Three curved terraces close into a full ring, their columns stacked in three classical orders around a tree lined garden.
What The Circus looks like
Three curved terraces of pale Bath stone ashlar close into a complete ring, with three entrances set at even intervals around it. Each house runs a plain Doric colonnade at the ground floor. Ionic pilasters stack above that, and a band of Corinthian capitals tops the third storey under a line of stone acorns along the parapet. A carved band runs the full curve just above the ground floor columns, cut with small emblems, among them serpents and ships.
leaves the western side of the ring and runs straight to the . drops south toward the lower town, and comes in from the northeast past the Assembly Rooms. The carriageway that circles the garden is narrow, with cars parked tight against the kerb. Basement areaways sit behind iron railings below most of the front doors.
The centre is a railed lawn under five mature London plane trees, with no path cutting across it and no bench inside the railings. The fronts are purely residential, three storeys over a basement, with no shopfronts or commercial signage anywhere on the circle. Most of the thirty houses still carry their original sash windows and panelled front doors, and the same pale stone continues unbroken from any of the three approaches.
Shot in The Circus
A Respectable Trade turned The Circus into Georgian Bristol's Queen Square for its 1998 BBC run, pointing the cameras at the ring itself rather than redressing it. Persuasion's own 2006 Bath shoot used the same ring to play Bath as itself, and the CBS mini series Buffalo Girls dressed it alongside two nearby streets to stand in for Victorian London.
A Respectable Trade
The Circus. The production shot the ring itself and called it Queen Square, Bristol.
Persuasion, 2007
The ITV production of Persuasion filmed its 2006 location shoot on The Circus itself, since the novel is set in Regency Bath and the ring needed no dressing to play it. The curved terraces and columned fronts carried the Regency setting without alteration. Street View
A Respectable Trade, 1998
Played Queen Square, Bristol, England, 1787
The BBC's four part adaptation of A Respectable Trade used The Circus as Queen Square in Bristol for its 1787 set drama of the slave trade. The production shot the ring's own curved terraces rather than travelling to the real square. Street View
Buffalo Girls, 1995
Played a Victorian London street, London, England, 1870s
The CBS mini series Buffalo Girls dressed The Circus alongside Bath's High Street and Henrietta Park to stand in for Victorian London. The ring's columned fronts carried the London street scenes for the production's final days of shooting in England. Street View
Bedford Square's terraces went up in the same Georgian decades as The Circus and share its scale, wrapped around a private Georgian garden square in the middle of Bloomsbury. The uniform cornice line and plain window surrounds read close to Bath's own restraint. Bedford Square's fronts are brick rather than pale stone. Its square is rectangular rather than a continuous ring, so a shot that holds a full corner gives it away. Try searching Georgian garden square now.
Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, Scotland
Charlotte Square's cream sandstone Georgian square reads close in tone to Bath stone, and Robert Adam's unified fronts carry the same restrained classical detailing. The square is rectangular with pedimented centre sections rather than a continuous curve, so a wide shot needs a tight corner to avoid the straight sides showing. Try searching sandstone Georgian square now.
Park Crescent in London, England
Park Crescent curves in the same continuous run as The Circus, so a camera tracking along its stuccoed Regency crescent face holds one unbroken classical sweep. It is a painted stucco semicircle rather than natural stone. It is also open on one side rather than a closed ring, so a reverse angle across the opening gives it away. Try searching stuccoed Regency crescent now.
