CONTEXT 187 : MARCH 2026 33 INFRASTRUCTURE WESSEX nature depletion and climate change. Greening cities has become a popular approach, and to some degree a panacea, to increase biodiversity, regulate predicted increases in high summer temperatures, adopt carbon capture and storage, and improve air quality. But what would the impact be of this approach on the world heritage site? Bath was conceived as the deliberate creation of a beautiful city, integrating architecture, urban design and landscape setting, involving planting buildings in the landscape to achieve picturesque views and forms. The relationship between the hard urban form and the soft landscape remains one the key aspects of its value, significance and interest. Does this provide the basis for the wholesale greening of the city, and the planting of trees throughout its urban areas? Would this be to the detriment of the world heritage site, its outstanding universal value and the attributes that convey it? Would this be desirable, notwithstanding the physical constraints of the existing labyrinth of vaults that are ubiquitous in the central areas of the city? Perhaps an obvious example provides an answer to these questions. The Circus, originally Adrian Neilson is City of Bath world heritage site manager with Bath and North East Somerset Council. Bath Abbey (Photo: Diego Delso, Wikimedia) the King’s Circus, designed by John Wood the Elder and completed by his son John Wood the Younger is, along with the Royal Crescent, one of the greatest architectural masterpieces of the Georgian period and a major element of outstanding universal value. It originally consisted of an open piazza lined with pennant sandstone setts. Contemporary images clearly show how the grandeur of the architecture was presented, expressed, experienced and appreciated. Today the scene is very different, dominated by five very large mature London planes trees centrally located, their thick leaf canopy in the spring and summer months obscuring the architecture and open views across the circus. The trees are a divisive issue. To some they are a positive townscape feature; to others they detract from the iconic architecture and its appreciation. With the trees likely coming to the end of their natural life, the debate on whether they should be replaced is looming. Part of that debate will need to be centred around the needs of the world heritage and its outstanding universal value, and the understanding of how the Georgian architects and town planners deliberately and subtly integrated the urban with the green.
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