# Bath

city in Somerset, England, United Kingdom

Bath and North East Somerset, United Kingdom

Settlement. 43 CE

## Story

• Bath grew around natural hot springs in the valley of the River Avon, a site the Britons may have treated as a shrine before the Romans arrived.
• The Romans made it a spa in the 1st century AD, naming it Aquae Sulis after the Celtic deity Sulis, and built a temple and bathing complex that operated for some 300 years.
• After Roman rule ended, the baths were lost to rising water and silting, and the town later became a royal possession, a burh, and the site of a coronation.
• In the Georgian era Bath became one of Britain's most fashionable spa towns, its streets and squares shaped by John Wood the Elder and his son and its social life presided over by Beau Nash.
• The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987 and was later listed among the Great Spa Towns of Europe; it now draws over six million visitors a year.

## History

Bath began at natural hot springs in the valley of the River Avon. The site may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons before the Romans arrived. The Romans made it a spa in the 1st century AD, around 60 AD by one dating and as early as 43 CE by another, and named it Aquae Sulis, "the waters of Sulis," after a Celtic deity to whom the spring was dedicated. A temple was built in 60–70 AD, and a bathing complex was developed over the next 300 years; messages to Sulis scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, were recovered from the sacred spring.

Engineers drove oak piles into the mud for a stable foundation and enclosed the spring in a stone chamber lined with lead. In the second century a wooden barrel-vaulted structure housed the hot, warm and cold baths. The town was later given defensive walls, probably in the third century, but after the end of Roman rule in Britain the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost as rising water levels and silting covered them. It was captured by the West Saxons in 577 after the Battle of Deorham, and a monastery was founded at an early date, reputedly by Saint David, though more probably in 675 by Osric, King of the Hwicce; other accounts refer to a nunnery founded in 676.

A 9th-century history describes a "hot lake" in the land of the Hwicce, surrounded by a wall of brick and stone, where men could bathe at any time and choose hot or cold water. By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern had been lost and Bath was a royal possession. King Offa of Mercia gained control of the monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, dedicated to Saint Peter. King Alfred laid out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct.

Bath was a burh with walls of 1,375 yards and an allocation of 1,000 men for defence. King Edgar of England was crowned in Bath Abbey in 973, in a ceremony that formed the basis of all future English coronations.

William Rufus granted the town, abbey and mint to a royal physician, John of Tours, who became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath after the town was sacked during the Rebellion of 1088. He planned and began a much larger church as his cathedral, with a priory attached and a bishop's palace beside it, and new baths were built around the three springs. Later bishops returned the episcopal seat to Wells while retaining Bath in the title, becoming the Bishop of Bath and Wells. St John's Hospital was founded around 1180 by Bishop Reginald Fitz Jocelin and is among the oldest almshouses in England; the "hospital of the baths" was built beside the hot springs of the Cross Bath for their health-giving properties and to shelter the poor infirm, and around 1200 the first mayor was appointed and the first guildhall was probably built in the same century.

By the 15th century, Bath's abbey church was dilapidated, and Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided to rebuild it on a smaller scale in 1500. The new church was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII. The abbey church became derelict before being restored as the city's parish church in the Elizabethan era, when the city experienced a revival as a spa; the baths were improved and the city began to attract the aristocracy. A royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590 confirmed city status, and James Montagu, Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1608, spent considerable sums restoring Bath Abbey and supported the baths, aware that the "towne liveth wholly by them"; in 1613 Queen Anne visited to take the waters and the Queen's Bath was named after her.

By the beginning of the English Civil War, Bath was a first-class resort, but it lost much of this trade in 1642 when war broke out. The city was initially garrisoned for Charles I and £7,000 was spent on fortifications, but upon the appearance of parliamentary forces the gates were thrown open and the city surrendered. It became a significant post for the Western Association army under William Waller, and it was retaken by the royalists in July 1643 after the Battle of Lansdowne and occupied for two years until 1645. The city was spared widespread destruction of property, overcrowding, bubonic plague and mass starvation, unlike nearby Bristol and Gloucester, and safe water was piped in from the surrounding hills; nevertheless, billeted soldiers contributed to disorder and vandalism.

