Bath author publishes book after walking every street in city

Andrew "Able" Lawrence took more than 2,000 photographs whilst walking around the city

A man who spent eight years walking every street in a city has published a book documenting his experience.

Andrew "Able" Lawrence, a former BBC sound engineer, published Bath - I Walked Every Street in September.

He said he started the project after realising that there are many areas of the city which get overlooked.

"One of the things I've always enjoyed about living in Bath is just rambling around the streets because it is such a beautiful city," he said.

Over the course of his eight-year project, Mr Lawrence took nearly 2,400 photographs of Bath.

He said he tracked his progress by colouring in routes he had travelled on a map, before writing his impressions of the area in a diary.

Mr Lawrence said he loved seeing the old streets which have no road access

The author, who has lived in the city for more than 50 years, spent a lot of time travelling around the country with his best friend when they were teenagers.

When Mr Lawrence met his wife and started a family in the 1970s, they relocated to Bath.

"I thought about all the hundreds of places we'd visited and Bath came to mind," he said.

"I think it is the thing that when you visit Bath, it makes an enormous impression on you.

"It is such a particular, special place."

Mr Lawrence visited Beckford's Gate, built by the author William Beckford

'Hidden gems'

Mr Lawrence said he embarked on the project after being encouraged by his friends.

He said he had become "more intrigued" about the area after wandering the streets, noticing the contrast in the traditional and modern buildings and the city's diverse population.

He added: "[The book is] not meant to be a guide for everybody to Bath.

"It's meant to be a series of impressions about the varieties of Bath and the hidden gems."

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