Discover Alone
“Can't swim, only stare.”
Roman Baths. Right, so you’re standing in the middle of Bath, Somerset, looking at a temple built between 60 and 70 AD. That’s older than your gran’s recipe box, and it’s still there. The Romans built this for public bathing, turning a natural spring into a proper spa town called Aquae Sulis. You can walk right up to the Sacred Spring, which still gushes hot water, but you can’t jump in. Why? Because of a nasty pathogen called Naegleria fowleri. So it’s a look, don’t touch situation, mostly. The buildings you see at street level are actually from the 19th century, so don’t get too attached to the roof tiles. You’ll see the temple, the bath house, and a museum full of cool stuff from the Roman days. It’s a massive tourist magnet, over a million people a year, and for good reason. It’s the real deal, minus the swimming.
Photo: Diliff, CC BY 2.5
Then Tom went looking for the oddest places around it.
Stop 2 · A few steps on
Thermae Bath Spa
“Roman towel, modern price.”
Thermae Bath Spa gives Bath's famous hot water a modern place to swim, with an open-air roof pool above old streets. Tom says the steam is a message from Roman bathers asking for their towels back. It is geology at work, though Bath's long bathing story makes the joke tempting. Natural thermal springs have drawn people to this part of Bath for centuries. The Romans built their baths and temple nearby, but Thermae Bath Spa is a modern visitor complex, not the Roman Baths. Its New Royal Bath joins contemporary design to restored historic spa buildings, and the present venue opened in 2006. The Minerva Bath and rooftop pool put warm spring water back into public use after a long gap in bathing facilities. Looking from the new building toward surrounding stone streets shows how a living city continues to adapt an ancient natural resource. This is a paid spa visit with entry and age rules, so check the operator's current booking, health and access advice before travelling. The main spa admits visitors aged sixteen and over; treatments have a higher minimum age. Follow pool and changing-room rules, and remember that rooftop conditions can differ sharply from the warm water. Do not turn up expecting to swim at the nearby Roman Baths, which are a separate heritage attraction. If you want the architectural story, look at the meeting of new glass and old Bath stone as you enter. Tom is still demanding his Roman towel. Give him a modern one. The pleasure here is using Bath's real hot spring while looking at a city that has found yet another way to live with it.
Recorded as: Heritage attraction.
From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w572837705Photo: Sarah Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Stop 3 · A short walk away
Jane Austen Centre
“I forged this invite, sorry.”
Bath's Jane Austen Centre sits in a Georgian house on Gay Street, near the streets that fed the author's sharp eye for social performance. Tom says he has been invited to a Regency ball, though the invitation is in his own handwriting. Even Austen might struggle to improve that character. The centre explores Austen's life, novels and the city she knew as a visitor and resident. She lived in Bath with her family from 1801 to 1806, and its fashionable rooms, walks and social rituals appear in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The centre's address, 40 Gay Street, gives the story a fitting setting, but this exhibition building was not itself Austen's home. Displays and costumed guides interpret Regency life; dressing up, quill writing and a wax figure add a playful side. Treat those modern activities as ways into her world, not as objects she left behind. The Jane Austen Centre is a paid attraction, and its operator recommends booking ahead. Check present admission and access details before you go. Allow time for the introductory talk and exhibition, then take a short walk towards Queen Square and the Circus to see how close the centre is to Bath's Georgian streets. If you are tracing Austen's actual addresses, use the centre's walking information and distinguish the surviving homes from places she merely visited. The nearby city is a useful second chapter after the exhibition. Tom's forged ball invitation will get him nowhere. A better ticket is the one that lets you step into Austen's Bath and then carry her observant gaze back out into its streets.
Recorded as: Museum.
From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w557083339Photo: william, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Stop 4 · A 5-minute spin away
Beckford's Tower
“Beckford's view, my bad map.”
Beckford's Tower stands high above Bath with the air of a man who built himself a private lookout and then insisted the view was entirely accidental. William Beckford commissioned architect Henry Edmund Goodridge to make this retreat in 1826–27, filling it with books, art and objects. Its beauty is real; so is the brutal source of the wealth that paid for it. Beckford drew income from Jamaican sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans and from the transatlantic trade in enslaved people. The tower's own museum tells that story plainly alongside his collecting and architectural ambition. He had moved to Bath after the collapse of his earlier Gothic project at Fonthill and used this high ground for a more private world. A designed ride once connected his Bath home to the tower and its surrounding landscape. Today the tower is a public museum with visits arranged by its operator. Go inside for the collections and interpretation, then consider the view outward as part of the same story of power and possession. A picturesque building does not cancel the exploitation behind it. The operator's history is unusually direct about that relationship, and visitors should give it as much attention as the architecture. I could invent a tale about Tom becoming keeper of the tower and misplacing the key before lunch, but Beckford's real history asks for a steadier voice. Save the joke for my clumsy map reading. Visit, look carefully at both the stone and its funding, and leave with the whole place in mind.
Recorded as: Museum.
From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w461143094Photo: Jodie Robson, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Stop 5 · Hop back in the car, 15 minutes
Farleigh Hungerford Castle
“Lead coffins, no ghosts.”
Farleigh Hungerford Castle stands near the Somerset and Wiltshire border looking peaceful enough, which is quite a performance for a place with sieges, family feuds and lead coffins on its calling card. Sir Thomas Hungerford began this fortified home in the 1370s; follow its surviving towers and chapel before the family stories become stranger than any invented ghost. Sir Thomas was the first formally recorded Speaker of the House of Commons, and his son Walter enlarged the castle in the fifteenth century. The inner court was a quadrangular mansion behind defences, while the outer court included a chapel. Today low walls and two tall corner towers trace that plan. The Priest’s House holds an exhibition, and a free audio tour helps put the different phases back together as you walk. The chapel keeps wall paintings, family monuments and stained glass. Beneath it, the crypt contains eight human-shaped lead coffins, some with moulded faces, still holding members of the Hungerford family. That is real history with no need for a storyteller to add thunder. The family’s Tudor scandals are dramatic enough too, though the ruins deserve attention beyond their worst behaviour. Pause in the garden and give the quieter masonry its say. English Heritage runs Farleigh Hungerford as a ticketed visitor site, with opening hours changing by season; it lists daily opening through late October 2026 and weekend opening in much of winter. Check the chosen date and any short-notice closure before travelling. A castle visit here can move from bright grass to a dim crypt, so bring steady footwear and a willingness to meet a few ancestors face to face.
Recorded as: Visitor attraction.
From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) w109371387Photo: nicksarebi, CC BY 2.0
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Over a million places across Ireland and Britain, all free. Explorer Tom has a story for nearly every one.