Normality recovered quickly after the war when the city council achieved a healthy budget surplus. Thomas Guidott set up a practice in the city in 1668 and wrote a work in 1676 bringing the health-giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the attention of the country and drawing the aristocracy. Several areas were developed in the Stuart period, and more building took place during Georgian times in response to visitors needing accommodation. Architects John Wood the Elder and his son laid out new quarters in streets and squares whose identical façades gave an impression of palatial scale and classical decorum.

Much of the creamy gold Bath stone used in the city came from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines owned by Ralph Allen. To advertise the quality of his limestone, Allen commissioned the elder John Wood to build a country house on his Prior Park estate between the city and the mines. Allen was a member of the Bath Corporation for many years and was elected mayor for a single term in 1742. In the early 18th century Bath acquired its first purpose-built theatre, the Old Orchard Street Theatre, which was rebuilt as the Theatre Royal along with the Grand Pump Room attached to the Roman Baths and assembly rooms.

Beau Nash, master of ceremonies, presided over the city's social life from 1704 or 1705 until his death in 1761 and drew up a code of behaviour for public entertainments. Bath was then one of the most fashionable British spa towns and attracted many notable visitors. In 1816 it was described as "a seat of amusement and dissipation," where "scenes of extravagance in this receptacle of the wealthy and the idle, the weak and designing" were habitual. The population grew rapidly from 2,000 in 1700 to 28,000 in 1801 and 57,000 in 1831, making it one of the largest cities in Britain by the early 1800s.

William Thomas Beckford bought a house in Lansdown Crescent in 1822 and subsequently two adjacent houses to form his residence; he acquired the land between his home and the top of Lansdown Hill and created a garden more than half a mile long with Beckford's Tower at the top. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia spent four years in exile from 1936 to 1940 at Fairfield House in Bath. During World War II, between the evening of 25 April and the early morning of 27 April 1942, Bath suffered three air raids in reprisal for RAF raids on Lübeck and Rostock. During the Bath Blitz more than 400 people were killed and more than 19,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed; houses in Royal Crescent, Circus and Paragon were burnt out along with the Assembly Rooms, and a 500-kilogram high explosive bomb landed on the east side of Queen Square.

From the 19th century onward, full-scale excavations of the great baths were carried out. In the late 19th century, excavations of the Roman Baths were documented in detail, describing the layout and construction of the baths and the systems for managing the hot mineral waters. In March 2012, archaeologists unearthed a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins about 150 metres from the Roman Baths. The hoard is believed to date from the third century and is one of the largest discovered in Britain.

The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987 and was later listed as one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe. At the 2021 census the population was 94,080 or 94,092. Bath has over six million yearly visitors, making it one of the ten English cities visited most by overseas tourists. Its attractions include the spas, Royal Crescent, Bath Skyline, Parade Gardens, Sydney Gardens and Royal Victoria Park, along with theatres and museums.

John Wood the Elder was born in Twerton near Bath in 1704 and baptised at St James's Church, since demolished; his father George was a local builder. He was educated at King Edward's School before working as a young man for Robert Benson, first Baron Bingley, at Bramham Park in Yorkshire, and later on speculative building on the Cavendish estate in London. By his mid-twenties he had combined an enthusiasm for Palladian classical architecture with an interest in ancient British history and, almost certainly, Freemasonry. In 1740 he surveyed Stonehenge and the Stanton Drew stone circles, and he wrote extensively about Bladud and Neo-Druidism.

