Bath Historic District (Bath, Maine)
What is now the city of Bath was first settled by Europeans in mid-17th century, and was from an early date recognized as an ideal spot for shipbuilding. It is set on a stretch of the lower Kennebec River that was originally called Long Reach, because it could be sailed without changing the rigging. The town was incorporated as Bath in 1781, named after Bath, England. In the 19th century the city grew up on the west bank of the river, with the banks lined by shipyards. West of the river neighborhoods grew up north and south of a central business district, now located just north of United States Route 1. The neighborhood north of the downtown area is where some of it finest early residential architecture is to be found. The city's fortunes started to decline with the advent of steel ships, but the 1889 founding of the Bath Iron Works (now the city's only shipyard), and its success as a major shipbuilder for the United States Navy buoyed the local economy.
Bath and North East Somerset
Bath is served by the Bath Spa railway station (designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel), which has regular connections to London Paddington, Bristol Temple Meads, Cardiff Central, Swansea, Exeter St Davids, Plymouth and Penzance (see Great Western Main Line), and also Westbury, Warminster, Salisbury, Southampton Central, Portsmouth Harbour and Brighton (see Wessex Main Line). Services are provided by Great Western Railway. There are suburban stations on the main line at Oldfield Park and Keynsham which have a limited commuter service to Bristol. Green Park station was once operated by the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, whose line (always steam driven) climbed over the Mendip Hills and served many towns and villages on its run to Bournemouth; this example of an English rural line was closed by the Beeching cuts in March 1966, with few remaining signs of its existence, but its Bath station building survives and now houses a number of shops.