The Stench! Air Foul and Fair through Bath’s History

Bridgerton glosses over it.  Jane Austen hinted at it.  If we’d been there, it would have been the first thing we’d have noticed.  Many things gave the Old Town its stench, such as dung heaps, cess pits, and coal smoke.  Foul-smelling air was thought to cause diseases, so it was just as well that the waters, and not the air, made Bath a health spa.  How bad really was the air quality?  What made it improve, and how long did it take?

To find out, come along and hear what Stuart Burroughs has to say. As the director of one of Bath’s tucked-away gems, The Museum of Bath at Work, he specialises in celebrating the everyday – and none is more commonplace than the air that we breathe.  His talk will span the centuries it took to make the air in our city more fit for human consumption, and why we can’t afford to be complacent now.