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From Abbey Church Yard, the elegantly colonnaded Bath Street leads onto Hot Bath Street; turn right here to reach Westgate Street and Sawclose, where you can take a glance at the Theatre Royal , opened in 1805 and one of the country's finest surviving Georgian theatres. Next door is the house where Beau Nash spent his last years, now a restaurant. Up from the Theatre Royal, off Barton Street, the gracious Queen Square was the first Bath venture of the architect John Wood , who with his son (also John) was chiefly responsible for the Roman-inspired developments of the areas outside the confines of the medieval city. Wood himself lived at no. 24, giving him a vista of the northern terrace's palatial facade. West of Queen Square, the typical Bath townhouse at 19 New King St was where the musician and astronomer Sir William Herschel, in collaboration with his sister Caroline, discovered the planet Uranus in 1781. You can take a brisk whirl around the small Herschel Museum here (March-Oct daily 2-5pm; Nov-Feb Sat & Sun 2-5pm; GBP3.50), showing contemporary furnishings, musical instruments, a replica of the telescope with which Uranus was identified and various knick-knacks from the Herschels' life. Up from Queen Square, at the end of Gay Street, is the elder John Wood's masterpiece, The Circus , consisting of three crescents arranged in a tight circle of three-storey houses, with a carved frieze running round the entire circle. Wood died soon after laying the foundation stone for this enterprise, and the job was finished by his son. The painter Thomas Gainsborough lived at no. 17 from 1760 to 1774. The Circus is connected by Brock Street to the Royal Crescent , grandest of Bath's crescents, begun by the younger John Wood in 1767. The stately arc of thirty houses is set off by a spacious sloping lawn from which a magnificent vista extends to green hills and distant ribbons of honey-coloured stone. The interior of No. 1 Royal Crescent , on the corner with Brock Street, has been restored to reflect as nearly as possible its original Georgian appearance (mid-Feb to Oct Tues-Sun 10.30am-5pm; Nov Tues-Sun 10.30am-4pm; GBP4; ). At the bottom of the Crescent, Royal Avenue leads onto Royal Victoria Park , the city's largest open space, containing an aviary and botanical gardens.
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