No.1 Royal Crescent

Lonely Planet review

Superbly restored to the minutest detail of its 1770 magnificence, the grand Palladian town house No 1 Royal Crescent is well worth visiting to see how people lived during Bath's glory days; staff dressed in period costume complete the effect.

The crowning glory of Georgian Bath and the city's most prestigious address, Royal Crescent, is a semicircular terrace of magnificent houses decorated with a continuous façade of Ionic columns. Designed by John Wood the Younger (1728-82) and built between 1767 and 1775, the houses would have originally been rented by the season by wealthy socialites.

A walk along Brock St leads to The Circus, a magnificent circle of 30 houses. Plaques on the houses commemorate famous residents such as Thomas Gainsborough, Clive of India and David Livingstone. To the south is the restored 18th-century Georgian Garden, with gravel taking the place of grass to protect women's long dresses from staining.