Wood set out to restore Bath to what he believed was its former ancient glory as one of the most important cities in England, and in 1725 he drew up an ambitious plan for his home town. Opposition from the corporation, churchmen, landowners and moneymen forced him to develop the scheme outside the existing city walls. He approached Robert Gay, a barber surgeon from London who owned the Barton Farm estate in the Manor of Walcot, and on those fields established the architectural style whose basic principles were followed by the architects who came after him. At Queen Square he introduced speculative building to Bath: he leased the land from Gay for £137 a year, designed the frontages and divided the ground into plots, which he sub-let to individual builders and masons.

They had two years' grace to get walls up and roofs on before a more substantial rent fell due, and because Bath was booming most plots were reserved before the two years were out; Wood's rents came to £305 a year, leaving him a profit of £168.

His works in Bath include St John's Hospital (1727–28), Queen Square (1728–36), Prior Park (1734–41), the Royal Mineral Water Hospital (1738–42), the North Parade (1740) and South Parade (1743–48), and The Circus (1754–68), many of them listed buildings. Queen Square was the first speculative development by the elder Wood, who lived in one of its houses; the Circus consists of three long curved terraces forming a circular theatre intended for civic functions and games and inspired by the Colosseum in Rome. Gay Street, which links the two, was also designed and developed by him. Wood has been described as "one of the outstanding architects of the day".

The Bath Assembly Rooms were designed by John Wood the Younger in 1769. Assembly rooms had been built early in the 18th century, but a new venue for balls, concerts and gambling was envisaged between Queen Square, The Circus and the Royal Crescent; a proposal by Robert Adam was rejected as too expensive. Wood the Younger raised funding through a tontine, construction started in 1769, and the new or upper assembly rooms opened with a grand ball in 1771, becoming the hub of fashionable society and frequented by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the nobility of the time. The building of Bath stone is arranged in a U shape, with four main function rooms: a ballroom 100 feet long, the largest Georgian interior in Bath, a tea room, a card room and an octagon, lit by Whitefriars crystal chandeliers.

In the 20th century the rooms were used as a cinema, and in 1931 they were taken over by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and restored; they were bombed and burnt out during the Second World War and restored by Albert Richardson before reopening in 1963.

The political situation that shaped Bath's Georgian expansion was one of divided authority within the town itself. The result was a distinctive image for the city that has contributed greatly to its continuing popularity. Wood also designed buildings outside Bath, including the reconstruction of Llandaff Cathedral, Buckland House, The Exchange in Bristol and Liverpool Town Hall.

Beau Nash was born in St Mary's Street, Swansea, in 1674, the son of Richard Nash, a partner in a Swansea glass-works, and a mother who was a niece of the Welsh merchant John Poyer, later mayor of Pembroke. He attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School at Carmarthen and went up to Jesus College, Oxford, leaving without a degree; his father then bought him an officer's commission in the British Army, but he found the demands on his time too great and instead entered the Middle Temple in 1693 as a student. He was selected from among the students there to take charge of the Middle Temple's long-customary pageant for a new king, exhibited before King William III in 1695, and his success led to the offer of a knighthood, which he declined on the grounds of his lack of fortune. Queen Anne later offered him a knighthood, it was said, and he refused the honour again.

Nash became Master of Ceremonies at Bath in 1704, a position he retained until he died, and he lived in a house on Saw Close, now at the main entrance to the Theatre Royal. His position was unofficial, but he had extensive influence in the city until early 1761, including regulating gambling; he managed and paid the musicians at the balls, matched ladies with dancing partners and even brokered marriages. He met new arrivals and judged whether they were suitable to join the select company of 500 to 600 people who had pre-booked tables, escorted unaccompanied wives, and restrained compulsive gamblers and warned players against risky games or cardsharps. He was notable for encouraging a new informality in manners, breaking down the rigid barriers which had previously divided the nobility from the middle-class patrons of Bath, and even from the gentry.

