The Bath Skyline is an historic landscape of great archaeological interest.

As you walk along the footpaths, consider the age of everything around you from the footpath's route to the undulation of the ground beneath your feet.

When did it all begin?

Bath's hot springs have been a focus for human activity since prehistoric times. The Celtic god Sulis was worshipped there and after their conquest, the Romans developed the Iron Age sacred site into a temple complex. The shrine's past dedication to Sulis was augmented in favour of the Classical deity Minerva.

A hamlet called Aquae Sulis developed around the hot springs and the River Avon. Roman roads were constructed that brought pilgrims and traders to the walled settlement.

What can you see today?

Agriculture flourished on land around the town and field systems, some dating back to the Bronze Age, were extended. These small rectangular enclosures can be seen as earthworks on the National Trust Bath Skyline properties south-east of Rainbow Wood Farmhouse and at the north end of Bushey Norwood.

At Little Solsbury, to the north east of Bath, an Iron Age defended settlement or fort was built on the summit of the hill. Here timber-framed round houses would have been built in the Iron Age. There are also the footings of Romano-British stone farmhouses at Bathwick and Rainbow Wood. Iron Age families who had become prosperous under the Roman Empire and now grew crops for the population of the nearby town probably occupied these buildings.

By the 13th century, the area of Rainbow Wood Farm had been turned into a deer park and parts of the medieval wall of the park can still be seen. The bishop of Bath and Wells held the park by licence of the king and it was divided to form a deer park for the Prior of Bath to the west and the Bishop's park to the east.

Prior Park preserves the name of this medieval park. Ralph Allen used part of the land to build his grand house, now a school, and laid out a landscape garden in the mid-18th century. He became a wealthy man because of his commercial exploitation of Bath stone. His stone quarries can still be seen together with heaps of stone waste and the tramways that took the stone down into the town where the medieval houses were being rebuilt and transformed into the fashionable neo-classical 18th-century town we see today.

Many of the quarries in Bathwick Wood and around Bushey Norwood have their origins in the Roman and medieval periods.