Mytton Williams springs into Bath

A £20.6m landmark project that will enable visitors to Bath to bathe in the UK’s only natural hot spring waters is to be branded by Mytton Williams.

The Bath Spa project, its working title, opens in autumn 2002. Mytton Williams, which won a five-way pitch for the work, will create the visual identity for the spa and advise on name-generation.

The group has been tasked to ‘create an identity that complements the existing identities and marketing positions of Bath as a destination and its existing attractions’, says Mytton Williams creative director Bob Mytton.

The identity will be applied across all communications, which includes literature, website and signage.

The project is being funded jointly by Thermae Development Company and Bath and North East Somerset Council and supported by a £7.78m grant from the Millennium Commission.

TDC will manage the attraction when it has been fully opened.

The spa will combine the restoration of five heritage buildings with a new stone and glass building, which is designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners.

The new building will feature a variety of facilities including thermal pools and steam rooms.

There will also be indoor and outdoor pools, medical facilities, treatment rooms, airbeds, massage rooms, a restaurant and a visitor centre.

The spa closed in 1978 due to ‘health problems’ associated with the pipeworks and baths, though there were no problems with the source of the water.

Previous schemes to revive the spa in the 1980s and 1990s failed to raise the required funding, which is considerable due to the cost of restoring the five listed buildings.

The hot spring water is believed to take 10 000 years to filter through the rock before it wells up to the surface.