Annual Review 2014/15

For learning, inspiration and enjoyment

Heritage Services

2014/15 at a glanceNumbers•£15 million income (turnover)•Net income per B&NES

resident: £29•Net income per B&NES Council

Tax payer: £69•Net income per staff member:

£43,000•£803,500 secured in grant-aid•1,209,000 daytime visitors; •44,400 guests attended civic

and private functions•41,000 people attended learning

workshops, community activities and Beau Street Hoard events

•25,000 valid Discovery Cards in circulation

AwardsThe Roman Baths:•won the CIE Tours (Ireland)

Silver Award of Excellence •was third highest rated nationally

in Trip Advisor’s Travellers’ Choice Museums category

•won Gold in the 2015 South West Tourism Excellence Awards Large Visitor Attraction category.

2014/15 was another very busy year. As a business we exceeded our profit target by £712,000 thanks to record visitor numbers at the Roman Baths and a strong performance by the museum shops. Customer feedback continues to be excellent, a tribute to the high standards of skill and dedication on the part of colleagues throughout the Service.

The year’s work has featured numerous externally-funded projects and you can read about these elsewhere in this report. Our acquisition of Gareth Pugh’s amazing creation as Dress of the Year 2014 and Grayson Perry’s self-portrait etching A Map of Days show our ongoing commitment to acquire the best possible collections into public ownership.

Community engagement has been dominated by the Beau Street Hoard activity programme but we also made major contributions to national programmes such as Museums at Night, Festival of Archaeology and Heritage Open Days as well as local initiatives like World Heritage Day and Heritage Open Week.

Highlights of the Year included:

•Opening of the step-free Temple Precinct walkway at the Roman Baths by TRH the Earl & Countess of Wessex;

•Visit by UNESCO Deputy Director General Mr Getachew Engida to celebrate the addition of the Roman curses collection to the UK Memory of the World register;

•Memorial by sculptors David Harber and Nigel Fenwick to Admiral Arthur Phillip, founder of modern Australia, unveiled by the Britain-Australia Society at the Assembly Rooms;

•Fashion icon Barbara Hulanicki OBE in conversation with journalist Hilary Alexander during Bath in Fashion 2014;

•World War One in Costume exhibition at the Assembly Rooms opened by journalist Kate Adie;

•Café of Europe and Great Spas of Europe conference attended by European spa town mayors;

• Installation of a major new visitor management system at the Roman Baths and Fashion Museum;

•Visit by Jordanian Department of Antiquities delegation to study Heritage Services’ business model.

Above left: Chair of B&NES Council Cllr Martin Veal, Lord Lieutenant of Somerset Lady Elizabeth Gass, Governor of New South Wales Dame Marie Bashir, and Mayor of Bath Cllr Cherry Beath, with the Admiral Phillip Memorial.

Stephen Bird, Head of Heritage Services

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Above: Dress of the Year 2014, by cutting-edge British designer Gareth Pugh.

Right: The Lambeth Swing playing at Museums at Night in the Roman Baths, May 2014.

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I am pleased to introduce the Annual Review 2014/15 for the Heritage Services business unit. The highlights on the page opposite can barely begin to describe the extent, quality and diversity of services given to over 1.4 million customers and service users during the course of the year.

The following pages of this report give only the briefest insight into the range and nature of activities undertaken by the Service, and of the diversity of the audiences that benefit from them. These may be visitors to our museums from around the world, diners and shoppers enjoying our restaurants and shops, businesses hiring our historic venues, local residents researching their home or family history, or students of all ages engaging with and learning from our unique archive and museum collections.

As Cabinet Member I was delighted to perform some official tasks for Heritage Services during the year. I particularly enjoyed opening the Modern Artists in Print exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery, and I was honoured to be part of the Roman Baths team that collected the Gold Award for Large Visitor Attraction of the Year 2015 at the Visit England South West Awards for Excellence at Weston-super-Mare.

I found the meetings of the Heritage Services Advisory Panel of external experts invaluable in giving me a perspective on the competitive world of visitor attractions in which the Service operates, and in February 2015 I was pleased to present the Service’s revised Business Plan 2015-2020 to the Cabinet where it was unanimously approved.

I would like to thank the front-of-house staff for the excellent service they give day after day, as well as those who work behind the scenes setting up for functions, hanging exhibitions, booking visits, counting cash, curating collections, cleaning buildings and leading educational activities. And I cannot finish without paying tribute to the dedicated teams of volunteers stewarding at the Victoria Art Gallery, cataloguing at the Record Office, working on collections at the Fashion Museum and delivering the Beau Street Hoard activity programme roadshows.

