Bath Abbey stands at the city's ancient heart, on ground that has been sacred for over two thousand years. The Celts worshipped here at one of Bath's three natural hot springs long before the Romans arrived and built their great spa complex next door. The Abbey itself, completed around 1499, is thought to be the last great Gothic church built in medieval Britain. It almost didn't look the way it does. The arresting west front, with its two stone ladders crowded with ascending and descending angels, was inspired by a dream. The Bishop of Bath reportedly woke one night having seen angels climbing between earth and heaven, and promptly had the vision carved into the facade.

King Edgar, the first king of all Britain, was crowned on this spot over a thousand years ago. The Abbey's geothermal credentials are equally remarkable: over a million litres of hot water still flow beneath the churchyard daily, and some now heat the building itself.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the Abbey's layered past, connecting the Celtic goddess Sul, the Roman temple of Sulis Minerva and the bishop's stony dream into a single, continuous story of why humans keep returning to this particular patch of ground.