Bath's great late-Gothic abbey church beside the Roman Baths, its roof fan-vaulted and its west front carved with angels on ladders
There has been a church here since the 600s, and Edgar was crowned king of the English in it in 973. The Norman cathedral that followed was in ruins by 1499, when Bishop Oliver King began the present, smaller church in the late Gothic style called Perpendicular, all tall windows and straight lines. Its west front shows angels climbing ladders to heaven, after Jacob’s dream in the Bible. The monks left when the monastery was dissolved in 1539, and the empty church later became Bath’s parish church. Inside, fan vaulting (stone ribs spreading like opened fans) covers the roof; the nave vault was only added in the 1860s by George Gilbert Scott, completing the original plan. Tower tours climb 212 steps. The Roman Baths are next door in the centre of Bath, and Bath Spa station is under 500 m south.
