Culture · Bath
Seven museums across archaeology, fashion, art, and architecture. Two are free. The Roman Baths is the anchor — the best Roman museum in Britain. The Holburne and Victoria Art Gallery cover the permanent collections without entry fees.
Stall Street, BA1 1LZ
The city's anchor attraction. The Great Bath, sacred spring, curse tablets, and Gorgon's head — all exceptional. Allow 90 minutes minimum. The best Roman museum in Britain accessible to the public.
Opening times and ticketsFuture home: the old post office, New Bond Street
Do not plan a visit. The Fashion Museum closed in 2022 when the National Trust took back the Assembly Rooms, its home for nearly 60 years, and it has had no public venue since. B&NES granted planning permission in May 2026 to convert the grade II listed old post office on New Bond Street into its new home; construction is expected to start in 2027 and the museum to open in Autumn 2030. The collection — around 100,000 items covering 1600 to the present — is in storage. Items appear in occasional temporary displays elsewhere, so check before travelling if the collection is your reason for coming to Bath.
Great Pulteney Street, BA2 4DB
Decorative arts, paintings, and silver in a Palladian villa at the end of Great Pulteney Street. Thomas Gainsborough's portraits are the highlights. The permanent collection is free. Regularly changing temporary exhibitions (ticketed). One of the most architecturally handsome museums in the South West.
Opening times and ticketsBridge Street, BA2 4AT
Bath's civic art gallery on Bridge Street, close to Pulteney Bridge. Permanent collection covers British and European paintings from the 15th century onwards — strong on 17th and 18th century work. The Gainsborough Bath portraits and Sickert paintings are worth particular attention. Free entry to the permanent collection.
Opening times and tickets12 Bennett Street, BA1 2QJ
The only museum in Britain devoted solely to the arts of East and South East Asia, in a Georgian townhouse a minute from the Assembly Rooms. Jade, ceramics, bronzes and metalwork across roughly 7,000 years. Small, quiet, and consistently the thing visitors say they wish they had known about.
Opening times and tickets19 New King Street, BA1 2BL
The house where William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, from the back garden, using a telescope he built himself. Preserved as a Georgian home with the workshop and garden intact. Twenty minutes is enough, and it is the most concentrated piece of scientific history in the city.
Opening times and ticketsThe Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, BA1 1JW
The only museum in Britain dedicated to the art of building a city. Covers how Bath's Georgian streets were planned, financed, and constructed — including a 1:500 scale model of Bath. Particularly interesting if you want to understand why Bath looks the way it does. Small, specialist, undervisited.
Opening times and tickets40 Gay Street, BA1 2NT
Dedicated to Jane Austen's time in Bath (1801–1806), when she lived at several addresses on Gay Street and Green Park Buildings. The exhibition covers her two Bath novels (Northanger Abbey, Persuasion) and her complex relationship with the city. Regency Tea Room on the ground floor. Popular with Janeites; less essential for general visitors.
Opening times and tickets1 Royal Crescent, BA1 2LR
A single Georgian townhouse at the end of the Royal Crescent, restored to its 18th-century appearance. Shows what a Bath townhouse of the 1770s actually looked like — furniture, decoration, and domestic arrangements. A focused, well-curated experience. Combine with walking the crescent exterior (free) for context.
Opening times and ticketsA full museum visit works better with two days — you avoid rushing and can return to favourites. Central Bath hotels put you within walking distance of all seven museums.
The Weekend Five
Picked from the live feed. One email a week, no filler.
Advertisement
