Exploring the city of Bath with kids

YHA Bath is an Italianate mansion called Fiesole, built in 1825. A gap in the trees in the grounds reveals Bath Abbey, and across the road, in Bathwick Fields, there’s a bench perfectly placed to enjoy the evening sun and the honey-coloured panorama of the city below. It’s also near the starting point of the Bath Skyline, a six-mile walk through the woods and fields above Bath, though you can do shorter sections, including a Family Discovery Trail. The hostel reception can provide a map.

The downside to Bath’s dramatic location on the steep hillsides of the Avon valley is that walking around all day can tire out the calf muscles of visitors from flatter places. We bought a First Bus group day zone pass, which cost £10, for the times when we didn’t feel like striding up another hill. The frequent U1 bus, bound for the University of Bath campus at the top of Bathwick Hill, stops right by the hostel.

On a morning of bright sunshine punctuated by sleet showers we visited the daffodil woods of Prior Park Landscape Garden. The huge 18th-century Palladian mansion, now a private school, was built by a self-made businessman called Ralph Allen. He made his name by reorganising the postal service, then became rich by quarrying the Bath stone that was in great demand during the city’s building boom.

Just wandering around Bath was fun as we spotted the details that humanise the apparently austere and regular architecture: railings, balconies, lamp posts; even in the Royal Crescent the doors are of many different designs. I learned a few new architectural terms, for example, ‘vermiculated’, which means that stone is carved to look like it contains worm casts and tunnels. There’s a lot of it on the outside walls of the buildings that house the Roman Baths.