Foreword by Councillor Ben Stevens, Cabinet Member for Sustainable Development 2014/15

Above left: TRH The Earl and Countess of Wessex during their visit to the Roman Baths to open the Temple Precinct.

Above: Councillor Stevens, Pat Dunlop, Katie Smith and Stephen Clews collecting the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year 2015 Gold Award at the Visit England South West Awards for Excellence ceremony in Weston-super-Mare, February 2015.

Left: Opening the Modern Artists in Print exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery, September 2014.

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Exhibitions over the last 12 months featured prestigious private and public collections. Radev Collection Part Two, featured an outstanding treasure trove of late 19th and early 20th century French and British art, while Modern Masters in Print explored the work of four great artists: Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. This display of 56 stunning pieces from the Victoria & Albert Museum drew 9,000 visitors and yielded £21,000 in ticket income.

Other exhibitions celebrated the creativity and imagination of local artists. The relief paintings, monoprints, fossils and 3D map included in Jeremy Gardiner: Jurassic Coast shone new light on a 95-mile stretch of Dorset coastline that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Edwina Bridgeman: Ship of Fools was built around a full scale boat which visitors could climb on.

Beryl Cook: Intimate Relations opened on 7 March alongside Canaletto’s A Regatta on the Grand Canal on loan from the National Gallery. The combination of 18th-century Venice and late 20th-century British seaside humour brought a large uplift in visitors, aided by the simultaneous waiving of charges to Discovery Card holders.

Upper gallery changes included the loan of five 20th-century figurative paintings, amongst them a work by LS Lowry from Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. Francis Wheatley’s Portrait of Admiral Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, was lent by the National Portrait Gallery to mark the bicentenary of Phillip’s death in Bath.

One of our best 18th-century pictures, Johann Zoffany’s portrait of Sophia Dumergue, was refitted in an antique frame of the same date as the picture (1780s), thanks to a generous grant from the Friends of the Gallery.

Other highlights of 2014/15 included:

•89,349 visitors to the Gallery•61,795 visitors to the free permanent

collection on the first floor•2,007 children attended teaching

sessions and workshops •Sales of 17,596 day-entry exhibition

tickets plus 1,217 annual exhibition passes

•1,192 volunteer guide sessions worked, equal to 4,172 hours of their time

•Grants of £48,200 from the Art Fund, £15,300 from the ACE/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and £7,500 from the Friends of Victoria Art Gallery towards acquisitions by Grayson Perry (Map of Days 2013), Howard Hodgkin (Goanese 1990-91) and James Tower (Tree Form 1965-66 and Round Form 1983)

Jon Benington Victoria Art Gallery Manager

Victoria Art Gallery

Right: Portrait of Sophia Dumergue (detail) by Johann Zoffany.

Below right: The Warhol section of the Masters in Print exhibition.

Below: Map of Days (detail), etching by Grayson Perry acquired by the Victoria Art Gallery. © The artist and Paragon / Contemporary Editions Ltd.

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This year we welcomed and trained over 25 additional volunteers under a new project archivist in an externally-funded scheme to catalogue over 900 years of Bath Corporation records. Tens of thousands of documents have been appraised, re-packaged to archival standard, and over 3,500 have been electronically catalogued.

Our newly-designed website went live this year with many new images and we expanded our Bath Ancestors online database of 70,000 local family names to include all 1,869 men on Bath’s World War One roll of honour.

We loaned historic archive documents to World War One exhibitions at the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution, the Museum of Bath At Work and The Great War in Costume at the Assembly Rooms.

The number of personal visitors to the Record Office was the highest for nine years, reflecting greater awareness of the existence of the Archive Service both locally and nationally. Events to promote the archive collections included a display-stand at a family-history fair at

University of the West of England campus, Frenchay, and seven lectures by the Archivist to local community groups in Bath city, Combe Down, Lansdown and Shepton Mallet.

Our press-release on a 1750s weather-diary in our collections sparked interest locally and nationally with newspaper coverage and an interview with the Archivist on BBC Radio Bristol which was subsequently broadcast nationally.

Notable acquisitions included a sketch of Bath crowds at Peace celebrations in 1802, Chew Stoke village history photographs, and records of a charity for educating young chimney-sweeps in Bath.

We continued to work with partners in neighbouring Councils of Gloucestershire, Bristol and Somerset in preparing a bid for Heritage Lottery Funding to place our historic maps of Bath and district on-line.

