This is the final episode of Footprints as Bathscape itself draws to a close early in 2026. And so for the first time ever, the Bathscape team gathered together in the same room to mark the end of an era.

I’m joined by Bathscape’s Manager Dan Merrett; Community Projects Officer and Walking Festival Organiser Lucy Bartlett and Volunteer Coordinator Emma Carlisle.

We bring you clips from our favourite episodes over the 5 years and use them to draw out the breadth and the depth of the work of Bathscape.

Clips in order of appearance

Promoting the 2021 Bath Walking Festival

Steppin Out Long Distance July 2021 - Ruth Pitter, Steppin' Sistas participant

PEOPLE AND BATHSCAPE VOLUNTEERS

Visions of Bath Feb 2022 - Andy Dinham, retired farmer Kelston Roundhill

One farm through one century April 2022 - Rachel de Fossard, ex-farmer's daughter, Manor Farm Langridge,

Heile Selassie in Bath July 2023 - Pauline Swaby-Wallace, manager BEMSCA

Surfing the Generations Sep 2024 - Abi, Princes Trust Programme Bath College and Mary, Forget-Me-Not Dementia Club, Twerton

Hedgelaying, Scything and Dry Stone Walling Aug 2024 - Dave Pegler, scyther

HISTORY AND HERITAGE

Full Steam Ahead! July 2024 - Karl Baxter, Ultramarathon runner

Radical Bath Oct 2023 - Professor Emerita June Hannam

Bath’s Industrial Past and Present July 2025 - Peter Dunn, ex-Stothert and Pitt employee and crane restorer

Death in Paradise March 2022 - John Payne, local author and historian

Geology of Bath March 2024 - Simon Hart, Managing Director and owner of Hartham Park Stone Mine

FLORA AND FAUNA

Beaver Spotting with Bevis Watts July 2022 - Bevis Watts, CEO Triodos Bank

This September, alongside our annual walking festival, Bathscape also hosted a Landscape City Conference looking at what the Bathscape Partnership has achieved and to inspire Bath's future. This is the penultimate episode of Footprints, and with the project itself drawing to a close, this episode shares a flavour of the day.

The conference was opened by Councillor Oli Henman who is the Cabinet Project Lead for Climate Change with Bath and North East Somerset Council. He was followed by two keynote speakers Andrew Grant and Dan Merrett before we hear from each of the three panels.

Clips from all of these are included and we also meet two Bath Spa 2nd year Architecture students Jazz and Marcus and hear their thoughts before and after the conference.

Keynote speakers

Andrew Grant, Director at Grant Associates, Chair Bathscape Board

Dan Merrett, Bathscape Manager

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Panel 1 Accessing the therapeutic landscape

Julie Barnett (Chair), Professor of Health Psychology, University of Bath

Lucy Bartlett, Community Projects Officer, Bathscape

Zina Abdulla, PhD Researcher in Green Equity, University of Bath

Panel 2 A dynamic landscape city in an uncertain climate future

Alex Sherman (Chair), CEO Bath Preservation Trust, Bathscape Board Member

Marion Harney, Associate Dean and Professor of Buildings and Landscape Conversation, University of Bath, Chair UNESCO World Heritage Site Advisory Board and Enhancement Fund, Bathscape Member

Funda Kemal, Module Leader and Architecture Lecturer, Bath Spa University

Panel 3 Land use in the setting of a landscape city

Tom Boden (Chair), General Manager for the Bath Portfolio, National Trust, Bathscape Board Member

Amy Coulthard, Market Development Director, EnTrade

Hamish Evans, Head Farmer, Middle Ground Growers

Claire Loder and Jude Rice, Co-founders of Bloomin' Whiteway

Links

Bathscape - www.bathscape.co.uk

Grant Associates - grant-associates.uk.com

Bath Preservation Trust - www.bath-preservation-trust.org.uk

University of Bath - www.bath.ac.uk

Bath Spa University - www.bathspa.ac.uk

Unesco World Heritage Site for Bath - www.bathworldheritage.org.uk

National Trust - www.nationaltrust.org.uk

EnTrade - www.entrade.co.uk

Middle Ground Growers - www.middlegroundgrowers.com

Bloomin' Whiteway - www.bloomingwhiteway.com

This episode takes the opportunity to explore Bath’s two relatively new universities. Each of them sits in a unique landscape.

