AKEMAN PRESS Books

Description: Bristol is one of the best cities in the world for exploring on foot and the Severn Beach Line - once hailed as one of Britain's most scenic railways - is the gateway to some of its finest sights. The walks in this guide range from short strolls exploring Georgian crescents and city parks to all-day excursions through ancient woodlands, eighteenth-century estates and spectacular river gorges. Among the places visited are St Anne's Woods, Arno's Vale, the Floating Harbour, Royate Hill, the Frome Valley, St Paul's, Kingsdown, Montpelier, Redland and Cotham, St Werburgh's, Purdown, Stoke Park, Frenchay, Oldbury Court, Westbury on Trym, Clifton and Hotwells, Leigh Woods, Coombe Dingle, Blaise Castle, Kingsweston, Bishop's Knoll, Pill and Paradise Bottom, Patchway and the Three Brooks, and Ashton Court, while the final walk heads from Severn Beach over the Severn Bridge to the Wales Coast Path. With a brief history of the Severn Beach Line and a description of a journey along it, this book is an indispensable companion not only for anyone lucky enough to live near the line, but also for anyone who can catch a train to Bristol and explore it from there. AKEMAN PRESS Walks from Bristol's Severn Beach Line - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk

Category: Books

Delivery cost: 2.99

ISBN: 9780956098955

Description: Few cities have been so celebrated in print as Bath - from Smollett to Jane Austen, from Dickens to Fanny Burney, and from Sheridan to Georgette Heyer. Many other famous writers have passed through as well - Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a house in the Abbey Church Yard, Coleridge met his wife in the city, and in the twentieth century John Betjeman championed its architectural heritage. Even Shakespeare - or so it is believed - turned up to take a dip in the hot springs. These eleven walks look at Bath through their eyes, creating a vivid social history of the city over the last 300 years and bringing the past alive with unparalleled immediacy. Fully illustrated, and including in-depth accounts of the writers and works featured, they can either be followed on foot or - with the aid of historic maps of the city - read as a series of essays. AKEMAN PRESS Literary Walks in Bath - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk

Category: Books

Delivery cost: 2.99

ISBN: 9780956098931

Description: 'Bath is not only one of the best cities in the world to explore on foot; it is also surrounded on all sides by unspoilt countryside whose beauty is matched by its variety.' This new edition of the best-selling walking guide to the city does full justice to that unique inheritance. As well as featuring its main attractions, it leads the reader to hidden corners and panoramic views over Bath and beyond. As well as tracing some of Jane Austen's expeditions around the city, it also looks at the rigours of eighteenth-century social life, the architecture of John Wood and his successors, the city's industrial heritage and the story of how window tax affected the design of its buildings. Finally, a postscript looks at the transformation of the city since the opening of Thermae Bath Spa in 2006. This new edition has not only been fully revised and updated; the opportunity has also been taken to improve some of the walks. As a result, the first walk now includes a visit to a newly accessible courtyard overlooked by one of Bath's finest buildings, Walk 5 includes a riverside path and Walk 9 takes advantage of a recently-opened path with superb views. Walk 10 has been rerouted across a new footbridge to the historic Newark Works, and several other walks have been rerouted to include hidden gems or follow paths through green fields rather than city streets. Much new information has also been included, along with many new photographs. AKEMAN PRESS On Foot in Bath - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk

Category: Books

Delivery cost: 2.99

ISBN: 9780993398841

Description: Bath is surrounded by countryside of extraordinary beauty and diversity, much of it little changed since the city's 18th-century heyday. These 14 walks, all of which start in the city centre, explore this fascinating landscape, following ancient holloways and green lanes to visit civil war battlefields, lost pleasure gardens, country pubs, lost canals, iron age hillforts, Roman roads, abandoned quarries and much more. Three of the walks explore the course of the disused railway where The Titfield Thunderbolt was filmed over half a century ago, and the final walk tackles the thorny question of whether stone circles once stood on the hills above the city. The book also looks at recent controversies, and explains why local people fought to defend the setting of the World Heritage site. All the walks come with maps, and there is a section on practicalities, in which author Andrew Swift advises what to take with you. He is an enthusiast for Ordnance Survey Maps, and provides details on which to use. There is information on pubs and other refreshment stops included in the walks. Although the official starting point is in the city centre, Andrew Swift helpfully provides information about public transport for those who prefer to take a short cut to the edge of the city, or cut the walk short. AKEMAN PRESS Country Walks from Bath - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk

Category: Books

Delivery cost: 2.99

ISBN: 9780993398810

Description: Bath's pleasure gardens are gone beyond recall. Yet in their heyday they were as central to the city's social life as its assembly rooms, pump room or parades. Far from being genteel retreats for the horticulturally minded, they were where well-heeled visitors came to party. With lamplit groves and labyrinths, grottoes and supper boxes, and a seemingly never-ending round of concerts and circus acts, balloon ascents and firework displays, they were loud and lively. Although dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, there was often little joy for those who ran them. Ruthless rivals and fickle fashions, grand galas washed out by rain and spectacular firework displays ending in disaster meant their ventures often ended in failure and bankruptcy. Against all the odds, the grandest of them all, Sydney Gardens, opened in 1795, survives as a public park. Shorn of its attractions and cut in two by a railway line, it takes imagination to conjure up the shades of revellers treading its gravelled paths in search of excitement and exercise - though no swinging was tolerated on Sundays. In 2018, however, Heritage Lottery Funding was secured for the restoration of these historic gardens. To mark their reinvention as a pleasure garden for 21st-century Bath, over half the book is devoted to their extraordinary story. In this groundbreaking book, based on years of research, Kirsten Elliott not only sheds new light on life in the Georgian city and dispels many long held myths and misconceptions, but shows how much fun the history of Georgian Bath can be. AKEMAN PRESS No Swinging on Sundays - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk

Category: Books

Delivery cost: 2.99

ISBN: 9780993398827

Description: Ghost signs - those faded advertisements for long defunct businesses on the walls of old buildings - are among the most potent reminders of a bygone age - and nowhere are they found in greater abundance or variety than on the streets of Bath. Long a source of fascination for visitors and residents alike, signs for forgotten trades such as brushmakers, corn factors and perfumers still jostle for attention alongside modern shopfronts. Canalside coal wharves, a pump room where Jane Austen's brother took the waters, the sinister-sounding Asylum for Teaching Young Females Household Work, and a Regency tea warehouse - all still proclaim their ghostly presence a century or more after they closed their doors for ever. This book tells the story behind these tantalising echoes from the past. Trawling through old newspapers, deeds and documents to discover when and why the signs were painted, the authors have revealed a hidden history of the city. Over 160 ghost signs are featured, arranged by area into a series of short walks, with historic maps to guide you through the city streets. Ghost signs in the suburbs and surrounding villages, as well as in Bradford on Avon and Corsham, are also included, and the book ends with an intriguing look at Bath's lost ghost signs. AKEMAN PRESS Ghost Signs of Bath - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk

Category: Books

Delivery cost: 2.99

ISBN: 9780993398803