School Trips

The history of this area is closely connected to its modern value and popularity. The Romans constructed baths here, using the hot springs for their medicinal and therapeutic use. The Celts, who later invaded the area, used these baths as their shrine to the goddess Sulis (worshipped for her life-giving powers as well as her willingness to inflict curses on her devotees. enemies).

Bath was founded by Bladud, the eldest son of the legendary King Lud. Among the most significant Celtic works of art of Roman Europe is the outstanding sun god’s head that welcomed pilgrims to the temple of Sulis Minerva in Bath. Although Bath was in fact built nearly 1,000 years after Bladud, it was without doubt a major Celtic place of power.

The hills around Bath such as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period. Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century. Bathampton Camp may have been an Iron Age hill fort or stock enclosure.

The city of Bath, located in the Somerset County, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, attracting many tourists every year.
The history of this area is closely connected to its modern value and popularity. The Romans constructed baths here, using the hot springs for their medicinal and therapeutic use.

The Romans had a genius for appropriating local deities and blending them with their own gods. So, Sul became Sulis Minerva when they built their temple where the druid’s grove had stood. Sul, goddess of arcane prophecy, was tempered with the cultured arts and science of Minerva. Although still mostly buried under magnificent Georgian streets, the Roman ruins in Bath are unsurpassed in Britain.

The Romans started building their great baths and temple at the sacred spring soon after the Conquest, in the middle of the 1st Century AD. They named their city Aque Sulis and soon transformed the Celtic druids grove into one of the major therapeutic centres of the West. The Romans revered the Spring just as the Celts had done; by the 3rd century its stunning temple and luxurious baths attracted pilgrims from throughout the Roman world.

Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the Sacred Spring by archaeologists. These curse tablets were written in Latin, and usually laid curses on people by whom the writer felt they had been wronged. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he would write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the Goddess Sulis Minerva.

Bath is well known for being the site of the legendary battle of Badon 500AD, which the Welsh say was the twelfth and greatest battle fought by Arthur against the invading Saxons. Bath finally fell to the Saxons at the Battle of Dyrham Park just to the north of the city. Although the great Roman temple and baths were lost to flood and ruin, Bath continued as an important religious site with the founding of a Saxon monastery in the 7th century.

Nennius, a ninth-century historian, mentions a “Hot Lake” in the land of the Hwicce, which was along the Severn, and adds “It is surrounded by a wall, made of brick and stone, and men may go there to bathe at any time, and every man can have the kind of bath he likes. If he wants, it will be a cold bath; and if he wants a hot bath, it will be hot”. Bede also describes hot baths in the geographical introduction to the Ecclesiastical History in terms very similar to those of Nennius. King Offa of Mercia gained control of this monastery in 781 and rebuilt the church, which was dedicated to St. Peter.

In the 9th century the old Roman street pattern had been lost and Bath had become a royal possession, with King Alfred laying out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct. In the Burghal Hidage Bath is described as having walls of 1,375 yards (1,257 m) and was allocated 1000 men for defence. During the reign of Edward the Elder coins were minted in the town, based on a design from the Winchester mint but with ‘BAD’ on the obverse relating to the Anglo-Saxons name for the town Baðum, Baðan or Baðon, meaning “at the baths,” and this was the source of the present name. Edgar of England was crowned king of England in Bath Abbey in 973.

The crowning glory of Georgian Bath is the Royal Crescent, a semi-circular terrace of 30 houses overlooking Royal Victoria Park. Designed by John Wood the Younger between 1767 and 1774, the Grade-I listed terrace is the most important Georgian street in Britain.

In 1830, Princess Victoria opened the Royal Victoria Park. It has 56 acres of parkland, contains trees and shrubs from around the world and was designed by the City architect, Edward Davis. Victoria did not return to Bath as Queen. During her visit, it is said that a resident of Bath commented on the thickness of her ankles. The observation was duly reported to the Princess, causing her to shun the City for the duration of her reign.

Prince Albert did visit and on his arrival was met by a group of city dignitaries, all of whom were formally attired in dark robes. As they looked so similar that he was unable to identify the Mayor. As a result of this, Queen Victoria decreed that Mayors should wear a robe and Chain of Office. These items were presented to the Mayor of Bath, Frederick Dowding, in 1850.

Bath is in the Avon Valley and is surrounded by limestone hills as it is near the southern edge of the Cotswolds, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the limestone Mendip Hills rise around 7 miles (11 km) south of the city. The hills that surround and make up the city have a maximum altitude of 781 feet (238 metres) on the Lansdown plateau. Bath has an area of 11 square miles (28 square kilometres).

The city is famed for its rich history, Bath’s Roman roots continue to throw up surprises and as recently as 2007 over 17,577 Roman coins were found in the city centre during the building of a new hotel.

Architecture, textiles, literature, Americana, astronomy, medicine and sport are all key Bath school trip subjects that feature heavily in both the history of Bath and many of its key museums.

Bath has a number of famous alumni that have come through its various schools and colleges. Most recently it is Bath University (‘Team Bath’) that has had great success and is considered one of the UK’s leading sporting universities after helping to hone the skills of Amy Williams, Colin Jackson, Jason Gardner, Eilidh Doyle, Helen Glover and Jazz Carlin.