Bath exists because of three hot springs: the King’s Spring, Hetling Spring and Cross Bath Spring. Their water begins as rain on the Mendip Hills, travelling deep underground before rising in the city at temperatures between 41°C and 48°C, gushing forth with enough speed to fill a bathtub in eight seconds.

The Celts associated the waters with the goddess Sulis, and after the Roman conquest a great bathing complex grew around them. The Romans identified Sulis with their own goddess Minerva, giving the settlement the name Aquae Sulis, or "the waters of Sulis". The Roman baths included hot and warm rooms, pools and spaces for exercise and socialising. People came to bathe, meet, worship and seek healing from the spring.

In the Middle Ages, people sought out the water for its supposed healing properties. St John’s Hospital was founded beside the hot springs in the twelfth century, and by the seventeenth century, a growing enthusiasm for the medicinal properties of mineral water was bringing wealthy visitors to spa towns across Britain. Royal visits helped to eventually establish Bath Spa as one of the great social centres of Britain. Visitors took the waters between concerts, dances, dinners and promenades, while the Pump Room, Assembly Rooms, pleasure gardens, crescents and terraces reshaped the city around them.

The belief that mineral water could cure almost anything eventually faded, but Bath’s relationship with bathing did not. Today the city once again has a flourishing bathing and spa culture, still centred on the hot water rising naturally beneath it.