The walk on Bath’s connections with Britain’s slave economy in the 18C will look at how Bath moved from a city entirely reliant by 1700 on its status as a spa and health resort, and transitioned from the turn of the century into a fashionable city and place of entertainment for the wealthy in Britain, including the sugar and tobacco merchants and those directly involved in Britain’s slave economy in the 18th century.

The walk will look at how the need for fashionable accommodation to provide lodgings for the wealthy visitors to Bath ultimately attracted wealthy entrepreneurs to Bath, such as James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos, and Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, who foresaw the profits to be made from the construction and provision of these new lodgings, which ultimately led to the building of Georgian Bath. Both the Duke of Chandos and Sir William Johnstone Pulteney were directly connected to and invested in Britain’s slave economy.

The tour, led by qualified Blue Badge tour guide Rob Collin (www.robcollinguide.co.uk), is an opportunity for locals and visitors to understand how the building of Georgian Bath, architecturally a new city, came from the wealth derived from Britain’s participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the slave economy.