The Georgian structure, bookended by stone lodges with Doric porticos, was praised for its handsome Greek Revival style by Nikolaus Pevsner, an architectural sage.
Britain has the oldest housing stock in Europe, with one in five homes more than 100 years old.
A local Extinction Rebellion chapter leads marches up the city’s cobbled streets; a couple of years ago its members made headlines by taking an illegal plunge in the Roman baths.
With immaculate Roman remains and Georgian crescents that spread across the Avon Valley in shades of honey and butter, the city is designated a world heritage site by UNESCO.
Buildings of traditional construction make up 30% of Bath’s housing stock but account for 40% of domestic carbon emissions, according to the Centre for Sustainable Energy, a charity.
Landlords, who don’t pay heating bills, have little incentive to wade through the planning process, says Dominic Tristram of the local Green Party, and many tenants in historic digs can afford to “just put the heating up”.
Joanna Wright, a local councillor, was recently booted out of her role as Bath’s climate chief after proposing that North Road, which leads to the university, should be closed to traffic.
Nor can the council allow wind turbines to be erected on the breezy hills around Bath, because UNESCO guards not just the city but its setting.
Even the Bath Preservation Trust has made its peace with solar panels, so long as they are discreet.
Since Parliament has declared a climate emergency, it is time for a debate “around what we as a country are prepared to consider”, says Sarah Warren, Bath’s new climate chief.
But the source of the heat is as traditional as it gets: the hot spring water that gushes, at a steady 40°C, through a Roman drain built nearly 2,000 years ago.