The Corporation funded an elaborate funeral for him, and he was buried in the nave of Bath Abbey, not far from where a memorial was raised to him in 1790. He was a notorious gambler who was forced to move in with his mistress, Juliana Popjoy, because of his debts; upon their separation she was so distraught that she spent the majority of her remaining days living in a large hollowed-out tree, moving out shortly before her death to return to her birth home, where she died. His death caused quite a stir at the time, with Oliver Goldsmith moved to write The Life of Richard Nash as early as 1762. In 1739 John Wesley, preacher and founder of Methodism, tells in his journal and letters of a confrontation with Nash in Bath; Wesley's journey to the town had been expected for some time, and Nash had made public his determination to confront him.

## Photographs

- [City of Bath — Raboe001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Bath_Somerset_2023_-City-_by-RaBoe_055.jpg)
- [Bath — Man vyi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Jer-Ba.ogg)
- [Flag of Bath, unofficial arms banner of the City — TMcB23](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Flag_of_Bath.png)
- [pronunciation recording — Jeuwre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/De-Bath.ogg)
- [Dome of the entrance hall of the Széchenyi Bath, Budapest, Northern Hungary — Zairon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Budapest_Sz%C3%A9chenyi-Bad_Eingangshalle_Kuppel_6.JPG)
- [A crew chief from the 5th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron washes a B-52H Stratofortress at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., March 10, 2014. The B-52s are routinely — Senior Airman Brittany Bateman](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Bird_bath_140310-F-RB551-115.jpg)
- [Fleuron from book: The arms of the English baronets and the Knights of the Bath, with the dates of their creations brought down to the present time. — Unknown author Unknown author](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/The_arms_of_the_English_baronets_and_the_Knights_of_the_Bath%2C_with_the_dates_of_their_creations_brought_down_to_the_present_time_Fleuron_T145139-28.png)
- [Nov 1896. 10 Sheet(s). — Unknown author Unknown author](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Sanborn_Fire_Insurance_Map_from_Bath%2C_Sagadahoc_County%2C_Maine%2C_1896%2C_Plate_0002.tiff)
- [Photo of the former Pittsburgh Wash House — Preservation Pittsburgh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Pittsburgh_Bath_House_2.jpg)
- [Donated by Bath Building Society — RichardLucking](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Long_shot_of_the_bench_%28OpenBenches_8226-2%29.jpg)

## Sources

- [Bath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath,_Somerset) — Wikipedia
- [Bath](https://www.mayorofbath.co.uk/) — Official site
- [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22889) — Wikidata
- [UNESCO World Heritage Centre](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/428/) — UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- [Bath](https://www.buildinghistory.org/bath/) — buildinghistory.org
- [Bath](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13582) — gutenberg.org
- [Bath Somerset 2023 -City- by-RaBoe 055.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bath_Somerset_2023_-City-_by-RaBoe_055.jpg) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Jer-Ba.ogg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jer-Ba.ogg) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Flag of Bath.png](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Bath.png) — Wikimedia Commons
- [De-Bath.ogg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De-Bath.ogg) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Budapest Széchenyi-Bad Eingangshalle Kuppel 6.JPG](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Budapest_Sz%C3%A9chenyi-Bad_Eingangshalle_Kuppel_6.JPG) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Bird bath 140310-F-RB551-115.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bird_bath_140310-F-RB551-115.jpg) — Wikimedia Commons
- [The arms of the English baronets and the Knights of the Bath, with the dates of their creations brought down to the present time Fleuron T145139-28.png](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_arms_of_the_English_baronets_and_the_Knights_of_the_Bath,_with_the_dates_of_their_creations_brought_down_to_the_present_time_Fleuron_T145139-28.png) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine, 1896, Plate 0002.tiff](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanborn_Fire_Insurance_Map_from_Bath,_Sagadahoc_County,_Maine,_1896,_Plate_0002.tiff) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Pittsburgh Bath House 2.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pittsburgh_Bath_House_2.jpg) — Wikimedia Commons
- [Long shot of the bench (OpenBenches 8226-2).jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Long_shot_of_the_bench_(OpenBenches_8226-2).jpg) — Wikimedia Commons

