BATH HERITAGE WATCHDOG

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Where you will go

English Heritage exists to protect and promote England's spectacular historic environment and ensure that its past is researched and understood. It recommends which buildings should be listed, and has a legal right to be consulted for any planning application affecting a Grade I or Grade II* listed building.

The Victorian Society has actively argued to save the Newark Works. Their website includes advice for fighting planning applications that put heritage buildings under threat.

From cinemas to chapels, leisure centres to libraries, and phone boxes to factories, The Twentieth Century Society campaigns for the preservation of Britain's architectural heritage from 1914 onwards.

This section of The Communities and Local Government website contains links to all the Government legislation that covers planning. Not for the faint-hearted, but the website includes many grounds for objecting to planning applications in conservation areas.

The Bath Preservation Trust was set up in 1934 to protect the character of Bath, and it now operates a number of specialist museums in Bath, including Number 1 Royal Crescent.

Click on their logo or the text link above for the Trust's website.

The Museum of Bath at Work displays a range of permanent exhibits dealing with Bath's industrial heritage, and has a large archive of documents from Stothert & Pitt that can be studied by special arrangement with the curator, Stuart Burroughs.

Click on their logo or the text link above for more information about the museum.

The Bath Record Office in the Guildhall, holds archive material from the 12^th Century to the present day. The archives contain many past Council records and the Archivist will assist researchers.

The Bath Chronicle is Bath's local newspaper, published weekly. Some of its articles can be read on-line, which is updated daily.

The Western Daily Press is local daily newspaper. Some of its articles can be read on-line.

Radstock Action Group is a group seeking to preserve the unique character of Radstock, in the same way that Watchdog seeks to preserve the unique character of Bath. If you have the time and the inclination, give them your support. At the very least, take a look at their website and see what they are trying to achieve.

Canongate Community Forum is a group in Edinburgh, fighting what Watchdog is fighting in Bath, inappropriate developments in a World Heritage Site (postcoded EH8). Their comprehensive website is worth reading, and they will appreciate any help that can be given.

The Congress for the New Urbanism is a growing movement in America. New Urbanism recognizes walkable, human-scaled neighbourhoods as the building blocks of sustainable communities and regions. The Charter of the New Urbanism articulates the movement’s principles and defines the essential qualities of urban places from the scale of the region to the individual building.

The Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society seeks to record and, if possible, preserve Bristol's industrial heritage.

Like Bristol, Bath has a long and important industrial history, but very little still survives.

This website was set up just after the Holburne's plans were announced and the website explains the need to "Halt The Holburne". We also think that the current plans are totally inappropriate for a Grade I Listed Building in a Grade II Listed Public Gardens, and are happy to give this website some publicity.

The Better Bath Forum has been set up to allow the people of Bath to have their say on topical issues affecting the City. They hold periodic public meetings.

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Save Churchill House was our first campaign. Our petition collected 11,000 signatures and it has renewed public interest in heritage.

The original website has now expired, but we have rescued most of the photographic content, in memory of a fine building.  Click on the picture or here to view them.

Bath Aquaglass is a Bath-based independent business with an international following. They make a beautiful selection of glass jewellery and glassware, and at their Walcot Street premises you can watch the products being handmade.

This business actively supported the Save Churchill House campaign, and continues to support the Bath Heritage Watchdog.

Guy Douglas is an independent estate agent selling properties within Bath. He has lived in the City for twenty eight years. Many people will know him as the former publisher of the local guide This Month in Bath. His inside knowledge of this beautiful City is therefore hard to rival.

Guy has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Save Churchill House campaign and now advises the Bath Heritage Watchdog.

The Mayor's Guides provide a series of guided walks around Bath, exploring its heritage. All walks are free and no advanced booking is required. Occasionally, special themed walks also take place, usually in conjunction with an exhibition that is running.

Click on their logo or the text link above for more information about the Mayor's Guides and the walks available.

The Bath Blitz Memorial Project provides an in-depth description of wartime Bath. Amazing as it might seem, more of Bath's heritage was destroyed by the council's post-war developments than by all the bombs in WW II. Their website has a link to this website.

Click on their logo or the text link above for more information about what happened to Bath before, during and immediately after the war.

Douglas Clark, a Bath based poet (with his own Wikipedia entry) has promoted our website on his Links page.  I am returning the favour.

Click on his picture or the text link above for his biography and on-line poetry.

Robert Adam is a rarity - an architect who wants to design classical style buildings for Bath (and the rest of the world). Take a look at the examples of his work on his website. Even though they were not designed for Bath, many of them have "Bathness" (a term first used by Stephen Marks in a letter to the Chronicle).