When confronted by an octogenarian bluestocking still in full possession of her marbles, the important thing is not to panic. Easy to say, but the combination of cleverness, impatience, selective deafness and a determination to call a spade a spade, as loudly as possible, especially in public places, can be terrifying – even dangerous.

I bumped into one such (a friend of the parents) on the Tube the other day. Not a good place for it. I’d been quietly hoping she wouldn’t see me. But no, she spotted me at once. We had a good 10 stops to yell at one another.

“The trouble with Bath,” she boomed, “is that it’s full ofutterly ghastly people . .. ” I gazed longingly at the doors, but they were shut tight. “Well, goodness,” I bellowed back, wishing to God I’d brought my bicycle helmet. “You are funny! Ha! Seriously, though, I’m not sure one can dismiss an entire city. That is to say, they can’t all be ‘ghastly’. What can you mean?”

I’m not on the Tube now. I’m safely locked away behind my computer. And, obviously, the word “ghastly” should never be encouraged, especially when referring to a population of about 200,000 human beings, all of them fortunate enough to be living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It occurs to me, however, having just returned from Bath, and been involved in a restrained but tetchy exchange with a nicely dressed ladykins at the Marks & Sparks cake stand on Stall Street, that the old dame may have had a point. The spa town is a Disneyland of architectural wonder, magnificently protected by innumerable heritage-worshipping bodies, and there’s no question that it’s stunning. Nobody could really argue with that.

Imagine a mini-London with all the horrid bits taken out: a beautiful, historic city surrounded by green spaces, chockablock with restaurants, where theatre and art-house cinema thrive, where the schools are good and the shopping is even better; with a literary festival every year, and tennis clubs and golf clubs; with a train that carries you to the capital in 90 minutes, and a Waitrose that delivers. Are we in a giant theme park of middle-class per-fection? Or are we already in heaven? Hard to say.

It’s not surprising, given all that – and the exorbitant price of property there – that Bath attracts a certain kind of inhabitant: tasteful, restrained, rich, very English ... and possibly, if not ghastly, then certainly a little bit smug.

Which is fine, of course, if you don’t mind that sort of thing. Actually, though, it can get quite annoying. I know a fair number of people who were sufficiently seduced by the idea of Bath to move there, only to pack up and move away again shortly afterwards – and perhaps I should come clean at this point and admit that the aforementioned octogenarian and I are both among them ... (Though, being tasteful and restrained, but not quite rich enough, I lived instead in Victorian imperfection a little further out.) I left two years ago, spitting with rage at the city’s overriding preciousness and vowing never to return.

Then this glossy brochure landed on my desk, and in an instant all the negative memories evaporated. The Old Vicarage, on Richmond Road, is a stunning, four/five-bedroom, Grade II-listed Regency terrace, extravagantly refurbished and for sale for a whopping £2.2m. It’s on the north side of town – the Good Side – a little way up from the Royal Crescent, with a postcode beginning BA1: “one of the most envied postcodes in the world”, according to Bath wisdom. And perhaps it is.

The house is not particularly large – 3,698 sq ft, but with a lot of it in the basement, which, in spite of the refurbish-ment, feels dank. It has a small garden, overlandscaped, covered in gravel and with a fatuous statue of a naked woman in the middle, standing in a pond. Statue and gravel, however, could easily be removed. And you can always put the children in the basement. Teenagers, especially, seem to love dank places.

Beyond that, really, it’s a fabulous, beautiful, perfect, exquisite little townhouse. The entrance hall is breath-taking: painted bright white, it has the original cornicing, and floors and stairs paved in pale yellow Bath limestone. In the main reception, the white marble fireplace looks magnificent against old oak floors, and vast bay windows open onto a raised verandah, with views, beyond the silly statue, over St Stephen’s Church to the rooftops of the city itself.

Upstairs, the master bedroom has a fractionally pretentious ensuite bath-room, with an egg-shaped tub and a basin that looks like a pebble. Aside from that, the developers have done a clever job of mixing modern simplicity with Grade II-protected Regency splen-dour. The perfect house for the perfect theme-parked life. Perfect.

I walked back into the town centre afterwards, about a mile, downhill, and I have to admit that for a moment – until my contretemps with the frigid ladykins at the cake stand – I was struggling to remember why I absolutely do not want to live in it.

Because the city of Bath is too beautiful for its own good. That’s why. It’s airless. And there’s a serious danger all my neighbours would be utterly ghastly.

The Old Vicarage, Bath £2.2m

What is it? A Grade II-listed townhouse with five bedrooms, two reception rooms and a garden

Where is it? Richmond Road, BA1

Who is selling it? Hamptons; 01225 312244, www.hamptons.co.uk

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