Colin Johnston Principal Archivist

Bath Record Office

Top: Cataloguing volunteers happy to complete another box.

Above: Bath’s Great War servicemen now added to our online database.

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In a busy year, the Fashion Museum welcomed 95,507 visitors, with the Georgians: Dress for Polite Society exhibition of 18th century gems from the collection noted as their particular favourite. The ‘dressing up’ feature, using well-crafted replica Victorian dress, also proved a popular feature of a visit. There were new displays drawn from the outstanding museum collection, including stunning 20th century evening dresses in the Great Names of Fashion display.

The Dress of the Year 2014 was unveiled in March 2015 during the annual Bath in Fashion festival. This innovative scheme adds examples of the best in contemporary fashion design to our collection each year and, for 2014, Katie Grand, Editor-in-Chief of Love magazine, chose a wrapped plastic sheeting ensemble by cutting-edge British designer Gareth Pugh for the annual award (see picture on page 2).

The Museum has continued to work closely with Bath School of Art and Design at Bath Spa University, with fashion design students attending

lectures on dress history given by museum staff and visiting the museum’s Study Facilities as part of their taught course. We were delighted to hear that once again the Bath Spa fashion students triumphed in 2014 with Grace Weller taking the Gold Award at the annual Graduate Fashion Week in London.

Other highlights of the year included:

•Loan of Edwardian wax mannequins by leading manufacturer Pierre Imans to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge for its Silent Partners exhibition;

•Loan of Alexander McQueen ensemble from the ‘Hunger’ collection (Dress of the Year in 1996) to the Savage Beauty exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London;

•The museum’s longstanding volunteer group The Friday Ladies, who are all members of the West of England Costume Society and who have been assisting with a variety of collection care tasks for over 15 years, were nominated for the Chairman’s Volunteer Awards 2015;

•The museum welcomed expert volunteers from The Lace Guild to assist with cataloguing the lace collection as part of the ACE-funded Designation Development Fund project.

Arts Council England grant-aid received included:

•£57,500 from the Renaissance Strategic Support Fund for strategic forward planning;

•£90,000 from the Designation Development Fund to catalogue, store, conserve, and publish on-line objects from the lace and whitework collection and Worth-Paquin Archive

Other grants included £2500 from Creative and Cultural Industries towards a six-month Curatorial Intern post, and £500 from the Daphne Bullard Trust towards specialist conservation and mounting to display a 1920s Paquin evening dress in the Great Names of Fashion display.

Rosemary Harden Fashion Museum Manager

The Fashion Museum

Above: Grace Weller, fashion design student of Bath Spa University, who won the George Gold Award at London’s Graduate Fashion Week 2014.

Right: Wax mannequin by Pierre Imans (1910s), lent to Silent Partners exhibition, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Far right: Behind the Scenes gallery – late 1880s day dress displayed alongside the stored shoe collection.

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Key aspects of performance:•£15 million income (turnover)•Net income per Bath & North East Somerset resident: £29•Net income per Bath & North East Somerset Council Taxpayer: £69•Net income per staff member: £43,000

Financial performance 2014/15 +/- 2013/14 £000 % £000

Annual IncomeAdmissions 11,104 +6% 10,474Retail and other sales 2,043 +3% 1,984Room hire 490 +3% 474Catering 715 +4% 687Other income (note 1) 683 +13% 602Total 15,035 +6% 14,221

Annual ExpenditureStaff costs 3,597 3,309Premises and transport 1,232 1,223Merchandise for resale 928 932Supplies and services (note 1) 1,196 1,005Revenue re-investment 506 493Building maintenance 739 637Agency and contracted services 388 401Voluntary sector support 5 11Finance and debt charges 526 430Insurance 240 230Total 9,357 +8% 8,671

OverheadsInternal overheads (expenditure) -2,657 -2,401Internal income (recharges) 2,272 2,027

Net internal overheads -385 +3% -374

Net surplus 5,293 +2% 5,176% return on turnover 35% 36%Net surplus before internal overheads 5,678 +2% 5,550

Capital expenditureRoman Baths Development/Temple Precinct 452 531Infrastructure/conservation, incl. dilapidations 339 335Roman Baths Kitchen (café development) 19 -25Beau St Roman coin hoard 225 69Visitor management system 26 60Total 1,061 970

Notes: 1 includes ‘supplies and services’ expenditure financed from grants that are included under ‘other income’.

