Bath Museums & Attractions

The Roman Baths Museum - A must see!

The Roman Baths is the big attraction that is a must-see for most visitors to Bath. What you see here now is the Roman Baths complex built by the Romans that contained heated rooms, steam rooms, massage rooms and of course the Great Bath in the centre into which the hot spring water was channelled. It was all once of a much larger complex that included a temple and where visiting Romans could clean themselves and relax.

A visit here will take you into a museum area where Roman artefacts, mosaic floors, masonry and reconstructions help you get a sense of what the Roman site would have looked like. You can then roam around the different parts of what remains of the Roman baths today and see the tiles that would have supported a floor under which the heating system circulated, former massage and steam rooms, plunge pools and the aqua-coloured pool where the hot spring still bubbles to the surface. The Great Bath is the centrepiece of the site and is where Romans would have languished letting the mineral rich water envelop their already cleaned and pampered bodies. You can even see the old drains that moved water around the complex where the steam rises as the spa waters splash through and out of the site.

For your entrance fee you get an audio tour guide that you take with you as you wander around these ancient surroundings. By pressing different numbers relating to different places within the museum and baths information will be relayed to you via the audio tour guide. There is additional commentary in the form of Bill Bryson's ramblings and also additional material for children. Included in your ticket is a sample of the spa water which you can take in The Pump Room next door, an 18th century neo-classical salon, that is a popular restaurant serving teas and quality evening meals. It was founded by Beau Nash as the social heart of Georgian Bath. The spa water is drawn from an elaborate fountain, the King's Spring, by the "pumper" whose uniform has been recreated to emulate that that would have been worn in 1795 when the Pump Room opened.

The Roman Baths are open all year round, later during the summer season. Roman Baths, Pump Room, Stall Street, BATH, BA1 1LZ. Tel: 01225 477 785. Fax: 01225 477 743. Email: romanbaths_bookings@bathnes.gov.uk

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Thermae Bath Spa

If you want to wallow in the warm waters as the Romans did Thermae Bath Spa is for you! This is a modern spa with four bathing pools - including a fantastic rooftop pool with views over Bath itself. Spa treatments are available as well as use of the sacred Cross Bath series of steam rooms. You can hire robes, towels, and slippers and can just turn up and pay for whatever pampering experience you fancy. It's best to pre-book spa treatments though.

Open daily (except Christmas and Boxing Day and New Year's day) 9am-10pm, last entry at 8pm. There is disabled access. Check the link right for more information.

Thermae Bath Spa, The Hetling Pump Room, Hot Bath Street, Bath. Tel: 01225 331234.

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The Jane Austen Centre

One of the more recent attractions is The Jane Austen Centre on Gay Street. This is hugely popular and caters for the never-ending fascination people have with Jane Austen, her life and works. Jane Austen visited Bath and lived here between 1801 to 1806. She first visited Bath in 1799 at the age of 21 with her mother not long after she finished writing Northanger Abbey under its former title "Susan". Both her novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion use Bath and areas around Somerset as a backdrop. Bath's season and the etiquette with which the gentry conducted themselves was typical of that often humorously examined in Austen's novels and it is highly likely that Jane Austen found much inspiration from her stays in Bath.

The Jane Austen Centre is housed in one of the Georgian terraced townhouses on Gay Street leading up to The Circus. Jane Austen lived at 25 Gay Street during 1805. Its displays, including period costumes, and information take you through Jane Austen's life and work and the importance of Bath within it. The Centre is very active in all things to do with Austen and has organised a variety of exhibitions such as one displaying several costumes that were designed by Andrea Galer for ITV's adaptation of Persuasion.

The Jane Austen Centre also organises guided walks, "Walking Tours of Jane Austen's Bath" that take you to places where Jane Austen lived, walked, visited and shopped as well as places that were featured in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Tours run on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays and start from outside the KC Change Visitor Information Centre in Abbey Churchyard at 11am. The tour last for around one and a half hours. In September an annual Jane Austen Festival is held in Bath that includes Europe's largest Regency Promenade - where participants stroll around Bath dolled up in period dress - The Jane Austen Festival Regency Ball and dance workshop in The Assembly Rooms - where you can learn how to take part in the dances of the period - as well as a host of activities relating to film, music, lectures, walking tours and outdoor entertainment. Check the Festival website for up-to-date information on the latest Festival, link right.

The Jane Austen Centre also has a shop selling books, cards, stationery, lace and needlepoint with specially designed gifts. You can relax in the Regency Tea Rooms upstairs that serves tea, cakes and light snacks. The Centre is open every day during the summer from 9.45am-5.30pm. Check their website for other current opening times. The Jane Austen Centre, 40 Gay Street, Bath BA1 2NT. Tel: 01225 443000. Email: info@janeausten.co.uk.

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The Fashion Museum Bath

You can buy a joint saver ticket in conjunction with the Roman Baths for the Fashion Museum. The Fashion Museum is in The Assembly Rooms near The Circus. (It was previously called the Museum of Costume). The museum traces fashion over 400 years and was based on a private collection of Doris Langley Moore, a collector, costume designer and author. Early pieces include 18th century men's embroidered waistcoats and a ladies gown dating from 1742. The bulk of the collection stems from the 19th century when dresses were slimmer as seen in many a Jane Austen novel adaptation. The most diverse collection is the 20th century collection that includes works by the worlds' leading fashion designers, particularly British designers like Normal Hartnell.

The collection continues to grow and a Contemporary Collection is continuously being updated. Each year experts choose a Dress of the Year that they feel represents the most important new ideas in contemporary fashion. It's a fantastic museum that acts as a walk down memory lane for some, but as a reminder of how things have changed, particularly for women and how fashion has often reflected those changes. The Museum also puts together a variety of changing exhibitions looking at different aspects of fashion such as the 1977 exhibition that looks at how a seminal year for pop culture is reflected in photographs. Some of the exhibitions give adults and children alike the opportunity to try on replicas of costumes like corsets. It's a fantastic way to see what women have endured in the name of fashion!

