Having written about the theatre in Bath for the best part of four decades, I thought I knew quite a bit about its history in the city.

The literature festival’s Tuesday morning Stage Walk conducted and researched by Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott, was therefore a delightful revelation. I had hoped for surprises, and they provided them in abundance.

The trail concentrated on the 18th century when Bath’s reputation as a sophisticated resort was on the rise and our guides adopted the view that the whole city was a stage, each day a small or large drama, the streets alive with players, directed in the latter part of the century by master of ceremonies Beau Nash.

The city’s first purpose built theatre at the top of Parsonage Lane was completed in 1705, a hundred years before the Theatre Royal grew up on its present site, barely 100 yards away.

So chronologically and physically it was almost a circular tour.

The first theatre was pulled down only 21 years later to make way for the Mineral Water Hospital – now The Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases.

The walk and talk abounded with anecdotes and social history, illustrated with a folder full of pictures.

So extensive had been the research that the hour and a half allotted to the tour extended to two hours and it was a bitterly cold morning for standing around on street corners.

But the organisers cannot be blamed for the weather and on a fine day I wouldn’t have minded spending much longer exploring the subject.