Akeman Press

Bath is not only one of the best cities in the world to explore on foot; it is surrounded by unspoilt countryside. This fully revised and updated edition of the classic walking guide to the city does full justice to that unique inheritance, and includes much new information, along with over 200 new photographs. Continue reading →

The Story of Bath’s Lost Pleasure Gardens. Bath’s pleasure gardens are gone beyond recall. Yet in their heyday they were as central to the city’s social life as its assembly rooms, pump room or parades. Far from being genteel retreats … Continue reading →

Bath is surrounded by countryside of extraordinary beauty and diversity, much of it little changed since the city’s 18th-century heyday. These 14 walks, all of which start in the city centre, explore this fascinating landscape, following ancient holloways and green … Continue reading →

Ghost signs – those faded advertisements for long defunct businesses on the walls of old buildings – are among the most potent reminders of a bygone age – and nowhere are they found in greater abundance or variety than on … Continue reading →

IT’S HERE! Now available for order. See our Facebook page (by clicking on the Facebook logo on the Home page) for a list of stockists in Devon. From moorland taverns to ancient coaching inns, and from harbourside hostelries to backstreet … Continue reading →

Frome is one of Somerset’s most historic towns, yet this is the first book devoted to its inns. Starting at the long-lost Albion Inn on Cheap Street and ending at the elusive Wyredrawers Arms on Portway, the authors tell the … Continue reading →

Nick Cudworth was a professional artist since 1978 who subsequently ran his own highly successful gallery in Walcot in Bath. He lived and worked off the street, in the true artisan Walcot tradition in a studio at the back of … Continue reading →

The fountain on Bath’s Terrace Walk is one of the most photographed objects in the city, yet its creator, Stefan Pieroni, is virtually forgotten. This book rescues him from oblivion, tracing his progress from penniless immigrant to key player in Bath’s social, cultural and political life at one of the most turbulent times in its history. Continue reading →

Bristol is one of the best cities in the world for exploring on foot and the Severn Beach Line – once hailed as one of Britain’s most scenic railways – is the gateway to some of its finest sights. The walks in this guide range from short strolls exploring Georgian crescents and city parks to all-day excursions through ancient woodlands, eighteenth-century estates and spectacular river gorges.
Among the places visited are St Anne’s Woods, Arno’s Vale, the Floating Harbour, Royate Hill,
the Frome Valley, St Paul’s, Kingsdown, Montpelier, Redland and Cotham, St Werburgh’s, Purdown, Stoke Park, Frenchay, Oldbury Court, Westbury on Trym, Clifton and Hotwells, Leigh Woods, Coombe Dingle, Blaise Castle, Kingsweston, Bishop’s Knoll, Pill and Paradise Bottom, Patchway and the Three Brooks, and Ashton Court, while the final walk heads from Severn Beach over the Severn Bridge to the Wales Coast Path.
With a brief history of the Severn Beach Line and a description of a journey along it, this book is an indispensable companion not only for anyone lucky enough to live near the line, but also for anyone who can catch a train to Bristol and explore it from there.
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Eleven walks which look at Bath through the eyes of eminent authors as diverse as Smollett, Jane Austen, Dickens, Fanny Burney, Sheridan, Georgette Heyer, Mary Shelley and John Betjeman. They create a vivid social history of the city over the last 300 years. Fully illustrated, with detailed accounts of the writers and their works. Continue reading →

Two hundred years after the completion of the Kennet & Avon Canal, Kirsten Elliott takes us on a journey in time along its length, from Reading to Bristol, with illustrations from the late 18th century to today. Continue reading →

To know Wiltshire’s inns is to know Wiltshire. Their history has been inextricably linked to the lives of ordinary people for generations. At a time when pubs are closing faster than ever before, this collection of pictures and stories from the past is a reminder of how rich that heritage is – and how important it is to preserve what is left. Continue reading →

The story of the Bath Pageant – and much more besides. The Bath Pageant of 1909 – with over 3,000 performers – was an astonishing achievement. Using hundreds of archive photographs – many never before published – as well as personal testimonies and original documents, this fascinating book lifts the lid on what it was like to live through this momentous year. Continue reading →

