Visiting the William Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath

From an ordinary back garden in Bath, a musician discovered one of our largest planets.

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22nd September, 2012

No 19 New King St, Bath, is a four-storey terraced house in biscuit-coloured Cotswold stone: ordinary in appearance; extraordinary in history. From its little back garden on March 13, 1781, astronomer William Herschel first glimpsed the greeny-blue point of light that made him famous. A musician before he turned to science, Herschel came to Bath from Hanover, and did well enough to become musical director at the Assembly Rooms, where he didn’t always do quite so well. After one disastrous production of The Messiah, he had to publish an apology in the local paper. But astronomy had ...

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