Heritage Services Financial and business review 2014/15

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Heritage Services operates as a business unit within the Council and prepares its accounts on a full absorption basis, including a full allocation of overhead and debt finance costs.

In February 2015 the Cabinet agreed the latest in a series of integrated rolling Business Plans that have enabled the Service to successfully grow both income and profit whilst also financing the significant increases in staffing costs, debt charges and the repair, renewal and maintenance costs that result from a substantially increased level of activity and investment.

As a result the Council has been able to improve the Roman Baths visitor offer and provide a quality of experience consistent with income expectations that is amongst the highest in the country. The latest Plan includes further medium-term investment in the Council’s heritage assets to ensure the continued delivery of key income streams.

Roman Baths’ visitor numbers had been expected to reduce from the record level experienced in 2013/14. In particular, the opening of the new Stonehenge visitor centre was expected to have a significant effect upon coach borne visitors, which represent c.33% of our visitors each year.

The year’s budget was therefore set at a level in line with the five-year trend. This was at the upper end of the range consistent with providing a high quality visitor experience, and consistent with the highest levels of Roman Baths’ visitor numbers ever achieved. However in 2014/15 numbers climbed yet further, exceeding by 2% the record set in 2013/14. These exceptional attendances in 2014/15 were consistent with many other major UK attractions.

As a result, the profit generated in 2014/15 also hit a record high of £5.3 Million, and has now doubled since Council formed the Service as a business unit. Turnover increased by 6% on

2013/14 and the key measure of profitability – net profit as a percentage of turnover – was sustained at the historically high level of 35%.

The Service monitors the key drivers of the trading position in detail throughout the year, and identified this significant in-year trend very early in the financial year. As a result the Council was able with confidence to reallocate the additional funds generated during 2014/15 to finance other Council priorities as part of the latest budget exercise

The latest phase of Roman Baths development, including significant improvements to the Temple Precinct, has reinforced the step-change in the quality of visitor experience that was begun by the earlier phases of development.

Over 70% of the income generated by Heritage Services comes from Roman Baths’ visitor admission charges. Variations in its visitor numbers and in the average spend by each visitor are the key indicators of financial performance for the service.

Roman Baths’ admission income in 2014/15 totalled £ 10.61 Million, £706k (7%) above target for the year. This was entirely due to increased visitor volumes (as the increases in price were budgeted) and came almost equally from individual and group visitors. The year-on-year increase of £631k (6%) was largely due to increases in price, as visitor volumes grew by only 2%.

Both individual and group visits were up on 2013/14, with group business seemingly unaffected by the opening of the Stonehenge Visitor Centre. Group visits were at record levels in 2014/15, totalling 340,000 visits and generating admission income of £2.8 Million.

Visits to the Fashion Museum in 2014/15 were maintained at previous year levels, and modest growth is planned in future

years as a result of investment in displays and visitor facilities. Visits to the Victoria Art Gallery fell by 3% year-on-year as a result of the imposition of charges for admission to the main exhibition gallery.

Performance MeasurementHeritage Services measures its business performance against comparable large visitor attractions nationwide through financial benchmarking organised by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA). The Roman Baths has consistently performed in the top 25% of all ALVA attractions for profitability over the last 16 years. During this period it has sustained a consistently higher profit per visitor and profitability ratio than other leading attractions.

In 2014 the Roman Baths again performed in the top 25% nationally for all 5 measures of profitability, demonstrating a level of return amongst the highest in the country, together with labour costs that were the very lowest of all ALVA attractions. The site also performed in the top quartile for admission income per visit and admission price yield; total attendance;

income per member of staff; retail sales per metre2, and average catering spend. The site is amongst the most expensive per hour of admission, with both admission and catering income amongst the highest per hour of admission.

This success has been achieved despite modest investment in marketing. In 2014 marketing spend by the Roman Baths was less than one third of the amount invested by the highest spending heritage attractions nationally.

Heritage Services as a whole again performed in the top 25% for key indicators of profitability and income, including net return on turnover and per member of staff and labour costs as a percentage of total income, which were still amongst the lowest nationally. Retail sales per metre² were again amongst the highest in the country, as was the average spend by each catering customer.

Richard HartillBusiness & Resource Manager

Visitor Numbers and Admission Income

2014/15 +/- % 2013/14

Roman Baths 1,023,969 +2% 1,007,625

Fashion Museum 95,507 0%* 95,922

Victoria Art Gallery 89,349 -3% 91,952

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Websites are now accessed as much on ‘phones and tablets as on PCs, so this year the Service has designed and built six new websites that are responsive to all of these platforms and make the most of the latest functionality. These promote the Roman Baths, Fashion Museum, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath Record Office, Bath’s Historic Venues and Bath World Heritage.