## Detailed history

Bath began at natural hot springs in the valley of the River Avon, and the site may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons before the Romans arrived. The Romans made it a spa in the 1st century AD, around 60 AD by one dating and as early as 43 CE by another, and named it Aquae Sulis, “the waters of Sulis,” after a Celtic deity to whom the spring was dedicated. A temple was built in 60–70 AD, and a bathing complex was developed over the next 300 years; messages to Sulis scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, were recovered from the sacred spring. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud for a stable foundation and enclosed the spring in a stone chamber lined with lead; in the second century a wooden barrel-vaulted structure housed the hot, warm and cold baths.

The town was later given defensive walls, probably in the third century, but after the end of Roman rule in Britain the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost as rising water levels and silting covered them. It was captured by the West Saxons in 577 after the Battle of Deorham, and a monastery was founded at an early date, reputedly by Saint David, though more probably in 675 by Osric, King of the Hwicce; other accounts refer to a nunnery founded in 676. A 9th-century history describes a “hot lake” in the land of the Hwicce, surrounded by a wall of brick and stone, where men could bathe at any time and choose hot or cold water. By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern had been lost and Bath was a royal possession.

King Offa of Mercia gained control of the monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, dedicated to Saint Peter. King Alfred laid out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct. Bath was a burh with walls of 1,375 yards and an allocation of 1,000 men for defence. King Edgar of England was crowned in Bath Abbey in 973, in a ceremony that formed the basis of all future English coronations.

William Rufus granted the town, abbey and mint to a royal physician, John of Tours, who became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath after the town was sacked during the Rebellion of 1088. He planned and began a much larger church as his cathedral, with a priory attached and a bishop’s palace beside it, and new baths were built around the three springs. Later bishops returned the episcopal seat to Wells while retaining Bath in the title, becoming the Bishop of Bath and Wells. St John’s Hospital was founded around 1180 by Bishop Reginald Fitz Jocelin and is among the oldest almshouses in England; the “hospital of the baths” was built beside the hot springs of the Cross Bath for their health-giving properties and to shelter the poor infirm, and around 1200 the first mayor was appointed and the first guildhall was probably built in the same century.

By the 15th century, Bath’s abbey church was dilapidated, and Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells, decided to rebuild it on a smaller scale in 1500. The new church was completed just a few years before Bath Priory was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII. The abbey church became derelict before being restored as the city’s parish church in the Elizabethan era, when the city experienced a revival as a spa; the baths were improved and the city began to attract the aristocracy. A royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590 confirmed city status, and James Montagu, Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1608, spent considerable sums restoring Bath Abbey and supported the baths, aware that the “towne liveth wholly by them”; in 1613 Queen Anne visited to take the waters and the Queen’s Bath was named after her.

By the beginning of the English Civil War, Bath was a first-class resort, but it lost much of this trade in 1642 when war broke out. The city was initially garrisoned for Charles I and £7,000 was spent on fortifications, but upon the appearance of parliamentary forces the gates were thrown open and the city surrendered. It became a significant post for the Western Association army under William Waller, and it was retaken by the royalists in July 1643 after the Battle of Lansdowne and occupied for two years until 1645. The city was spared widespread destruction of property, overcrowding, bubonic plague and mass starvation, unlike nearby Bristol and Gloucester, and safe water was piped in from the surrounding hills; nevertheless, billeted soldiers contributed to disorder and vandalism.

Normality recovered quickly after the war when the city council achieved a healthy budget surplus. Thomas Guidott set up a practice in the city in 1668 and wrote a work in 1676 bringing the health-giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the attention of the country and drawing the aristocracy. Several areas were developed in the Stuart period, and more building took place during Georgian times in response to visitors needing accommodation. Architects John Wood the Elder and his son laid out new quarters in streets and squares whose identical façades gave an impression of palatial scale and classical decorum.

