Death Walk:Whet your appetite for the macabre

As Halloween approaches, we thought it apt to explore Bath’s darker side. From chilling crimes to stories of early deaths, the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society’s Death Walk (CDAS) takes users on a spine-tingling tour that unveils Bath’s elegant Georgian face and sheds light on its more macabre past. Joanna Lewis takes a step back in time to learn more…

There’s tales of condemned prisoners at The Bell Inn on Walcot Street, where they were once given a final bow of gin en route to the gallows, of refuge given at Ladymead House to so-called ‘fallen women’ involved in sex work, fiery protests at Sydney Gardens against the failed Reform Bill of 1831, and Bath’s first two recorded victims of the first cholera epidemic in 1832. The medieval Bishop of Bath and Wells also makes an appearance, as do the navvies who lost their lives building the Great Western Railway, among many others.

The CDAS’s recently launched Death Walk, available via a dedicated podcast and mobile app, is certainly macabre.

“We wanted to explore some aspects of dying and death in the city, to get a glimpse of how the end of life was experienced by Bath residents and visitors over the centuries,” explains Dr Kate Woodthorpe, director of CDAS.

The CDAS is a world-leading research centre at the University of Bath that examines the social, political, and cultural aspects of death and dying. The Death Walk is part of CDAS’s broader mission to connect academic research with real-world conversations about death, dying, and the end of life, topics the centre has been pioneering for 20 years.

The walk takes around 90-minutes to complete, offering a darker perspective on the city, shifting the focus from Romans and Georgians to tales of illness, death, crime, and Bath’s dark underbelly.

“Different causes of death, various crimes, and how people were remembered, or indeed not remembered, such as those given pauper burials, can reveal a huge amount about the social history of a place, shining a light on how people lived, worked, and understood their world and times – so the walk is as much about life as it is death,” Kate says.

Death Walk route

The walk dips into fascinating tales of Bath’s history from Roman to the 20th century, and is designed to be as accessible as possible, following a primarily pavement-based route.

It starts at the Victoria Art Gallery, before winding its way to Bath Abbey, the Holburne Museum and Sydney Gardens, sites of interest along Walcot Street, Queen’s Square, the site of the former St. John’s Hospital, before concluding at Bog Island, a former public toilet then nightclub near Parade Gardens.

Kate says that people who go on the walk can expect stories of the city that might just cast a different light on some of the famous sights, reminding us that, beyond the beautiful architecture and landscapes we are so lucky to enjoy, there lie stories of dying, death, and crime.

“Bath is of course associated with its famous Roman Baths and healing waters, tourism, pleasure, and leisure, a place to see and be seen, especially during its heyday in the 18th and early 19th centuries,” Kate notes. “But it is worth remembering that many people travelled to Bath in desperate search of a cure for their ailments, so in a sense, sickness and death are also written into the fabric of its story.”

The Death Walk is designed to showcase the realities of urban life in Bath’s past, a city of industry, mining, servants, and workers.

“The wealthy and leisured were able to enjoy their time in the city because of the hard work of thousands, often a ‘hidden’ workforce, keeping everything going,” Kate explains. “But social hierarchies were very rigid in the past, and the walk also shows how people could slide up and down the social scale, and how bad luck, old age, and ill-health could dramatically change people’s circumstances.”

So, as we approach Halloween, any particularly gruesome highlights of the Death Walk?

“Perhaps not gruesome, but sad and ghostly enough for Halloween, is the story of Frances ‘Fanny’ Braddock, who took her own life in 1731, having squandered her fortune through gambling debts. Eighteenth-century society could be very judgmental, particularly about the behaviour of young women, and perhaps ending her life felt like the only way out for a once financially independent young woman. She would have had few options for work or making a good marriage, once her reputation was ‘ruined.’ She is said to haunt Queen Square to this day,” Kate says.

Bath’s deathly heritage

The Death Walk was created by Molly Conisbee, whose research focuses on the social history of dying and death. Inspiration for creating the walk came from similar walks that have been established in other historic cities like York.

Kate notes that most urban areas in Britain boast a dark and grizzly past, with high levels of child mortality and intense periods of epidemic and sickness, often due to overcrowding, poverty, and poor sanitation.

“One of the exciting things about walking our streets is noticing the overlooked and every day, a faded street sign, a mason’s mark carved into the wall, an ancient piece of graffiti, reminding us of those who came before us,” Kate comments.

While providing a fascinating glimpse into some of Bath’s grizzlier past, the Death Walk only touches on a few of the city’s more macabre stories.

The Death Walk is designed to showcase the realities of urban life in Bath’s past, a city of industry, mining, servants, and workers.

“We wanted to give people a flavour of the complexity and richness of this perhaps overlooked part of the city’s past, but there are many, many more stories to be told and discovered. Perhaps a Death Walk Part II is needed?” Kate muses.

What the walk does do is foreground an aspect of the past that was very present for our ancestors: high mortality rates.

“Until well into the 20th century, people were closer to the daily realities of dying and death than most of us are today,” Kate says.

“Taking a moment to reflect on this is part of our shared story, inviting us to think compassionately about the difficulties, but also the resilience, of those who went before us.

“Perhaps most pointedly of all, the Death Walk reminds us that we are all just a fleeting part of this city’s heritage and future.

“We hope the walk gives people a chance to take stock of their surroundings and reflect on the lives and deaths of those who inhabited this very special place before us.”

After all, as Kate notes, death is “one of the few things we all share in common.”