The Roman Baths and Fashion Museum reception desks introduced a new Visitor Management System in March 2015 to replace the tills. This improves the accuracy of admission transactions, assists in recording and reporting visitor numbers and income and gives the Service the potential to sell through agents such as the Visitor Information Centre. The next stage will be to add web sales.

The spring, summer and autumn marketing campaigns for the Roman Baths included a significant digital element in addition to advertising and print media. Video is becoming a powerful tool, so the summer campaign

included film footage of a couple enjoying a torchlit evening visit and dinner in the Roman Baths Kitchen. An accessibility video has been produced to demonstrate the Roman Baths’ new facilities for disabled people which include two new lifts.

Positive reviews on social media are becoming ever more important and he Roman Baths is one of the top things to do in the UK on TripAdvisor. The Roman Baths and Fashion Museum now have nearly 6,000 Twitter followers each and more than 16,000 Facebook ‘likes’ between them. The Victoria Art Gallery has nearly 2,000 of each.

The summer exhibition at the Assembly Rooms, The Great War in Costume – Family and Fashion on the Home Front, opened by Kate Adie, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war. It featured a rich selection of material gathered from the Bath area on the role of women in WW1, alongside popular outfits from the TV series Downton Abbey.

Marketing

Above: Roman Baths summer evening marketing at Bath Spa station.

Top right: Sheila Youd and Pat Dunlop collecting the 2015 CIE Tours Silver Award for Excellence.

Middle right: Bath Museums Partnership autumn/winter marketing graphic.

Below right: Leaflet in Mandarin promoting the Thermae Bath Spa / Roman Baths package.

The Fashion Museum and Victoria Art Gallery took part in the Arts Council funded partnership initiative Bath’s Museums Working Together which pioneered new joint marking initiatives to develop audiences for museums in Bath.

Pat Dunlop Commercial Manager

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Museums Shops

Although income short of the target, the total achieved (£490k) was still 3% up on 2013/14. The Pump Room and Victoria Art Gallery sites performed especially well, whilst the lower than anticipated levels of corporate hire and conferences at the Assembly Rooms, where a slightly longer lead time is generally experienced, is a reflection of the continued volatility of the economy.

The team won the Best Event Team at the inaugural BEHTA (Bath Events, Hospitality and Tourism Awards) and the Assembly Rooms was a finalist in the Best Venue category.

To complement the wedding brochure produced in 2013, a new Events brochure was produced during 2014. In partnership with Bath Tourism Plus, the team exhibited at the Meeting Show in London and for the first time were represented by a third party at an exhibition for the Buyers Network Club.

Events hosted during the year included the largest yet Bath Life Awards attended by 450 people, a dinner for Lego as well as large conferences for the British Association of Spinal Surgeons, the National Opthalmic Nurses and PROMPT maternity.

Tom Deller Corporate Hospitality Manager

Retail Sales in 2014/15 ended the year 15% up on target at £1,989,008, up 3% on 2013/14.

Roman Baths shops: the number of customers served was up 2% on 2013/14. Sales per square foot in the main shop were £1,261, 12% above target. Record visitor numbers resulted in an 8% increase in customers over target, and average spend per customer increased by £0.55, 8% above target and 4% up on 2013/14. Our range of pick-up lines for children was enhanced this year and has proved popular with school groups. The Christmas sales season was one of the best in recent years, proving the Roman Baths main shop has become a repeat destination for local Christmas shoppers who love its range of decorations and gifts.

Fashion Museum Shop: the conversion rate of visitors to customers was disappointing with below-budget results. Nevertheless despite customer numbers being 1% down, average spend per customer exceeded target by 13% and was 10% up on 2013/14.

The Victoria Art Gallery shop over-achieved on target but still fell below the level achieved in the previous very strong year by 8%. Merchandise reflecting the changing exhibition programme included a book The Art of Jeremy Gardiner: Unfolding Landscape which contributed to excellent sales during the Jurassic Coast exhibition. The shop was a riot of colour for the Modern Masters in Print exhibition selling cards and prints, ceramics and jewellery reflecting the show.

Training: a number of suppliers worked with us to carry out special training on product knowledge for the Sales Team. Special demonstrations and studio visits throughout the low season have given staff greater appreciation of the product range to pass onto our customers which is reflected in the achieved sales figures.

