Hot water, gods and gambling: Tracing Bath’s 2,000-year evolution

This tour peels back the many layers of Bath's 2,000-year story, during which time it went from a sacred site for ancient Britons, to a spa and religious centre famous around the Roman Empire, to a Saxon Benedictine monastery where the first King of England was crowned, and on to the 1700s when it leapt to fame as the hottest resort for the aristocracy in the country.

It starts in Abbey Churchyard, close to where the main hot spring pours out a million litres of scalding water every day. In this space, the Romans built their temple to Minerva, the Saxons built an early Christian Abbey, and the Normans built a vast cathedral before the current Abbey went up in the 1530s. From here, you'll follow the circuit of the 9th Century city wall through the historic core with its original Saxon street plan.

You'll discover how this tiny city, just 24 acres in area, burst through its wall as Bath's fame exploded in the 1700s, leading to a flowering of architecture that earned Bath its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – the only UK city to be so named in its entirety.

On this 75-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• See the three baths whose waters drew ancient Britons, Romans, Medieval pilgrims, and Georgian aristocrats to the city
• Hear how an enraged Henry VIII sacked the brand new Abbey during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, leaving it a ruin for nearly a century
• Visit the Medieval East Gate, the city's secret riverside entrance, hidden behind the Empire Hotel
• Learn how Alfred the Great built the city wall on Roman foundations to save his kingdom from the marauding Danes
• Hear how a young James Wolfe recuperated on Trim Street before sailing off to defeat the French at Quebec City
• Discover why John Wood the Elder's first Bath commission descended into bitter accusations of paper-thin walls and leaking toilets

This tour reveals how a city, born of water and shaped by a goddess, became one of the world's great examples of urban reinvention.