The city of Bath sits in a bowl of hills at the sou­thern tip of the Cots­wolds, at a point where the River Avon forms a loop around a short pen­in­sula. It was here that the Ro­mans es­ta­blis­hed their city of Aquae Sulis, and it was here too that eighteenth-century so­ciety sett­led in the re­fi­ned lu­xury of the ar­chi­tec­ture we now call Geor­gian. This is the ar­chi­tec­ture that gives this com­pa­ra­tively small city its in­ter­na­tio­nal re­pu­ta­tion.

The built sce­nery is dra­ma­tic. When viewed from one of the hill­top van­tage points, the light gol­den local stone seems to be ever­yw­here, re­li­e­ved only by the green roofs of the Snow­hill Hou­sing Es­tate on the east side and the blue gas hol­ders to the west. Al­most all of what we see be­fore us dates from after 1725.

But Bath is not just a mu­seum of a long-passed so­cial pheno­me­non. It is a li­ving urban or­ga­nism, of just about the right size to live in. The Vic­to­ri­ans and Ed­war­di­ans built here, so­me­ti­mes in­de­co­rously, and con­tem­porary ar­chi­tects in­clu­ding Ni­cho­las Grims­haw, Aaron Evans and the Bru­ta­list Smith­sons have work worth vi­sit­ing in or near the city. This guide co­vers all of Bath's no­ta­ble ar­chi­tec­ture, with spe­cially com­mis­sio­ned pho­to­graphs, and an in­tro­duc­tion out­li­ning the so­cial and eco­no­mic forces that have shaped the city.