Judith ZednerRetail Services Manager

Heritage Hospitality

Below: Merchandise related to the Modern Masters in Print exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery.

Bottom: Christmas merchandise in the Roman Baths Shop, 2014.

Opera in the Roman Baths from the new 2014 Events brochure © Julian Foxon Photography

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Following refurbishment the Temple Precinct was formally opened by TRH the Earl and Countess of Wessex in May.

In June the Roman curse tablets from Bath were added to the UNESCO UK Memory of the World register, which recognises documentary heritage of great significance. The Deputy Director-General of UNESCO Mr Getachew Engida visited Bath to present the Certificate of Registration and the Roman Baths struck a special commemorative medal to celebrate the event. The lunchtime lecture series held at the Guildhall in February was dedicated to outstanding collections from Britain on the Register.

In February the Roman Baths won the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year 2015 Gold Award at the Visit England South West Awards for Excellence. This means that the Roman Baths goes through to the national final in May.

Throughout the year work took place in delivering the Beau Street Hoard community learning project, the largest project of its kind that the museum has ever undertaken (see page 15).

A development grant of £168,000 was awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to bring forward proposals for The Archway Centre. This combines a new World Heritage Visitor Centre and a Learning Centre for the Roman Baths, sharing space on the site of the old Bath City Laundry in York Street and Swallow Street. The project includes the use of an underground link to the Roman Baths and an archaeological ‘investigation zone’ beneath York Street. The development work will result in a further application to HLF following a fund-raising campaign.

The Council has created a Roman Baths Foundation to support conservation and learning work at the Roman Baths and to act as an advocate for the site. The first major project it will support will be the Archway Centre.

The Roman Baths collections include archaeological material from throughout the district. The magnificent mosaic from the Durley Hill Villa at Keynsham has now been put on show, together with other archaeological material from the town, in the one-stop-shop in the new civic Centre in Keynsham.

Training staff for the future is a significant element of the work undertaken at the Roman Baths. The Curator’s for the Future programme in partnership with the British Museum and Bristol Museum, university placements, apprenticeships and work experience are all ways in which the Roman Baths helps to support and provide development opportunities for young people.

Other highlights during the year included:

•Visitor numbers topped the million mark for the second year in succession

•Completion of a wheelchair access route through 90% of the site, with new lifts providing access to the Aquae Sulis gallery and the Temple Precinct.

•Acquisition of what is possibly the oldest human artefact yet found in Bath & North East Somerset, a small chert handaxe found near Priston that is believed to be between 250,000 and 500,000 years old.

Stephen Clews Roman Baths & Pump Room Manager

The Roman Baths

Above: The refurbished and step-free Temple Precinct

Above right: Site of the Archway Centre in York Street and Swallow Street.

Right: Deputy Director-General of UNESCO Mr Getachew Engida presenting the UK Memory of the World award to Stephen Clews.

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Our school programme continues to develop each year. This year we have redeveloped our sessions to align with the new National Curriculum launched in September 2014, working with local schools, museums and universities. We have launched a new session in the Victoria Art Gallery based on William Harbutt, the inventor of plasticine and redeveloped our sessions at the Fashion Museum with a session on the Georgians. Work continues on the ever popular sessions on Romans.

We continue to work on local community programmes around the district and take part in national heritage and museum campaigns. This year’s highlights included:

•World Heritage Day, April 2014 in Sydney Gardens working with the Holburne Museum;

•British Science Week and Bath Taps into Science, March 2015 – working with the University of Bath;

•Festival of Archaeology, July 2014 – hosted at the Roman Baths as part of the Beau Street Hoard project; British Museum conservators demonstrated how they have conserved the Roman coins. Museum Studies MA students from the University of Leicester ran the event alongside Roman Baths staff.

•Heritage Open Days, September 2015 – working with several charities and organisations locally. New sites in 2014 were Ralph Allen CornerStone and Fairfield House.

•Heritage Open Week 2014 included the Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts (ICIA) from the University of Bath hosting walking tours of the city.

•Talks programmes in 2014/2015 were linked to the street exhibition History Makers of Bath.

•Museums at Night 2014 included Lindsey Davis, writer of Roman detective stories, in the Pump Room.

Lindsey BraidleyLearning & Programmes Co-ordinator

Learning & ProgrammesTop: Learning how waste is recycled at the Recycling Depot during Heritage Open Days.

Bottom right: Striking a coin at a Festival of Archaeology event in the Roman Baths.

