The Roman baths and museum of Bath
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Bath,
United Kingdom
Monday, June 16, 2008
The day started a bit gray and chilly today with the threat of rain heavy in the air but improved as it wore on. We drove from Wokingham and arrived at Bath mid morning, parked the car at one of the parking grounds near the centre and headed straight for the Roman baths and museum.
The entry ticket includes an audio guide which has both 'Meet the Romans' for children and 'Bryson at the Bath' for grown ups, which indicate the whole complex, built about 2000 years ago around Britain's only hot spring of mineral rich water, would have been very big for its time.
Apart form the hot spring, it included the central bath, several plunging pools, sauna and heated rooms as well as a temple, which attracted Romans from all over the empire.
The tour of the baths started at the terrace overlooking the great bath which is lined with statues of Roman Governors of Britain, emperors and military leaders dating from 1894, when they were carved in advance of the grand opening of the Roman Baths in 1897.
The Roman Baths were not discovered and explored until the late nineteenth century. They extend under the modern ground level, beneath adjacent streets and squares and are surprisingly big.
The sacred spring is at the heart of the complex, where hot water at a temperature of 460C rises at the rate of 1.17m litres a day and has been for thousands of years.
This natural phenomenon was beyond human comprehension and believed to be the work of the gods and the Romans built the temple next to the spring dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a deity with healing powers.
Many objects were thrown into the sacred spring as offerings to the goddess, including more than 12,000 Roman coins which is the biggest votive deposit known from Britain.
The temple is one of only two truly classical temples known from Roman Britain and the great ornamental pediment survives. It has been re-erected in the museum and it features the the carved face of what is thought to be the Gorgon's head, which was a powerful symbol of the goddess Sulis Minerva.
The centrepiece of the baths is a pool lined with 45 sheets of lead and filled with hot spa water. It once stood in an enormous barrel-vaulted hall about 40m high. For many Roman visitors this may have been the biggest building they had ever entered in their life.
You can still see the Roman plumbing and drainage system largely in place - a testament to the ingenuity of the Roman engineers. The spring overflow carries surplus water not used in the baths out to a Roman drain and from there to the River Avon 400m away.
In the western part of the baths is a series of pools and heated rooms where you can see a good hypocaust pilae - early under-floor heating. Hypocaust pilae allowed hot air from burning charcoal to circulate beneath the floor raised on brick columns (pilae) to allow the hot air through.