Much of the creamy gold Bath stone used in the city came from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines owned by Ralph Allen. To advertise the quality of his limestone, Allen commissioned the elder John Wood to build a country house on his Prior Park estate between the city and the mines. Allen was a member of the Bath Corporation for many years and was elected mayor for a single term in 1742. In the early 18th century Bath acquired its first purpose-built theatre, the Old Orchard Street Theatre, which was rebuilt as the Theatre Royal along with the Grand Pump Room attached to the Roman Baths and assembly rooms.

Beau Nash, master of ceremonies, presided over the city’s social life from 1704 or 1705 until his death in 1761 and drew up a code of behaviour for public entertainments. Bath was then one of the most fashionable British spa towns and attracted many notable visitors. In 1816 it was described as “a seat of amusement and dissipation,” where “scenes of extravagance in this receptacle of the wealthy and the idle, the weak and designing” were habitual. The population grew rapidly from 2,000 in 1700 to 28,000 in 1801 and 57,000 in 1831, making it one of the largest cities in Britain by the early 1800s.

William Thomas Beckford bought a house in Lansdown Crescent in 1822 and subsequently two adjacent houses to form his residence; he acquired the land between his home and the top of Lansdown Hill and created a garden more than half a mile long with Beckford’s Tower at the top. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia spent four years in exile from 1936 to 1940 at Fairfield House in Bath. During World War II, between the evening of 25 April and the early morning of 27 April 1942, Bath suffered three air raids in reprisal for RAF raids on Lübeck and Rostock. During the Bath Blitz more than 400 people were killed and more than 19,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed; houses in Royal Crescent, Circus and Paragon were burnt out along with the Assembly Rooms, and a 500-kilogram high explosive bomb landed on the east side of Queen Square.

From the 19th century onward, full-scale excavations of the great baths were carried out. In the late 19th century, excavations of the Roman Baths were documented in detail, describing the layout and construction of the baths and the systems for managing the hot mineral waters. In March 2012, archaeologists unearthed a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins about 150 metres from the Roman Baths. The hoard is believed to date from the third century and is one of the largest discovered in Britain.

The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987 and was later listed as one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe. At the 2021 census the population was 94,080 or 94,092. Bath has over six million yearly visitors, making it one of the ten English cities visited most by overseas tourists. Its attractions include the spas, Royal Crescent, Bath Skyline, Parade Gardens, Sydney Gardens and Royal Victoria Park, along with theatres and museums.