Music and dance as part of Museums at Night at the Victoria Art Gallery.

Brownie sleepover in the Roman Baths.

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Awards

Roman Baths•Gold Award winner in Large Visitor

Attraction of the Year category, South West Tourism Awards for Excellence

•The judges wrote, “A big “plus” was the enthusiasm, engagement and hospitality of the staff throughout the visit. It amazes me that so many attractions fail to get this right and/or devote enough time and resource to it. It is not “rocket science” – we are in the hospitality business! Well done to the whole team for getting this “spot on” and helping visitors to ensure their journey through the Roman Baths is a memorable one.”

•2014 Trip Advisor Travellers’ Choice Winner in the Attractions category; the 3rd most highly-placed museum in the United Kingdom.

Fashion Museum•2014 Trip Advisor Certificate of

Excellence.

Apprenticeships and placements•Tom Honour successfully completed

his Heritage Apprenticeship and is now working with the Visitor Services Team;

•Following her Customer Services Apprenticeship, Jess Steggles has been employed as a Retail Sales Assistant;

•There have been two French students on work experience at the Roman Baths for a month, as well as an American intern for 3 months. There have been 47 week-long school and college placements, some undertaking specific project work, and others helping front-of-house staff look after our visitors

Front-of-House Staff DevelopmentStaff training this year has included Welcome Host Gold, the foremost training from Visit England, for delivering the best customer care.

Ongoing training with CREW Training has led to improvements in sales in the shops and interaction with visitors throughout the sites, leading to visitors’ increased enjoyment. Trip Advisor reviews have illustrated this with more than 6,000 reviews scoring Excellent or Very Good at the Roman Baths.

Several members of the front-of-house staff have developed ideas outside their remit, which we have implemented, benefitting the team and visitors alike.

The Roman Baths has obtained a new mobility scooter for visitor use to complement the existing wheelchairs.

The introduction of the new visitor admissions system went smoothly and will lead to further improvements in visitor management.

Katie SmithVisitor Services Manager

Visitor Services

Left: A warm welcome at the Roman Baths reception from VSA James Cayford.

Above: A visitor tries out the new lifts which now make the museum at the Roman Baths fully accessible.

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This was a year of solid progress in on-going World Heritage projects. The mid-way point of the current WH Management Plan was marked by the submission of a comprehensive progress report to UNESCO. This showed a very good state of conservation, half the plan actions delivered and gave an update on forthcoming development in the city.

We also achieved significant progress in the ‘Great Spas of Europe’ project. 16 spas from 8 European countries approached UNESCO with a view to affording World Heritage status to these highly distinctive settlements. Our existing nomination predominantly recognises Roman archaeology and Georgian architecture. This second potential inscription recognises the cultural use of the hot springs and the customs and practice of healing and ‘wellbeing’ across Europe. It is an exciting project with the potential to make Bath the only double-nominated UK site, and this year we successfully secured UK Government backing to add us to the ‘tentative list’.

Bath has achieved notable recent success in attracting funding, predominantly from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). ‘Stage 1’ funding was secured this year for the Archway Project (which includes a World Heritage Visitor Centre), the Abbey Footprint Project and the Cleveland Baths restoration. Heritage Services played a key role in these and the co-ordination of several other HLF bids across the year.

World Heritage Day was celebrated for a fifth successive year, this time in Sydney Gardens, to promote improvements to what was the largest Georgian pleasure garden beyond London and one of the only to survive.

Business as usual is never dull, and included walking tours, lectures and presentations to a range of visiting groups, supporting the Council on lobbying to protect the Hot Springs from ‘fracking’, and liaising with national and international heritage bodies.

Tony CrouchWorld Heritage Manager

World Heritage

World Heritage Day in Sydney Gardens, April 2014.

Mayors and representatives from the Great Spas of Europe project in Queen Square, March 2015.

• WO

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HERITAGE • PATRIMOIN

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City of Bathinscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987

United NationsEducational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization

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The Beau Street Hoard of 17,577 Roman silver coins was found on a dig in Bath city centre. It is the subject of the largest community learning project ever undertaken by the Roman Baths and one of the largest by any museum in the UK. It has found its way all over the district and into many towns and villages beyond. The public response has been enormous, with more than 15,000 people attending 190 events and activities.

Coins from the hoard have been taken to 17 roadshows, 16 sleepovers and 52 public talks and lectures presented by Roman Baths’ staff. There have been 39 school visits, double the number originally planned, to provide dedicated Maths and Roman coin sessions, using the coins to add interest to the maths curriculum in local schools. The coins have also been used to create special sessions on money management and for an art course organised in partnership with the Genesis Trust for local vulnerable adults.

