Bath is the largest city in Somerset, 97 miles west of London and 11 miles southeast of Bristol. The city became a spa with the Latin name Aquae Sulis when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon. Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century.
About Bath, Somerset in brief
Bath is the largest city in Somerset, England, 97 miles west of London and 11 miles southeast of Bristol. The city became a spa with the Latin name Aquae Sulis when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon. Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre; the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the curative properties of water from the springs, and Bath became popular as a spa town in the Georgian era. Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century. Bath became part of the county of Avon in 1974, and, following Avon’s abolition in 1996, has been the principal centre of Bath and North East Somerset. Theatres, museums and other cultural and sporting venues have helped make it a major centre for tourism, with more than one million staying visitors and 3.8 million day visitors to the city each year. There are several museums including the Museum of Bath Architecture, the Victoria Art Gallery, and the Herschel Museum of Astronomy. Bath City F. C. is a professional football club based in the city. Bath is home to Bath City Rugby, Bath City Football Club and Bath Spa University. The University of Bath has two universities – Bath Spa and Bath College – with Bath College providing further education. A hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in the 3rd century in an archaeological dig.
Bath may have been the site of the Battle of Badon, which King Arthur is said to have defeated the Anglo-Saxons in 577. The town was captured by the West Saxons in the 9th-century, perhaps using the land of Hennius, a lake in the area of Lake Nennius. The Romans probably used the area as a precinct in 675 by King Osric of the Hwicce, probably using the lake as a walled precinct. A Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century; Solsbury Hill overlooking the current city was an Iron Age hill fort and the adjacent Bathampton Camp may also have been one. A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down. A Roman temple was constructed in AD 60–70, and a bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. The baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost as a result of rising water levels and silting. In March 2012, a hoard of silver coins, believed to date from the 2nd century, was found in the Roman baths. The coins were discovered in about 150 m in the middle of the 20th century in a dig at the Bath Baths. The Roman baths were found to have been used to curse people whom the writers felt had wronged them. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen, he might write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the goddess.
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This page is based on the article Bath, Somerset published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
