Map Of Bath's History

We are very pleased to announce our collaboration with the Historic Towns Trust, who are a registered charity, to produce a new historical map of our city. The Trust have already successfully produced and published more than a dozen historical maps of cities around the UK. These include Medieval London, Bristol in 1480, Oxford from Medieval to Victorian Times, and, the most recent, Cambridge. These maps sell through book and map retailers and have proved very popular. To produce an historical map of Bath we need to raise £15,000 which largely pays for the cartography and printing of the map. The History of Bath Research Group are contributing some of this initial capital and profits from sales will be split between the HBRG and the Trust. However, in order to help us achieve this target we are asking for contributions from our members and supporters.
Bath Map Fundraising Flyer

The New Historical Map of Bath

The history of Bath is well covered for Roman times, the Georgian period and later but there is a gap for the intervening period. Our map will cover these periods but also looks at Bath in the seventeenth century. It will be a double sided map similar in format to Ordnance Survey Land Ranger maps but at 1:2500 scale with a background plan of about 1900 and the main sites and buildings of interest throughout Bath's history highlighted in colour on the front. The reverse will show more detail of the seventeenth century and will also be illustrated with contemporary pictures of the city, mainly from The Victoria Art Gallery collection, and descriptions of the main buildings and areas of interest.

An Appeal

Our Members have been circulated with the leaflet shown to the left which invites them to contribute towards the funds needed to produce the map. We invite members and non-members to make a donation to this unique mapping opportunity.

Click the image to the left to view the document in full as a pdf file. To make a donation, print page two, complete the slip and send it with a cheque or complete a bank transfer to the Historic Towns Trust.

May 2023 Update

An Update on the Bath Historic Mapping Project

Thanks to the generosity of a number of subscribers in responding so quickly to the appeal for help with funding the project, considerable progress is being made with this complex undertaking.

The map for the first layer, which is Roman Bath, is completed. It brings together not only the ruins that we can see but the records of excavation of the Roman villas surrounding the city centre, the various mosaic pavements and foundations that are recorded but mainly covered up again and recent excavations for the Spa and in Walcot. Peter Davenport the archaeologist, much involved in the discoveries and author of the recently published Roman Bath, has already drafted the text on Roman Bath for the introduction to the map.

The death of local historian Mike Chapman is a sore loss for us but in the last year he completed the Survey of Old Bath map which is central to our understanding of the Elizabethan and Stuart city. Mike was trained in cartography by the army and working with Miss Holland of the Survey of Old Bath, used the Council's 1641 survey of the city as a basis on which to gather together the drawings in the nationally recognised collection of historic Deeds at the Guildhall. He brought together the measured site drawings from hundreds of Deeds and constructed a map which is accurate to within 12 inches. This will feature not only in the main composite map but in enlarged format on the reverse side and will be the first publication of this work.

John Ennor and I are more than halfway through examining over 1,000 watercolours of Bath in the Victoria Art Gallery collection searching for interesting and unusual views of Bath for the reverse of the map. Edward Bayntun-Coward has provided a photograph of arguably the best early copy of Gilmore's map of 1672 from his private collection. Many will know that it shows the facades of the famous boarding houses that sprang up around the spa. Miss Holland is working at identifying the exact site of each of these buildings to be marked on the main map.

The maps of Roman and Stuart Bath are now with the Historic Towns Trust cartographers in Oxford and we hope to have our first impression of how the earliest layers of the main map will look sometime soon. Edward Bayntun-Coward has provided a photograph of arguably the best early copy of Gilmore's map of 1672 from his private collection. Many will know that it shows the facades of the famous boarding houses that sprang up around the spa. Miss Holland is working at identifying the exact site of each of these buildings to be marked on the main map.


Then starts the substantial task of deciding how to overlay the development of the Georgian city but we have Mike Chapman's earlier works and advice of current experts in that field to help us along. Edward Bayntun-Coward has provided a photograph of arguably the best early copy of Gilmore's map of 1672 from his private collection. Many will know that it shows the facades of the famous boarding houses that sprang up around the spa. Miss Holland is working at identifying the exact site of each of these buildings to be marked on the main map.


I am sure that readers will understand the scale of this work because of the great riches of material about Bath with which we are blessed. I will provide another update later in the year. Edward Bayntun-Coward has provided a photograph of arguably the best early copy of Gilmore's map of 1672 from his private collection. Many will know that it shows the facades of the famous boarding houses that sprang up around the spa. Miss Holland is working at identifying the exact site of each of these buildings to be marked on the main map.
Michael Rowe
Chairman, History of Bath Research Group