Throughout 2025 the National Trust will display Helios at locations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust aims to make this dazzling new artwork as accessible to as many people as possible over the next year.
The tour started when the 7 metre sculpture rose in the Georgian Ball Room at Bath Assembly Rooms – the room where Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and thousands of others have been captivated by arts and cultural performances over the decades.
Located in the heart of Bath, the Assembly Rooms are currently undergoing a £17m project to restore the splendor of the building and create a new visitor attraction. Designed by John Wood the Younger, the Bath Assembly Rooms is a Grade 1 listed building that’s a key part of the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bath. The New or Upper Rooms as they were known, provided a place for people to meet and enjoy daily entertainments including balls, concerts, teas and gambling. ‘Polite society’ flocked to the Assembly Rooms, including the novelists Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and the painter Thomas Gainsborough. Bath Assembly Rooms were at the heart of fashionable Georgian society, the perfect venue for entertainment. When completed in 1771, they were described as ‘the most noble and elegant of any in the kingdom’.