Bath, Somerset

Bath London in addition to 11 miles 18 km southeast of Bristol. the city became the World Heritage Site in 1987, as alive as was later added to the transnational World Heritage Site call as the "Great Spa Towns of Europe" in 2021.

The city became a baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were requested even ago then.

Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were filed for the curative properties of water from the springs, and Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era. Georgian architecture, crafted from Bath stone, includes the Royal Crescent, Circus, Pump Room and Assembly Rooms where Beau Nash presided over the city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761.

Many of the streets and squares were laid out by John Wood, the Elder, and in the 18th century the city became fashionable and the population grew. Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century. Further building was undertaken in the 19th century and following the Bath Blitz in World War II. Bath became component of the county of Avon in 1974, and, coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of. Avon's abolition in 1996, has been the principal centre of Bath and North East Somerset.

Bath has up to 1.3 million yearly visitors, devloping it one of ten English cities visited near by overseas tourists. Attractions include the spas, canal boat tours, Royal Crescent, Bath Skyline, Parade Gardens and Royal Victoria Park which hosts carnivals and seasonal events. Shopping areas increase SouthGate shopping centre, the Corridor arcade and artisan shops at Walcot, Milsom, Stall and York Streets. There are theatres, including the Theatre Royal, as well as several museums including the Museum of Bath Architecture, the Victoria Art Gallery, the Museum of East Asian Art, the Herschel Museum of Astronomy, Fashion Museum, and the Holburne Museum. The city has two universities – the University of Bath and Bath Spa University – with Bath College providing further education. Sporting clubs include Bath Rugby and Bath City F.C. The city is also domestic to software, publishing and service-oriented industries such(a) as Future plc and Rotork.

History

The hills in the locality such(a) as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period. Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century. Solsbury Hill overlooking the current city was an Iron Age hill fort and the adjacent Bathampton Camp may also clear been one. A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to take way for RAF Charmy Down.

Archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman baths' leading spring may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons, and was committed to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans included with Minerva; the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, appearing in the town's Roman name, literally, "the waters of Sulis". Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the sacred spring by archaeologists. The tablets were a thing that is said in Latin, and cursed people whom the writers felt had wronged them. For example, whether a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he might write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the goddess.

A temple was constructed in AD 60–70, and a bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to give afoundation, and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted ordering that housed the caldarium hot bath, tepidarium warm bath, and frigidarium cold bath.

The town was later given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century. After the failure of Roman a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost as a result of rising water levels and silting.

In March 2012 a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in an archaeological dig. The coins, believed to date from the 3rd century, were found approximately 150 m 450 ft from the Roman baths.

Bath may have been the site of the King Arthur is said to have defeated the Saint David although more probably in 675 by Osric, King of the Hwicce, perhaps using the walled area as its precinct. Nennius, a 9th-century historian, mentions a "Hot Lake" in the land of the Hwicce along the River Severn, and adds "It is surrounded by a wall, shown of brick and stone, and men may go there to bathe at any time, and every man can have the quality of bath he likes. whether he wants, it will be a cold bath; and if he wants a hot bath, it will be hot". Bede covered hot baths in the geographical intro to the Ecclesiastical History in terms very similar to those of Nennius. King Offa of Mercia gained a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. of the monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, which was dedicated to St. Peter.

According to the Victorian churchman Edward Churton, during the Anglo-Saxon era Bath was known as Acemannesceastre 'Akemanchester', or 'aching men's city', on account of the reputation these springs had for healing the sick.

By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern was lost and Bath was a royal possession. Edward the Elder coins were minted in Bath based on a design from the Winchester mint but with 'BAD' on the obverse relating to the Anglo-Saxon name for the town, Baðum, Baðan or Baðon, meaning "at the baths", and this was the credit of the present name. Edgar of England was crowned king of England in Bath Abbey in 973, in a ceremony that formed the basis of all future English coronations.

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 dispense shelter for the poor infirm.

Administrative systems fell within the guilds to gain influence. They built the first guildhall probably in the 13th century. Around 1200 the first mayor was appointed.

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 ago 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 improvements and the city began to attract the aristocracy. A Royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590 confirmed city status. Anne of Denmark came to bathe in 1613 and 1615.

