone circle of Stonehenge. The allusions sit in the details: stone acorns along the balustrade, plus a frieze of serpents, stars and compasses. The five mighty trees in the middle, by the way, are plane trees, planted only around 1820 – the architect had planned the centre open so the facades would tell. From the air, the Circus, Queen Square and Gay Street together form the shape of a key; whether by design remains Bath's favourite riddle.
6. Royal Crescent – Thirty houses, a single sweep: the Royal Crescent, built 1767 to 1775 by John Wood the Younger, is the most famous crescent in architectural history – a hundred and fifty metres of palace facade above a great lawn, with perfectly ordinary terraced houses behind. Along the lawn runs a ha-ha, a wall sunk into the ground: it once kept the grazing livestock away without robbing the residents of their open view. In the corner house, the museum at No.1 Royal Crescent shows how a family really lived here around 1780, from the parlour to the basement kitchen. Afterwards, simply sit on the grass – the view is the real luxury.
7. Thermae Bath Spa – For the finale the circle closes: what the Romans began, you can here at last do yourself – bathe in the thermal water. The modern Thermae Bath Spa ended, in 2006, a curious gap of 28 years during which nobody could bathe publicly in the spa city. Its centrepiece is the open rooftop pool: you float in warm spring water while the city's rooftops and the abbey lie below you – loveliest at dusk, when the lights come on. Towels and robes are provided, from age 16, most atmospheric in the evening. A worthier closing note is not to be had in this city.