The University of Bath, high up on Claverton Down, is a modernist 1960s campus surrounded by open skies, mature trees and sweeping views. It started life in 1966 as Bath University of Technology and was renamed the University of Bath 5 years later. It has grown from a student population of almost 1,500 in 1966 to just under 20,000 students now.

Bath Spa University is set in a former country estate with lakes, temples and a 'Capability' Brown legacy. It became a university in 2005. It has a student population of just under 25,000.

Ralph Thompson is the Senior Lecturer in Zoology and Programme Leader for Wildlife Conservation at Bath Spa University and we hear about the university and grounds from him.

We are also joined by one of his students Evie de Gruyther who has just finished her degree at Bath Spa University getting a first class honours in Wildlife Conservation. She completed her dissertation this year by studying the bat population on the campus. She talks about her love of bats and what it was like to study at Bath Spa.

Marion Harney is Professor of Building and Landscape Conservation and Associate Dean for Education in the Faculty of Engineering and Design at the University of Bath. She is also the Chair of the Bath World Heritage Site Advisory Board.

She shows us around the university campus talking about the early super-structure architecture and the landscape design which was written into the initial brief to be a permanent feature of the campus.

We walked around amid the hot sun and torrential rain and we were joined by Badger the dog!

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Bath Spa University - www.bathspa.ac.uk

University of Bath - www.bath.ac.uk

Bathscape - www.bathscape.co.uk

This month's episode explores Bath’s industrial past and the enormous changes in the landscape Bath has seen over the decades, since many of the factories have disappeared.

Bath’s architectural landscape is often only viewed as Georgian or Roman and we forget that it has had an illustrious industrial past.

We meet Peter Dunn, who from the age of 7 wanted to build cranes. He was taken on as an apprentice by Stothert and Pitt, Bath's 'Crane maker to the World', and he is responsible for restoring one of their oldest cranes, which now sits outside Newarks Works, where Stothert and Pitt used to be.

Following this, writer and local historian Paul Fisher talks about Bath's furniture manufacturing history and the modernist buildings which housed them. We start at Lidl and walk over to the Hermann Miller building on the city side of the river.

Finally we find out from Steve George what kinds of considerations are needed when deciding what can and should be built in this wonderful Unesco World Heritage city. Steve is Bath and North East Somerset Council's Principal Planner in the Planning Policy Department.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Stothert and Pitt

'Oldest Stothert and Pitt crane set to be restored' - BBC online

Paul Fisher - Walks to Works 2, Smallish Publishing 2025

Bath and North East Somerset Council Planning Policy Department - www.bathnes.gov.uk/local-planning-policy-and-guidance

The UK's largest free celebration of nature returns to Bristol and Bath from 7th -15th June and the theme of the festival this year is water.

So in this episode of Footprints, we celebrate the river Avon and the Kennet and Avon canal surrounding Bath.

The Canal and River Trust volunteers are out on their workboat Sulis twice a week, keeping the waterways clear of rubbish and weeds. We go along for the ride as they take their boat up to its summer mooring on the canal. They cover the river Avon from Hanham to Bath and then the Kennet and Avon canal from Bath to Dundas Aqueduct. We hear from Mike Ashman and his team including in order of appearance Bill, John, Trevor, Rich and trainee skipper Peter.

Our rivers have been in the news a lot lately, so Amy Wade, River Engagement and Education lead at BART (Bristol Avon Rivers Trust) tells us about the health of our rivers and what we can do to help.

Finally, we walk along the river Avon with Lizzie Venning from the Bath Riverline project. The aim of this project is to improve Bath residents’ connection with the river. We started out at Newbridge Park near the Park and Ride and next to Bath Marina and we walked all the way through to Batheaston where it was very easy to get a bus back to the centre of Bath, and then to the Park and Ride at Newbridge.

Joanne Radway the National Trust Community Ranger for Bathampton Meadows finished off our walk by telling us about the work they do there.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) - www.bristolavonriverstrust.org

River Hub - www.riverhub.co.uk

The Bath River Line Project - www.bathnes.gov.uk/bath-river-line

Canal and River Trust - www.canalrivertrust.org.uk

Waterspace - www.bathnes.gov.uk/waterspace-connected

Festival of Nature - www.bnhc.org.uk/festival-of-nature/events/

Bathscape - www.bathscape.co.uk

In this episode we explore three of the Downs of Bath. It's debatable how many there are in Bath - some say seven others say 9...

