The Gravel Walk

The Gravel Walk is a narrow, raised stone path that runs along the north side of the Assembly Rooms in Bath. Eighteenth-century visitors traveled this route to see and be seen, though the poet Christopher Anstey famously complained that the walk was constantly choked with dust and carriages. When the local master of ceremonies, Richard Beau Nash, grew frustrated with the chaotic traffic, he banned private chairs from the path. Pedestrians finally had a place to promenade without dodging horses or wheels.