During Roman times, Bath was a religious center where a Roman temple and bath house attracted visitors from all over the Empire. In the 18th Century, waters from the hot springs and the social scene attracted visitors from a newer Empire, the British one.
Prehistoric people probably were aware of the hot
springs. Legend has it that King Bladud, a refugee
from the fall of Troy and father of
King Lear, founded the town some 2800 years ago. A bath in the muddy swamps supposedly
cured his leprosy. In Celtic times the sacred spring was surrounded by
an oak tree grove, where druids worshipped the guardian goddess Sul. Upon
their conquest of Britain,
the Romans established the town of Aquae Sulis
in AD 44 and built the extensive baths complex and a temple to the goddess
Sulis-Minerva. Long after the Romans had departed, the Anglo-Saxons arrived and
in 944 a monastery was founded on the site of the present abbey. Throughout the
Middle Ages, Bath was an
ecclesiastical center and a wool trading town.
It wasn't until the early 18th century that Ralph Allen and
Richard 'Beau' Nash made Bath the
center of fashionable society. Ralph Allen developed the quarries at Coombe
Down and employed the two John Woods, father and son, to build the glorious Georgian-style
buildings one sees today. The life in Bath
at the time is graphically depicted in the novels of Tobias Smollett and in the
plays of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Jane Austen's novels Northanger Abbey and
Persuasion, both in 1817/18, portray with delicate satire and keen perception
the fashionable life of Bath about
1800. In the 19th Century sea bathing started to draw visitors away
from Bath to coastal resorts. By
the mid-19th century the city was thoroughly out of fashion.
Bath was bombed
during World War II and several buildings were damaged or destroyed.
Fortunately, most of its grand architecture remains to delight the thousands of
visitors who visit the city each year.