City of Bath
Bath is a city located in the ceremonial county of Somerset, in the southwest of England, 97 miles west of London. It is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The city was established 43 AD as a Latin spa resort called Aquae Sulis, the waters of Sulis. The Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the river Avon, around hot springs.
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The resort gained great popularity during the Georgian era, as well as a heritage of exquisite Georgian architecture with Bath Stone as construction material. It is both a sports' and a cultural venue with theaters and museums, thus a great center of tourism. It has two universities and several colleges and schools.
The main spring at Bath was used as a shrine by Celts. The structure of the Roman rests upon foundation of oak piles, stone and lead, with a 2nd century built barrel vault. It housed the calidarium (the hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath) and frigidarium (cold bath). The building reflects the Greek and Roman majesty of corinthic capitel pilasters, column galleries and triangle tympanums, a terrace with statues.
Also pertaining to the Bath complex, the Grand Pump Room in the Abbey Church Yard, with its north colonnade of 9 bays and Ionic columns is a Grade I listed building. The Great Baths also house a museum with Roman artifacts and objects thrown into the Sacred Spring as offerings to the goddess Minerva Sulis, a vast collection of Roman coins and a gilt bronze head of the goddess.
The Georgian influence is reflected by the Royal Crescent, a residential road of 30 houses, laid out in a monumental half-circle, built in the second half of the 18th century. The complex is a harmonious cluster of Georgian buildings, with a curved facade of 3 floor houses decorated with Ionic columns, on a rusticated masonry ground floor.
Along with the King's Theater, with its Palladian influences, the Royal Crescent was designed by architect John Wood the Younger and reflects his interest in Masonic symbolism.
Towering in proximity of the Roman Bath, the Bath Abbey is a large and gorgeous example of the English specific Perpendicular Gothic style. It was founded in the 7th century and rebuilt between the 12th and 16th century.
Cruciform in plan, the Bath Abbey features one square, so-called Tudor style tower with pinnacles on the corners. The West Front is a monumental Gothic window, a stained glass curtain with tracery, in a frame of stone. The clerestory is also opened through pointed arch windows and supported by the graceful upper part of flying buttresses. The interior is distinguished by the vaulting of the high aisle, a rib network system called fan vaulting, peculiar to English Gothic architecture. It has the delicate and elaborate, slightly vegetal appearance of rounded fans, surrounding the heraldic crest.
The city of Bath is a delightful blend of picturesque neo-classical and elegant Palladian style. Also remarkable are the city's bridges, from graceful iron-cast bridges to medieval-looking bridges, such as Pulteney Bridge, a cluster of small buildings seen from the north and a harmonious facade seen from the south, suspended over the River Avon, inspired by the Rialto Bridge in Venice.