Pulteney Bridge is one of the most admired structures in the beautiful city of Bath, and one of only three bridges lined with shops in the world.*  The graceful composition is an unqualified success of Palladian Architecture in England and provides the perfect link between two halves of Bath.

In 1767, Frances Pulteney had inherited the rural 600 acre estate across from the booming Spa City of Bath.  At this time the only direct route into Bath was by ferry.  Thus, in 1768, Pulteney was conferring with the Bath City Council about a new bridge.  He approached architect Robert Adams about designing a "simple, functional bridge."  But Adams suggested putting shops on the bridge.  He had visited both Florence and Venice where he would have seen the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte di Rialto.  His plans for the Bath bridge called for eleven small shops on each side with staircases to attics above. Rent from these proposed shops must have appealed to Pulteney. The bridge was complete and ready for occupation in late 1773.

The beauty of the bridge was not to last.  Merchants immediately began altering their shops by raising the roof and opening up the windows, transforming them into bays.  In the 19th century shopkeepers altered the bridge further by cantilevering out over the river as the fancy took them.  It was a pathetic travesty of the original design.

In January 1936, Pulteney Bridge was named as a national monument.  By this time the Bath City Council  had begun to acquire ownership of a few shops on the bridge.  Now they bought the rest of the shops, and by the following year they began to carefully trace Robert Adam's own plans to design a restored facade.  The southern street facade of Pulteney Bridge is one of the enduring images of Bath that visitors take away with them. 

* The other two bridges:  Ponte Vecchio in Florence and Ponte Rialto in Venice.