The coins are now on show at the Roman Baths in a redesigned gallery with a new lift that has radically improved access not just to the coins display but also to the museum as a whole. A popular publication telling the archaeological story of the hoard is available in the Roman Baths shop.

The hoard has stimulated creative learning in all sorts of areas. A Museum Design Day was organised for Bath Spa University design students; other partnership projects with the university included designing a web game using Roman coins and making a film called The Beau Street Hoard Story. MA students used the hoard as inspirational source material to write a series of short stories for young readers.

The British Museum has been a key partner in the project. It has special responsibilities for finds of treasure and undertook conservation and micro-excavation of the hoard in its laboratory. Its staff presented three conservation

days at the Roman Baths and, thanks to a curatorial exchange programme with Roman Baths’ staff, the national Curator of Iron Age Coins spent an amazing day at Farmborough village school. BM staff will play a leading role in bringing the hoard to full academic publication later in 2015.

Scientific research into different aspects of the hoard continues and has so far involved universities at Southampton, York, Liverpool and Warwick.

The project ran throughout 2014/15 and concluded in April with a National Symposium on Roman Coin Hoards at the Assembly Rooms. It has been generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Council and a public appeal. Grant-giving bodies included The Headley Trust and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund. The Osborne Property Group generously paid for the initial scientific investigation and conservation work.

Beau Street HoardFocus on the

Coin-handling at the Beau Street Hoard roadshow at Pensford.

Popular publication The Beau Street Hoard published by The British Museum.

Numeracy workshop at Farmborough Junior School.

Right: Beau Street Hoard roadshow at Priston, one of many around B&NES and beyond.

Far right: Artefact table at the Festival of Archaeology event in the Roman Baths.

How to contact us with enquiries about this Annual Review 2014/15

Front cover photographs:

1. Mr Getechew Engida, UNESCO Deputy Director-General, in the Pump Room to celebrate the inscription of the Roman curses collection on the UK Memory of the World register

2. HRH The Earl of Wessex admiring the redisplayed Minerva’s Head, May 2014

3. Journalist Kate Adie opening the World War One in Costume exhibition at the Assembly Rooms, July 2014

4. Cocktail masterclass in action at the Roman Baths Kitchen

5. Marketing image from the Roman Baths’ late night opening campaign, summer 2014

6. Beau Street Hoard placement student Matt and Project Officer Katie

7. Painter John Eaves in his Small Beginnings exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery

8. Getting to grips with Roman coins at Farmborough Junior School

9. Researchers find answers in Bath Record Office

10. Getting up close and personal with our museum collections

11. Silk damask gowns in the Georgians exhibition at the Fashion Museum

12. Brushing up on painting technique at World Heritage Day 2014

13. Experiments with Flight 3 by David Brooke, 109th Annual Bath Society of Artists exhibition, Victoria Art Gallery

14. Visitors trying on replica Victorian costumes in the Fashion Museum galleries

15. Up-to-the-minute fashion merchandise in the Fashion Museum shop

16. Dirty Dancing by Beryl Cook (detail), Intimate Relations exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery

This Annual Review can be made available in a range of community languages, large print, Braille, on tape, electronic and accessible formats.

Published by Bath and North East Somerset Council Heritage Services

Print procured by the Council’s Print Services, May 2015

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12Head of Heritage ServicesPump Room, Stall Street, Bath BA1 1LZ01225 477760

Roman Baths 01225 477774 romanbaths_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk

Fashion Museum 01225 477754 fashion_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk

Victoria Art Gallery01225 477232 victoria_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk

Bath Record Office, Guildhall01225 477421 archives@bathnes.gov.uk

Learning and Programmes01225 477757 museum_education@bathnes.gov.uk

World Heritage Management01225 477584 world_heritage@bathnes.gov.uk

Museum Shops01225 477796/95 museumshop_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk

Bath’s Historic Venues01225 477786/82 historic_venuehire@bathnes.gov.uk

Pump Room Restaurant01225 444477 events.bath@searcys.co.uk

Roman Baths Kitchen Café01225 477877 RBK@searcys.co.uk

romanbaths.co.ukfashionmuseum.co.ukvictoriagal.org.ukbathvenues.co.uk batharchives.co.uk bathworldheritage.org.uk

@RomanBathsBath@Fashion_Museum@VictoriaArtBath@BathVenues