The Roman name for the spa town which was built here in 43 AD was Aquae Sulis. The Roman occupation saw baths and temples spring up in the area, although it is known that the Celts had earlier used the site of the Roman Baths as a religious centre. Indeed, the Celtic goddess Sulis gave the name of the Roman settlement, which translates as “waters of Sulis”. The Bath area has the only hot springs in the UK.

The first of the existing Roman constructions to have been built is believed to have been the temple, around 60 AD, and the rest of the spa facilities were added over the course of the following 3 centuries. The city walls were constructed around the 3rd century.

There are theories that the Battle of Mons Badonicus took place here. This is the famous battle where King Arthur won out against the Saxons. The King of Hwicce, known as Osric, built a monastic centre here in 675.

Bath Abbey was the site where Edgar was crowned king of England in 973. The Anglo Saxons changed the name of the settlement to Baðan , Baðum or Baðon. This name meant something like “at the baths”, and led to the name the city currently holds.

The city was granted to the royal doctor John of Tours by King William Rufus, and he became the Bishops of Wells and Abbot of Bath at the end of the 11th century. This led to him moving to Bath and beginning work on building a new church. New baths were also built around this time.

In 1500 the then current Bishop of Bath and Wells (as the title has changed to) was Oliver King, and he undertook the task of rebuilding the run down abbey church. The work was completed just before Henry VIII closed down Bath Priory in 1539. The church once again fell into a state of dereliction, before being revived in the 16th century, during which time Bath once again became a popular spa resort.

In 1643 the Battle of Landsdowne, part of the English Civil War, took place at the north of the city of Bath.

At the end of the 17th century Thomas Guidoft wrote a study about the nature of the hot spring water which wells up in the Bath region, and this let to another period of spa tourism by the rich aristocrats of the time and another period of growth and prosperity for the city.

During the 18th century the Theatre Royal, Lansdown Crescent, The Circus, Royal Crescent and the Grand Pump Room were added to Bath, as it become one of the most fashionable and elegant cities in the country. As the 19th century began the city had swollen to contain a population of just over 40,000 and it was one of the UK’s biggest cities at the time.

Between 1936 and 1940 the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I lived in exile at Fairfield House. More than 400 people were killed and a huge number of buildings were damaged or destroyed during air raids on Bath in April of 1942.

The Thermae Bath Spa was opened in 2006, with a concert by The Three Tenors announcing the work in 2003.
Famous people who have lived in Bath include Jane Austen, Thomas Gainsborough, early camera inventor William Friese-Greene,

Jane Austen set Persuasion and Northanger Abbey in the city, while The Pickwick Papers by Charles Darwin includes a section on Bath’s spa waters.

Related resouce: Bath City Life.