So this was a tricky one. We live in Somerset, and had planned to meet up with friends from London. They suggested Bath, as they'd never been and it's one of those places you need to tick off, isn't it? They could get to it easily on the train and it was only an hours drive for us. The tricky bit was, what should we do when we got there? We wanted our friends to see the famous sights, but we were very aware of having 2 three year olds, a 7 year old and an 11 year old with us - not to mention 4 adults who wanted chance to chat.
Parade Gardens are now free to enter all year around
I suggested Parade Gardens to my husband who used to live in Bath, but he said you had to pay to get in... it ends up that as of April this year (2025), the entry fee has gone! Which is fantastic timing! You used to need to pay £1.50 per child and £2.50 per adult, which adds up for a family. So now that fee has gone, it's great to be able to have a picnic in the city centre.
Our friends were arriving into Bath Spa train station, so they had a 7 min walk to the gardens. Meanwhile we parked in Charlotte Street car park and had a 13 minute walk (plus the toddler walk time surcharge!). There are toilets in Charlotte Street car park, and one at the top of the steps to enter Parade Gardens, all of which you need to pay for (20p). We did also find we could use the toilets for free in Victoria Art Gallery which is on Bridge Street, opposite Pulteney Bridge. There was a charge to enter the gallery, but you could go up the stairs to the loos before you got to the place to pay, and someone at the door didn't seem to have a problem with us doing that.
What is in Parade Gardens, Bath?
There are scuptures in the park, along with lots of benches and path ways and plenty of trees for shade. There were quite a lot of people in the park when we went, on a very hot and sunny Saturday in June, but we still found a bench and a spot to ourselves under a tree - which was handy for shade, but also shelter when there was a short English shower! The river runs along the bank of the river, so we could let the kids run around the grass near our tree, and look at the water with them. There aren't huge expanses of open grass, like an actual football field or park, but the 11 year old was bouncing a tennis ball around and the toddlers had plenty of room to scurry or scoot on a bit of path.
We'd taken picnics and nothing entertains kids like snacking, so that was our opportunity to chat and catch up as somehow it'd been over 5 years since we'd met up (nothing like a pandemic and a couple of babies to screw up social engagements).
Pulteney Bridge
When we left the gardens, we turned right and headed just a minute or so's walk from the top of the steps to Pulteney Bridge, looking down at the small stepped waterfalls as we did. We also saw the Bath rugby stadium across the river. I thought Pulteney Bridge was famous for being one of only 2 bridges in the world with shops across it, but ends up it's one of 4 (but that's still pretty impressive). The others are the Rialto Bridge in Venice which is the one I knew of, but there's also the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Krämerbrücke in Erfurt, Germany.
Pulteney Bridge was also featured in the 2013 film of Les Misérables, as it's the bridge Javert jumps from.
So it's a very pretty bridge! And as such, cold cans of drink were quite expensive! We bought 4 cans of drink and a bottle of water and it was around £13. But meanwhile, really impressive ice creams in waffle cones were £3.20 each which is plenty, but not the worst I've ever known.
Once across it, we headed down some steps on our right, and walked around the outside tables of a Thai cafe (which looked lovely), to get to Beazer Garden Maze.
Beazer Garden Maze
When my friend first suggested a maze, I had visions of losing the kids and that didn't really appeal. But ends up this maze is actually made of paths flat on the floor. So it's not tricky to do, but it's still fun for them to run around, either the paths or the grass inserts. There are walls around the edge where we sat and watched them run, and in some instances, cartwheel.
Next, we went back across the bridge, stopped at the Victoria Art Gallery to eat an ice cream on the steps and use their conveniences and then headed up the A3039 (that makes it sound like a main road but it's just pretty city walking - we certainly didn't walk anywhere without plenty of pavements and lots of other people). We saw the Abbey from a bit of a distance, but didn't go closer just to save little legs. If we had gone to the Abbey we would then have been close to the Roman Baths. So we carried on to New Bond Street, saw some street entertainers and the shops to get a feel of Bath's centre, and then up Milsom Street.
When we reached George Street (the A4) we turned left, and then right up Gay Street to The Circus. This is a curve of houses - so very Bath style architecture when the houses are built in a crescent shape - with a green area and trees in the centre. The kids spent a surprisingly long time just playing on the roots of the big trees and collecting twigs (which they did actually bring home and make art with so it wasn't as bad as sometimes when they bring gravel back from a walk).
From here, we could look up Brock Street and see The Royal Crescent - the most famous arc of houses in Bath, but we were getting further from the station and little legs couldn't take much more. So we "saw" the Crescent from a distance and turned and all headed back. If you're sight seeing with more energy though, there is a very large open green space opposite the Royal Crescent which is the end of Royal Victoria Park, which has lots of space for kids to run around. This is actually a massive park, with a kid's play area which always catches my children's eye - but it's always busy. And it's so big (57 acres), it does actually take a while to get to the play area part and all the sections (it houses a Botanical Garden and adventure golf too) - to the extent that it does actually surprise me that all these patches of land are the same park.
So we'll tackle Victoria Park another day I think!
So, after the Circus we headed back to Charlotte Street car park and our friends went back to the station and we all made our way home. It had been a lovely day, despite the sad little ones with tired legs, and despite the shower. When my toddler was saying his legs were tired out, and I asked if he wanted to go back to the car, he really didn't want the day to end - so it was obviously entertaining enough for them!
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