Bath

Bath, city, administrative centre of Bath and North-East Somerset unitary authority. It is situated in south-western England on the River Avon. Manufactured goods include printed materials, electrical equipment, and textiles.

Long known as a fashionable health resort and spa, tourism is an important industry for the city, which has the only natural hot springs in Great Britain. Bath is famous for its elegant 18th-century Georgian architecture, and it is largely due to this that the city has been designated an official World Heritage Site. Places of interest in Bath include extensive remains of Roman lead-lined baths (discovered 1755), the Abbey Church (16th century), the Guildhall (1775), and the Pump Room (1796). The Holburne Museum and Victoria Art Gallery are two of the city's cultural institutions. The annual Bath Festival is a leading musical event. Leading educational institutions in the city include the University of Bath (1966) and Bath Spa University (2005).

Bath has strong associations with the life and work of the English novelist Jane Austen. She lived in the city from 1801 to 1806, and two of her novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, describe with irony and wit the fashionable society of Bath around the turn of the 19th century.

The mineral springs attracted the Romans, who called the site Aquae Sulis and dedicated it to the Celtic deity Sulis, whom the Romans identified with their own god Minerva. Bath prospered for hundreds of years because its hot mineral waters were considered to have medicinal and therapeutic properties. The baths were later abandoned, and Saxons settled in the 10th century, followed by the Normans a century later. Although new baths were built for the medieval kings of England, they were not maintained and eventually fell into a state of disrepair.

In 1189 Henry II incorporated Bath by royal charter, and by the 15th century the city had evolved into a centre for the wool and cloth trade in western England. During the 18th century Bath became a fashionable resort for the upper classes; the layout of the city and its many fine Georgian buildings (including the famous Royal Crescent) date from that time. The city was severely damaged by bombing during World War II. The thermal spas were closed to bathers in 1978, while a long-awaited refurbishment was carried out. The controversial project, which cost an estimated £45 million, was finally completed in 2006 and the baths were reopened to the public. Population 84,100 (1994 estimate).