(Text © Hugh Pearman. Photos © Edmund Sumner (www.edmundsumner.co.uk) represented by the View agency (www.viewpictures.co.uk). An updated version of the piece published in The Sunday Times on August 17, 2003, as "Lie back and think of the Romans").
TV crews were crawling all over Bath as I researched this article. Several of them were American. Bath, you see, is one of the few places in the UK outside London, York and Edinburgh that Americans ever go to. Bath may be a bit tatty, may have a pervasive smell of fried food, may have a summer population of new-age travellers with dogs - may be, in short, like an inland seaside resort - but in several respects it is perfect. It's got Romans, it's got Jane Austen, it's got lovely old buildings. Wells Cathedral, Glastonbury and King Arthur country are nearby. And now there's a story: they are reviving the art of bathing in Bath.
Not only have they restored and re-fettled two long-closed Georgian baths, but they've even built a big new one as well. And they didn't get just anyone to do it, but Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, architect of The Eden Project in Cornwall. Americans have heard of that, too, just as they've heard of the Three Tenors, who were initially due to open the place on August 7. CNN had the place covered. Since the big three then fell foul of high-profile construction delays which put things back to October, even more press coverage was guaranteed.