The story of one man’s battle with childhood polio and its after-effects to become Mayor of his home town – sometimes sad, often funny and always relevant. Continue reading →

Pauline Forrest’s account of a working-class childhood in Bath in the 20s and 30s evokes a city of tramcars, lodging houses, street vendors, and charabanc trips. Although set in a specific time and place, her story captures the dreams, adventures and woes of every child. Funny, moving and sad, it is a vivid picture of life between the wars. Continue reading →

From Chard to Chewton Mendip and from Witham Friary to Withypool, Somerset Pubs is a journey into the past, with photographs of over 140 pubs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Coaching inns rub shoulders with back-street beerhouses, time-worn taverns with roadside hostelries. Although many are still open, the way of life captured in these photographs is one that has gone forever, destroyed by the onward march of time. Yet this is not just a wistful look at the past. After decades of rationalisation and standardisation, local pubs and breweries are making a comeback, while farmhouse cider is more popular than ever. Somerset Pubs celebrates a tradition that, despite all the efforts of the multinationals, never quite went away. This virtual pub crawl into the past is not so much an exercise in nostalgia as an inspiration for the future – and for journeys in seach of Somerset’s pub heritage. Continue reading →

From the breathtaking to the bizarre, Somerset Follies takes a fascinating look at dozens of follies throughout the old county of Somerset, including the area around Bath, the most densely follied city in the land. Some have gone, some lie hidden in the undergrowth, others have been magnificently restored by a new generation of folly lovers – but all have a story to tell and all have that air of mystery that only something completely purposeless can acquire. Somerset Follies sifts fact from legend and takes a sideways look at the people who put up an astonishing array of buildings purely for pleasure. This comprehensive survey, drawing on extensive new research and including many previously unpublished archive photographs, offers a compelling guide to some of Somerset’s most celebrated landmarks – and some of its most neglected. Continue reading →

Few people have had as great an impact on Bath as Brunel. The Ringing Grooves of Change tells the story of Bath’s invasion by an army of navvies, drinking, whoring and fighting in shanty towns on the edge of the city, while armed Chartists massed in the streets and local elections descended into drunkenness and anarchy. It was against this turbulent background that Brunel brought the railway to Bath.
With a section devoted to the building of Box Tunnel and a new Brunel Trail from Keynsham to Box, The Ringing Grooves of Change tells the gripping story of how a great man changed a great city for ever. Continue reading →

Interweaving letters from men at the front with stories of life at home, and illustrated with over 300 photographs, this book describes the Great War’s impact on the city of Bath. It is a story of grief, suffering and anger — but there is laughter too. And although Andrew Swift tells the story of one community, this could be, with minor variations, the story of hundreds of other British towns and cities as they lived through the time when all roads led to France. Continue reading →

Weighing in at 400 pages, with over 500 entries and 500 illustrations, The Lost Pubs of Bath brings the Bath Pubs trilogy to a triumphant conclusion. Continue reading →

Drinking has reached crisis level — or so we are told. The truth is that drinking has been at crisis level for centuries. This is the story of how Britain’s first pleasure resort coped with our ancestors’ relentless desire to drink more than was good for them. From the Gin Epidemic to the Beerhouse Boom, from the Cider Rebellion to the Drunken Election — Awash with Ale tells the story of Bath in a way you’ve never heard it told before. Continue reading →

John Wood was not only one of the eighteenth century’s most famous architects, but also one of its most assiduous mythmakers. From a desire to restore Bath to its former position as a centre of Druidic culture, his researches led him into Rosicrucianism and alchemy. He even completed the first accurate survey of Stonehenge — or Choir Gaure as he called it. In this lavishly illustrated book, Kirsten Elliott attempts to provide the key to a re-evaluation of one of the eighteenth-century’s most fascinating figures. Continue reading →

Taking the waters – that’s the reason visitors have flocked to Bath for centuries. Other books about Bath focus on this abstemious activity. This book offers a different history and a different tipple. Beer has a long and honourable tradition, and Bath’s pubs are just as much part of the city’s story as the Roman Baths and the Assembly Rooms. The tale the authors tell is one of high life and low life, where temperance campaigners rub shoulders with sozzled soldiers, and magistrates deal out punishment to hat-removing harlots. Continue reading →