Episode 21: The History of Bath, From Roman to Regency

Pulteney Bridge, whose design was based on the Rialto in Venice

 The Romans arrived at Bath in AD 43, calling it Sulis Minerva – a combination of the goddess Minerva with the local deity of Sulis.  They loved the hot springs, practically the only ones in the country, which gush from the ground at 40 degrees C.  Their bathing complex came to include a huge, vaulted structure, which collapsed at some point after the legions left Britannia.   It became so derelict that the source of the spring was lost and only discovered again in the 1870s.

The Roman Baths

Clive and John discuss the origins of England’s most beautiful Georgian city, along with the Abbey that was built immediately next to the baths in the Middle Ages.  They analyse the personalities of Ralph Allen, the entrepreneur who owned the quarry that supplied the stone from which Bath is built, and the architect John Wood the Elder, another enterprising man, some of whose theories seem weirder now than they might have done at the time.  They set Bath on its way to becoming a social centre, in which invalids could drink the waters in the hope of becoming cured of a wide range of disorders, while their friends and family pursued a round of visits and (sometimes) flirtation.  Wood is credited with the English fashion for designing terraces of joined houses that look as though they are really palaces. His son John Wood the Younger designed Royal Crescent of 30 houses, overlooking a landscape park complete with haha – one of the great statements of the Picturesque.