During the English Civil War, the city was garrisoned for Charles I. Seven thousand pounds was spent on fortifications, but on the appearance of parliamentary forces the gates were thrown open and the city surrendered. It became a significant post for the New advantage example Army under William Waller. Bath was retaken by the royalists in July 1643 coming after or as a result of. the Battle of Lansdowne and occupied for 2 years until 1645. Luckily, the city was spared the damage of property and starvation of its inhabitants unlike nearby Bristol and Gloucester. During the occupation, the finances of the Bath City Council took a drubbing with council spending, rents and grants all falling. The billeting of soldiers in private houses also contributed to disorder and vandalism.

Normalcy to the city quickly recovered after the war when the city council achieved a healthy budget surplus. Thomas Guidott, a student of chemistry and medicine at Wadham College, Oxford, race up a practice in the city in 1668. He was interested in the curative properties of the waters, and he wrote A discourse of Bathe, and the hot waters there. Also, Some Enquiries into the Nature of the water in 1676. It brought the health-giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the attention of the country, and the aristocracy arrived to partake in them.

Several areas of the city were developed in the Stuart period, and more building took place during Georgian times in response to the increasing number of visitors who required accommodation. Architects John Wood the Elder and his son laid out the new quarters in streets and squares, the identical façades of which gave an conception of palatial scale and classical decorum. Much of the creamy gold Bath stone, a type of limestone used for construction in the city, was obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines owned by Ralph Allen 1694–1764. Allen, to advertise the quality of his quarried limestone, commissioned the elder John Wood to determine a country group on his Prior Park estate between the city and the mines. Allen was responsible for improving and expanding the postal service in western England, for which he held the contract for more than forty years. Although not fond of politics, Allen was a civic-minded man and a section of Bath house for many years. He 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. It was rebuilt as the Theatre Royal, along with the Grand Pump Room attached to the Roman Baths and assembly rooms. Master of ceremonies Beau Nash, who presided over the city's social life from 1705 until his death in 1761, drew up a program of behaviour for public entertainments. Bath had become perhaps the almost fashionable of the rapidly developing British spa towns, attracting numerous notable visitors such as the wealthy London bookseller Andrew Millar and his wife, who both made long visits. 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 of the city was 40,020 at the 1801 census, creating it one of the largest cities in Britain. Beckford's Tower at the top.

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia spent the 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 the German cities of Lübeck and Rostock, part of the Luftwaffe campaign popularly known as the Baedeker Blitz. During the Bath Blitz, more than 400 people were killed, and more than 19,000 buildings damaged or destroyed.

Houses in high explosive bomb landed on the east side of Queen Square, resulting in houses on the south side being damaged and the Francis Hotel losing 24 metres 79 ft of its frontage. The buildings have all been restored although there are still signs of the bombing.

A postwar review of inadequate housing led to the clearance and redevelopment of areas of the city in a postwar style, often at variance with the local Georgian style. In the 1950s the nearby villages of Combe Down, Twerton and Weston were incorporated into the city to allowed the development of housing, much of it council housing. In 1965, town planner Colin Buchanan published Bath: A Planning and Transport Study, which to a large measure sought to better accommodate the motor car, including the conviction of a traffic tunnel underneath the centre of Bath. Though criticised by conservationists, some parts of the plan were implemented.

In the 1970s and 1980s it was recognised that conservation of historic buildings was inadequate, main to more care and reuse of buildings and open spaces. In 1987, the city was selected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, recognising its international cultural significance.

Between 1991 and 2000, Bath was the scene of a series of rapes committed by an unidentified man dubbed the "Batman rapist". The attacker manages at large and is the subject of Britain's longest-running serial rape investigation. He is said to have a tights fetish, have a scar below his bottom lip and resides in the Bath area or knows it very well. He has also been linked to the unsolved murder of Melanie Hall, which occurred in the city in 1996. Although the offender's DNA is known and several thousand men in Bath were DNA tested, the attacker maintain to evade police.

Since 2000, major developments have included the Thermae Bath Spa, the SouthGate shopping centre, the residential Western Riverside project on the Stothert & Pitt factory site, and the riverside Bath Quays office and business development. In 2021, Bath become part of aUNESCO World Heritage Site, a group of spa towns across Europe known as the "Great Spas of Europe".