Bath’s picturesque cobbled streets hide a darker history, and a new audio tour will unveil the city’s macabre past filled with death, debauchery, and dissent.
The University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) has introduced the Bath Death Walk, a self-guided 90-minute experience through the city center, accessed via a mobile app and podcast at cdaswalk.org. Created by visiting fellow Dr. Molly Conisbee, the tour aims to reveal the city’s lesser-known and grimmer chapters hidden beneath Bath’s polished architecture.
The tour includes stops at historic locations such as The Bell Inn on Walcot Street, where condemned prisoners were given a final bowl of gin before facing the gallows, and Ladymead House, which was established in 1805 as a refuge for women in the sex trade. The walk also revisits Sydney Gardens, the site of the failed Reform Bill riots of 1831.
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Dr. Kate Woodthorpe, the director of CDAS, expressed the center’s commitment to sharing Bath’s hidden histories with the local community and visitors in an effort to add value to the city.
For those seeking a guided experience, CDAS also plans to host live tours later in the year, and details will be announced on the Centre’s website.
The walk forms part of CDAS’s ongoing mission to bring academic research into public spaces, sparking conversations about death, dying, and the end of life, a goal the center has been working toward for two decades.