48 hours in BATH

As Bath celebrates 250 years since the birth of one of its most famous residents, Jane Austen, now is the time to visit. Rosanna Morris finds this buzzy West Country city to be an irresistible fusion of period drama and 21st-century pizzazz

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You can't really keep up with what happens in Bath. Almost daily, there seems to be a new unveiling, opening, or event. It's probably not far off what it must have been like in this West Country city during its Georgian heyday in the 18th century, when it became a fashionable resort, and the population swelled from 2,000 to around 30,000 people.

The city's popularity at that time was in part due to the efforts of Beau Nash, who put this medieval town and its once-important Roman spa on the map by developing public buildings, concerts and balls that rivalled those of London. Next up, Ralph Allen made his mark, using his fortune from revolutionising the postal system to quarry distinctive honey-coloured stone for the new Bath buildings as the city rapidly expanded. He also built the Palladian mansion Prior Park for himself, on a hill overlooking the city. Then there was architect John Wood the Elder, who designed Prior Park, and his son, John Wood the Younger: the men behind Bath’s iconic townscape, including Queen Square, the Circus, and the Royal Crescent. By the end of the 18th century, when a young Jane Austen first visited the city, the finishing touches had just been made to other landmarks such as Great Pulteney Street and Sydney Gardens. The transformation was complete. Very little development followed, as Britain fell into recession due to fighting the Napoleonic Wars until 1815.

Today, Sydney Gardens is still the place to meet, where you may see someone with a cinnamon bun from Landrace Bakery, much like you would have seen Austen’s contemporaries taking some air while tucking into a Bath bun. And much like the literary and arts scene was booming in the 18th century, so it is today – with the city attracting a high calibre of artists and writers, especially at the Holburne Museum, Theatre Royal Bath, and Topping & Company Booksellers.