PLB was the top choice when the Bath Preservation Trust wanted to revolutionise its visitor experience at No.1 Royal Crescent.

The venue, a magnificently restored townhouse museum, is one of Bath’s most famous and instantly recognisable locations. Following the success of dramas like Bridgerton, and a renewed interest in Georgian Bath, the trust wanted to create a new level of visitor engagement

This prestigious location called for special treatment, and that’s exactly why we were called in.

Bringing the story to life

Following full stakeholder consultation and Listed Building Consent applications, we used our creative and technical talents, and our specialist media partners, to produce a fully immersive visitor experience.

‘The Georgian Home in Bath’ encompasses a series of discreet AV insertions throughout the Grade I Listed home. This required the installation of over 4,500 metres of new cabling infrastructure, and a new AV control room to manage a self-guided tour of up to 720 people per day, all controlled by a tablet or mobile phone.

Our works included:

• Interpretive planning, to develop all the themes, messages and stories that the trust wanted to convey to visitors
• Creative scheme design and visitor orientation, incorporating stories of what life was like for the wealthy and their servants in eighteenth-century Bath
• Graphic design and artwork, to bring together all the visual elements of the house using references from historic archives
• Exhibition specification, to present items clearly, securely and appropriately, conveying the story of the house in meaningful ways and sparking the imagination of visitors
• Lighting design, to immerse visitors in the ambience of the home, from the basement kitchens through the public spaces to the private bedrooms
• Scriptwriting and editing, to create human connections, inspire action and build narratives around the artefacts, collections and surroundings
• Installation site supervision and contractor management, to ensure all aspects of the project were delivered on time, to spec and within budget

Through footage captured from film shoots in Bath and London, each visitor gets to see the house brought to life around them. They meet parents Amelia and Thomas, their three older children and spirited younger daughter, the servants and the scullery maid.

Capturing a society in flux

We harnessed the immersive experience to explore the changes in society at the time, highlighting the slave trade and the fixation on social climbing.

Our installations utilise magic mirrors and digitally mapped three-dimensional soundscapes throughout the house. As well as allowing visitors to see life as it was lived in Georgian Bath during the late 1700s, the work is respectful of the majesty of the historic building and the priceless collections it contains.

Following the success of ‘The Georgian Home in Bath’, PLB has now been commissioned to create two further experiences, ‘Jane Austen’s Bath’ and a ‘Georgian Christmas Experience’.