We start up on Bannerdown which sits up above Batheaston and has been common land since the early 18th century. Secretary of the Bannerdown Freeholders Association, Rob Kendall shows us around.

Next we head over to Lansdown to find out about the new Tramper Trail. Nicole Daw from the Cotswold National Landscape tells us about how they, together with Bathscape have developed a new accessible route around Lansdown.

Bath’s great architect John Wood the Elder is known for designing some of Bath’s beautiful georgian buildings, but it's less well-known that he was also convinced that there were the remains of druidic temples up on Lansdown. Local historian Mike Wiliams has done his own research on this and he shows us what John Wood had found and tells us whether or not they had anything to do with druids…

Howard Burton has written a book - Charmy Down: Bath's wartime airfield, peacetime village and Cold War secret. We hear about how it was used during and after the second world war and some of the stories connected to it.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Cotswold Voluntary Wardens - https://www.cotswolds-nl.org.uk/get-involved/volunteering/

Bannerdown Common - https://www.batheaston-pc.gov.uk/bannerdown-common

Disabled Ramblers

Cotswold National Landscape Lansdown on the Level

John Wood’s Moon Temple - https://www.bathscape.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/John-Woods-Moon-Temple-FINAL_2024.pdf

Bathscape - www.bathscape.co.uk

Join us this month as we explore some of the many ways Bathonians use the beautiful Bathscape in their free time.

The episode gets going at the saturday morning parkrun up at the National Trust skyline. Parkrun celebrated its 20th anniversary last October and there are now said to be 10m registered runners in 23 different countries. Parkruns are completely free. You can walk, run, jog, volunteer or spectate. It is a 5k course and takes place every Saturday morning.

Those who featured in this section were Bath Bats Founder Andy Mullett, Bath Parkrun Founder Helen Conner, Bath Parkrun Course Director James Gorman and Parkrun Master Runner Tom Hutchison.

We need a rest after all that running and so relax on the river with paddleboarder and architect Meg Collin.

Bathscape is well-known for organising the annual walking festival here in Bath and we thought it would be fun to hear from Andrew aka 'Abel' Lawrence who has written a book called ‘I walked every street in Bath’ .

We finish up at Odd Down Sports Ground where there's a charity called All Cycle Bath and West. Here Hannah Samuel shows us around the amazing variety of accessible bikes they have stored up there.

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

All Cycle Bath and West -

https://www.allcyclebathandwest.com/home

Bath skyline parkrun - https://www.parkrun.org.uk/bathskyline/

Bath Junior parkrun - https://www.parkrun.org.uk/bathodddown-juniors/

Bathscape - www.bathscape.co.uk

Bath skyline walk - https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/bath-bristol/bath-skyline/bath-skyline-walk

This year marks the 250th anniversary since Jane Austen's birth in 1775 and as she lived in Bath from 1801 to 1806, Bath will be celebrating! We find out from the Jane Austen Festival Director Georgia Delve what will be happening in the city this summer. Lizzie Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), aka actor Lauren Falconer talks about Jane Austen's time in Bath and the two novels she set in the city, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

We visit a writer's event at Bath Central Library and meet three local authors, Jenny Knight, J F Penn and David WIlliamson.

And Sam Drew from award-winning bookshop, Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights gives us his curation of books inspired by the city of Bath.

Books mentioned by Sam

Did he do it? from The Governess and other Stories, Stefan Zweig

The Frequency of Us, Keith Stuart

The Shape of Darkness, Laura Purcell

Hidden Nature, Alys Fowler

Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald

Outlandish, Nick Hunt

Credits

Music: Audionautix

Produced by Pommy Harmar

Links

Lauren Falconer, Actor and Performer

Jane Austen Centre and Festival

Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights

Bath Central Library

Bath Between the Wars, David Williamson, Hobnob Press

Pilgrimage, J F Penn, J F Penn Books

Bath Through Time, Jenny Knight, AMberley Publishing