The City of Bath is a popular tourist destination in the South West of England and each year it attracts millions of visitors. The city is particularly well-known for its Regency and Georgian history and architecture and its links to Jane Austen. Tourists arrive by the bus-load every day to see the Pump Rooms, the Assembly Rooms, the Circus and the Royal Crescent. Though Bath undoubtedly flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries, it has a history that stretches back through the past. Rather surprisingly Bath has something of a dual early history; it has both a mythical and historical origin.

The legendary story of Bath’s origin lies with an early King of the Britons who may or may not have existed. It is likely that he would have ruled around 800 BC, but there is no agreement on this. While there is a chance that there once was a King Bladud, his story was embellished and somewhat fabricated in the seventeenth century. According to these stories Bladud was a young prince who was sent by his father to study in Athens. Whilst studying in Greece he contracted leprosy, a highly contagious skin disease. On returning to his father’s court he was either banished or imprisoned and later escaped (depending on the version of the story). Before he left his mother gave him a gold ring that would be a way to prove who he was if he was ever able to cure himself and return.

Bladud managed to find work as a swineherd but ended up giving the pigs his skin disease. In order to not be found out by his employer, he ran away with the pigs across the River Avon and ended up in the area that Bath is now. One of the pigs in his herd ran straight into a bog in the marshy ground and was covered in mud. As Bladud tried to pull the pig free he too was covered in the mud. When he had freed the pig he realised that the warm mud had caused the pig’s skin legions to disappear and that he had been cured of his leprosy. An alternate version claims that the pigs rolled in the warm mud in order to keep warm in cold weather. Bladud noticed that the pigs that did this did not suffer from skin diseases like the others – upon trying the mud himself he was cured of his disease. He returned to court, brandishing his gold ring as proof of who he was, and was welcomed back.

Bladud ruled as King of the Britons for twenty years. During this time he founded the city of Bath so that others could benefit from the healing powers of the springs. He supposedly dedicated the city to the Celtic goddess ‘Sul’. The story then becomes slightly more fantastic with Bladud lighting undying fires in her honour. Bladud was the father of King Leir, the eponymous king whose story was told in a modified form by William Shakespeare in ‘King Lear’.

Though Bladud’s story makes for a good legend about Bath’s history, it is unlikely to be true. There would definitely have been people living in the area where Bath now stands around Bladud’s time. There was human activity in the Bath area as early as the Mesolithic period and several Bronze Age barrows were found in the 18th century. However, the real origins of Bath lie with the Romans. It is likely that the springs on the site of the Roman Baths was originally a Celtic Shrine to the goddess Sul. During the Roman occupation of Britain, they came to know the places as Aquae Sulis, or the ‘waters of Sul’, but turned it into a temple for the goddess Minerva.

The temple was built in around 60-70 AD and was gradually built upon over the next few centuries and turned into a settlement. Temples and bathing complexes were built by the Romans in Aquae Sulis. They enclosed the spring and created several baths – the calidarium (hot bath), the tepidarium (warm bath) and the frigidarium (cold bath). The Roman settlement of Aquae Sulis was also given defensive walls in the 3rd century AD, likely at its peak. By the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th century, the Roman Empire declined and the baths at Aquae Sulis fell into disrepair and were eventually lost in the silt. Bath probably remained a small market area for the locals in the centuries afterwards but the main historical origins of Bath as a settlement can be found with the Romans.