Ten pubs in and around Bath feature in a guide to the city's drinking holes, spanning a 16th-century inn, a 300-year-old live music venue and a brewery taproom in an industrial corner west of the city.
The oldest is the Saracens Head at the bottom of Broad Street, built in 1713 and visited by Charles Dickens, according to the guide. The Marlborough Tavern, a 200-year-old pub minutes from the Royal Crescent, serves small plates and burgers and has a walled garden.
Less than four miles outside Bath, the 16th-century Hop Pole Inn shut its doors in 2018 and property developers loomed before villagers launched the Save the Hop Pole Inn campaign. It reopened at the beginning of 2025 with stripped-back interiors and a menu by chef Charlie Rawlings, with meat sourced from his family farm less than a mile away.
The Bell Inn on Walcot Street, described as 300 years old, was the subject of a customer buyout in 2013 involving more than 500 people, among them Glastonbury's Michael Eavis, promising live music, real ale and cider, artisan produce and support for Bath's artistic community.
Other entries include the Electric Bear Brewing Taproom, where queues form at weekends for craft beer and street food vans, and The Grapes on Westgate Street, where drinkers spill onto the street with cider from nearby Iford Manor or gin from the Bath Distillery.