Bath

For alternate meanings see Bath (disambiguation)

Bath is a city in western England famous for its baths fed by underground hot springs. It began life as a Roman spa. For centuries the water was considered to be a cure for many afflictions. From Elizabethan to Georgian times it was a resort city for the wealthy. As a result of its popularity during the latter period, the city contains many noted examples of Georgian architecture, particularly the Royal Crescent. The city has a population of around 86,000.

Historically part of the county of Somerset, it became part of Avon when that county was created in 1974. Since the abolition of Avon, it has formed the main centre of the Unitary Authority of Bath and North East Somerset.

Bath is approximately 15 miles east of the much larger city of Bristol, to which it is linked by the A4, and is a little way south of the M4 motorway. It possesses a railway station (Bath Spa) which lies on the main line between Bristol and London.

The site of the main spring was treated as a shrine by the Celts, and dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romanss identified with Minerva. However the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town's Roman name of Aquae Sulis (literally, "the waters of Sulis"). During the Roman occupation of Britain increasingly grand temples and bathing complexes were built. Rediscovered gradually from the 18th century onward, they have become one of the city's main attractions. Toward the end of the Roman occupation, the settlement around the baths was given defensive walls.

After Britannia left the Roman Empire urban life declined across the country. Though the great Roman baths at Bath fell into disrepair, there is evidence of some continued use of the hot springs. The Anglo-Saxon name for the place was BaÃÂÃÂ°um, BaÃÂÃÂ°an or BaÃÂÃÂ°on, meaning 'at the baths', from which the present name comes.

In 675 Osric, King of the Hwicce, established a monastic house at Bath which probably used the walled area as its precinct. King Offa of Mercia gained this monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, which was dedicated to St. Peter. Bath had become a royal possession. The old Roman street pattern having been lost, King Alfred laid out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct.

King William Rufus granted the city to a royal physician, John of Tours, who became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath in 1088, with permission to move the see of Somerset from Wells to Bath. Bishop John therefore became the first Bishop of Bath. He planned and began a much larger church as his cathedral, to which was attached a priory, with the bishop's palace beside it. New baths were built around the three springs.

Later bishops preferred Wells, which regained cathedral status jointly with Bath. By the 15th century Bath Cathedral was badly dilapidated. Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided in 1500 to rebuild it on a smaller scale. The new cathedral was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539.

Henry VIII considered the cathedral redundant and it was allowed to become derelict, but it was restored as the city's parish church in the Elizabethan period, when the city revived as a spa. The baths were improved and the city began to attract the aristocracy in the bathing seasons. There was much rebuilding in the Stuart period, but this was eclipsed by the massive expansion of the city in the Georgian period. The old town within the walls was largely rebuilt also. The city declined as a fashionable resort in the 19th century.

Bath is the most visited city outside of London for tourists travelling to the UK.

Its attractions include:

The new remake of the film Vanity Fair was shot in Great Pulteney Street recently, and in August 2003 the Three Tenors sang at a special concert to mark the opening of the Thermae Bath Spa, a new hot water spring spa, in Bath City Centre.

Bath

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