Lecture - The Legacy of Spa Gardens- Bath Spa Gardens with Christopher Pound.

Gardens have always been an essential attribute for European spa towns. The illustrated presentation will explore how the principal spa gardens in Bath informed the architecture and development of the terraces and crescents in the city. Walking in gardens was an essential diversion from treatments at the mineral springs and baths. The gardens also provided places for exercise, entertainment and pleasure. Bath had several pleasure gardens and Sydney Gardens survives as the last of the Vauxhalls in the country. Spa gardens in Bath evolved from a formal style to take on a character drawn from a fashionable ‘picturesque’ approach. Many Continental spa towns included gardens laid out in an English informal garden style and some of these were called the ‘English Garden’.

Eighteenth century doctors in Bath realized that leisure and exercise made an important contribution to restoring and maintaining health and so exercise in gardens and setting of the city were essential parts of the cure. Accordingly, all the gardens with other green spaces, woodlands, the fabric of the city and attractive surrounding countryside are held to be a ‘therapeutic landscape’. This is an essential attribute for the eleven spa towns in the recent UNESCO inscription of ‘The Great Spa Towns of Europe World Heritage Site’.