Bath Self-Guided Walking Tour

Welcome to Helen’s self-guided tour around Bath. During this tour, I will lead you around the UK’s only city to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I am a Chartered Geographer with 25 years’ experience of teaching secondary school students and leading fieldwork. I began my teaching career in Bath and have been visiting the city regularly ever since. Bath is an incredible city and I’m excited to be showing you around. We begin our tour at Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths, an area widely recognised as being the centre of the city. Here we’ll learn about the early history of Bath, from the Romans arriving in 43AD to the monks that worshipped at the Abbey during the Middle Ages. We’ll visit the Pulteney Bridge, famous as being one of just four bridges in the world to have shops across the full length on both sides, and Pulteney Weir below. Moving back towards the city, we’ll pass through the main shopping area to experience the impressive Georgian architecture of The Circus and Royal Parade. We’ll learn about how this part of the city has been used in many films and TV programmes, including the Netflix series Bridgerton and the TV programme McDonald and Dobbs. During the final section of our tour, we’ll learn how Jane Austen and Mary Shelley both lived in the city and used it as inspiration for some of their most famous work. We’ll also hear some spooky stories associated with Bath’s long history. We’ll end the tour at Thermae Bath Spa, which houses the only natural thermal hot springs in Britain you can bathe in. Throughout the tour, I’m going to give you some insider recommendations about the best places to visit, eat, and drink. One thing you’ll hear me say time and again is ‘look up’. Bath is a stunning city from ground level, but when you look up you’ll see far more than you ever realised was there! This tour follows a circular route covering approximately 3 miles. The land is relatively flat, although rises by around 20m in the middle section of the tour. A small section of the tour is accessed via narrow steps down from the Pultney Bridge. Many of the footpaths have been preserved as stone and cobble, so some of the route is a little more uneven under foot. The tour should take around 2.5 hours to complete, but it is also possible to walk it in shorter sections as you’ll never be too far away from the city centre.