John Wood the Elder was born in Twerton near Bath in 1704 and baptised at St James's Church, since demolished; his father George was a local builder. He was educated at King Edward's School before working as a young man for Robert Benson, first Baron Bingley, at Bramham Park in Yorkshire, and later on speculative building on the Cavendish estate in London. By his mid-twenties he had combined an enthusiasm for Palladian classical architecture with an interest in ancient British history and, almost certainly, Freemasonry. In 1740 he surveyed Stonehenge and the Stanton Drew stone circles, and he wrote extensively about Bladud and Neo-Druidism. Wood set out to restore Bath to what he believed was its former ancient glory as one of the most important cities in England, and in 1725 he drew up an ambitious plan for his home town. Opposition from the corporation, churchmen, landowners and moneymen forced him to develop the scheme outside the existing city walls. He approached Robert Gay, a barber surgeon from London who owned the Barton Farm estate in the Manor of Walcot, and on those fields established the architectural style whose basic principles were followed by the architects who came after him. At Queen Square he introduced speculative building to Bath: he leased the land from Gay for £137 a year, designed the frontages and divided the ground into plots, which he sub-let to individual builders and masons. They had two years' grace to get walls up and roofs on before a more substantial rent fell due, and because Bath was booming most plots were reserved before the two years were out; Wood's rents came to £305 a year, leaving him a profit of £168. His works in Bath include St John's Hospital (1727–28), Queen Square (1728–36), Prior Park (1734–41), the Royal Mineral Water Hospital (1738–42), the North Parade (1740) and South Parade (1743–48), and The Circus (1754–68), many of them listed buildings. Queen Square was the first speculative development by the elder Wood, who lived in one of its houses; the Circus consists of three long curved terraces forming a circular theatre intended for civic functions and games and inspired by the Colosseum in Rome. Gay Street, which links the two, was also designed and developed by him. Wood has been described as "one of the outstanding architects of the day". The Bath Assembly Rooms were designed by John Wood the Younger in 1769. Assembly rooms had been built early in the 18th century, but a new venue for balls, concerts and gambling was envisaged between Queen Square, The Circus and the Royal Crescent; a proposal by Robert Adam was rejected as too expensive. Wood the Younger raised funding through a tontine, construction started in 1769, and the new or upper assembly rooms opened with a grand ball in 1771, becoming the hub of fashionable society and frequented by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the nobility of the time. The building of Bath stone is arranged in a U shape, with four main function rooms: a ballroom 100 feet long, the largest Georgian interior in Bath, a tea room, a card room and an octagon, lit by Whitefriars crystal chandeliers. In the 20th century the rooms were used as a cinema, and in 1931 they were taken over by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and restored; they were bombed and burnt out during the Second World War and restored by Albert Richardson before reopening in 1963.

The political situation that shaped Bath’s Georgian expansion was one of divided authority within the town itself. The result was a distinctive image for the city that has contributed greatly to its continuing popularity. Wood also designed buildings outside Bath, including the reconstruction of Llandaff Cathedral, Buckland House, The Exchange in Bristol and Liverpool Town Hall. Beau Nash was born in St Mary’s Street, Swansea, in 1674, the son of Richard Nash, a partner in a Swansea glass-works, and a mother who was a niece of the Welsh merchant John Poyer, later mayor of Pembroke. He attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School at Carmarthen and went up to Jesus College, Oxford, leaving without a degree; his father then bought him an officer’s commission in the British Army, but he found the demands on his time too great and instead entered the Middle Temple in 1693 as a student. He was selected from among the students there to take charge of the Middle Temple’s long-customary pageant for a new king, exhibited before King William III in 1695, and his success led to the offer of a knighthood, which he declined on the grounds of his lack of fortune. Queen Anne later offered him a knighthood, it was said, and he refused the honour again. Nash became Master of Ceremonies at Bath in 1704, a position he retained until he died, and he lived in a house on Saw Close, now at the main entrance to the Theatre Royal. His position was unofficial, but he had extensive influence in the city until early 1761, including regulating gambling; he managed and paid the musicians at the balls, matched ladies with dancing partners and even brokered marriages. He met new arrivals and judged whether they were suitable to join the select company of 500 to 600 people who had pre-booked tables, escorted unaccompanied wives, and restrained compulsive gamblers and warned players against risky games or cardsharps. He was notable for encouraging a new informality in manners, breaking down the rigid barriers which had previously divided the nobility from the middle-class patrons of Bath, and even from the gentry. The Corporation funded an elaborate funeral for him, and he was buried in the nave of Bath Abbey, not far from where a memorial was raised to him in 1790. He was a notorious gambler who was forced to move in with his mistress, Juliana Popjoy, because of his debts; upon their separation she was so distraught that she spent the majority of her remaining days living in a large hollowed-out tree, moving out shortly before her death to return to her birth home, where she died. His death caused quite a stir at the time, with Oliver Goldsmith moved to write The Life of Richard Nash as early as 1762. In 1739 John Wesley, preacher and founder of Methodism, tells in his journal and letters of a confrontation with Nash in Bath; Wesley’s journey to the town had been expected for some time, and Nash had made public his determination to confront him.

Canonical page: https://getsitesee.com/places/bath