Bath Abbey

In Bath Abbey you are visiting a church that celebrated its 500th anniversary in 1999. However, hidden below your feet lie traces of earlier churches that take the history of Christian worship in this place back over a thousand years, while the Heritage Vaults carry a story of Christianity in Bath even earlier, to around AD 350.

Bath Abbey Heritage Vaults Museum opened in February 1994. Its purpose is to collect and care for items of interest associated with the Abbey, to preserve them for future generations and to offer visitors a walk through our history of the site. Little physical trace remains of the time before 1499, when building started on the present church, but the Vaults exhibition brings together fragments that survived, presenting a fascinating panorama of Christian history on a site which has been used for the same purpose longer than any other site in Bath.

However, do not be misled by its long history into thinking that this lovely building is simply a museum of past treasure. It is first and foremost the home of a thriving family of believers who gather here each Sunday to bring God their gratitude and praise, to find grace and forgiveness, and draw inspiration for daily living. Something of the vitality of their faith is reflected in the costly care that has been lavished on this beautiful building. Bath Abbey, with its great expanse of glass, has been called 'the Lantern of the West'.