Check The Fashion Museum's website for up-to-date details on current exhibitions and events.

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The Assembly Rooms Bath

The Assembly Rooms is one of the first Georgian buildings in Bath and was the social centre of Georgian society where much dancing and flirting went on. The building was bombed during World War II but was rebuilt and opened again in 1963. The Assembly Rooms are now owned and managed by the National Trust and there are four rooms you can see: The Ball Room, the Tea Room (also known as the Concert Room), the Octagon Room, and a Card Room. All rooms still have the purpose made chandeliers dating from 1771 - although they have undergone repairs and adaptations over the years. A part of one of them nearly hit the painter Thomas Gainsborough who lived in the Circus at one time. One of his paintings of the first Master of Ceremonies, Captain William Wade, still hangs in the Octagon Room.

The Fashion Museum is open every day except 25 and 26 December. Jan-Feb 11am-4pm. Mar-Oct 11am-5pm. Nov-Dec 11am-4pm. The Assembly Rooms are open to viewing at the same times as the Fashion Museum unless booked for other functions.

Fashion Museum, Assembly Rooms, Bennett Street , Bath, BA1 2QH. Tel: 01225 477173. Fax: 01225 477743. Email: fashion_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk

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Museum of Bath at Work

For a different take on Bath's history check out the Museum of Bath at Work. Here you can find out how everyday Bathonians have worked and lived over 2000 years through a variety of occupations including textiles, fizzy drink production, baking, bath stone mining, bookbinding and tourism.

Demand for Bath's furniture made by craftsmen in the city boomed in the eighteenth century and became world famous due to the city's popularity. Ocean liners, department stores and markets around the world sustained many businesses including those of Keevil and Son whose workshops have been reconstructed at the Museum. You can even see a unique example of a Royal Bath Chair that was originally shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 that was given to the Empress of France by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. The Museum also holds the Bowler Collection - a huge collection of paraphernalia that was rescued from J B Bowler's engineering workshops and fizzy pop factory that was based in Bath and traded for nearly 100 years. Thousands of items have been displayed in authentic Victorian settings related to all aspects of Bath's businesses.

The Museum of Bath at Work has a caf in which changing exhibits drawn from their archives reflect Bath's industrial, commercial and social history. A variety of lectures and educational activities are also organised and held by the Museum throughout the year. There is partial disabled access to the museum and group bookings are welcomed. There is also a seminar room that can seat up to 80 people for hire. Contact the Museum direct for more information or check out their website, link right.

Open daily Apr-Oct 10.30am-4pm. The Museum is only open weekends during Jan-Mar and November and closed for December. The Museum of Bath at Work, Camden Works, Julian Road, Bath BA1 2RH. Tel/Fax: 01225 318348. Email: mobaw@hotmail.com

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The Bath Preservation Trust Museums

The Bath Preservation Trust has several museums in Bath including No 1 The Royal Crescent, The Building of Bath Museum, Beckford's Tower and Museum and The Herschel Museum of Astronomy. All have admission prices that help to preserve this historic building. Check the weblinks right for more information.

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No 1 The Royal Crescent Bath

Number 1 The Royal Crescent is one of the most popular museums in Bath's centre. As the name suggests it is on the magnificent Royal Crescent that contains thirty residential houses built between 1767 and 1774. It is one of the best examples of Georgian architecture in the country. The Bath Preservation Trust has restored the interior of this townhouse, the first to be built in the Crescent, to show how the fashionable elite would have lived in the eighteenth century. Several rooms have been decorated and laid out as they would have been used such as the drawing room laid out for tea, the dining room were residents would have entertained guests in sumptuous surroundings and the gentleman's study where the men would retire for port and a smoke and a game of cards.

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Beckford's Tower

Two miles north of The Royal Crescent is Beckford's Tower, a neo-classical tower on Lansdown Hill. It was built by Henry Goodridge as a retreat for the eccentric writer William Beckford to house his precious collections of art and rare books. Within the tower today a museum is dedicated to Beckford's life and works as a writer, collector and patron of the arts. Beckford spent his later years living in Bath in Lansdown Crescent and wished to be buried near the Tower. However at first he was laid to rest in Bath Abbey, but later moved to be reburied in his self-designed sarcophagus on a hillock in the centre of an oval ditch near the Beckford's Tower as he wished.

The climb up the spiral staircase in the Tower to the Belvedere is worth it for the uninterrupted panoramic views of the countryside around Bath. Tel: 01225 460705.

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The Herschel Museum of Astronomy

The Herschel Museum of Astronomy is a fully restored Georgian townhouse on King Street in the centre of Bath. It was home to William Herschel, musician and astronomer, who discovered the planet Uranus. As well as seeing how the house would have looked in his time including telescopes that he made himself, you can watch a film in The Start Vault narrated by Patrick Moore that takes you through a journey in space and tells you more of the history of the house. This can be a fun attraction for astronomy minded families and holiday activities are often organised during school holidays.

Check their website, link right, for more information. Tel: 01225 446865.

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The Building of Bath Museum

The Building of Bath Museum looks at the architectural legacy left by Bath's renowned architects and how this transformed a provincial West Country town into a world famous Georgian spa town. It shows how classical design has inspired much of Bath's architecture and how the buildings themselves were built and what materials were used. There is a collection of authentic and specialist tools and hands-on exhibits.

Both No 1 The Royal Crescent and The Building of Bath Museum are open from mid February to the end of November. Tues-Sun 10.30am-5.30pm. They are also open on Bank Holidays. Tel: 01225 333895.

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