---
node: spot_bath_pulteney_bridge
type: spot
slug: pulteney_bridge
destination: dest_bath
title: "Pulteney Bridge"
lead: "Pulteney Bridge carries shops across both its faces, one of only a handful of bridges in the world still built that way. From the bank below, it stands above a curved weir that is the most photographed thing in Bath."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_bath_pulteney_bridge.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pulteney_Bridge_and_Bath_Weir_(3)_2025-07-23.jpg"
image_author: "Andy Li"
image_license: "CC0"
---

## Overview

Robert Adam designed it in 1774 for an estate owner who needed to connect his land to the city and wanted the crossing to look like a Palladian street. It worked: cross it without looking over the parapet and you would not know you were on a bridge at all. The weir below is a twentieth-century flood control measure, so the picture everyone takes is two hundred years of unrelated decisions that happen to agree.

## Highlights

The view is from Grand Parade on the far bank, or from the river level below Parade Gardens. Walk across for the shops, which are small and mostly independent. Boat trips leave from beneath it and are the easy way to see the Georgian city from the water.