Wednesday Part 2 - Roman Baths

We drove from Windsor Castle to the town of Bath and stopped near the Roman Baths. We were able to go inside and see the great museum on the restored Roman Baths. The Baths were built around natural hot water springs (the only in England) and were used for relaxation, socializing, religious ceremonies, a meeting place and even as a market. The whole facility is really well done as it preserves the older ruins but displays and explains them in such a way you really feel like you’re there. As you step into a room the original walls go up as high as they exist now and modern walls continue up from there. There were projectors in several rooms that projected actors on to the walls in original dress carrying on as they would at the height of the Bath’s popularity. Another projector was aimed at the remaining pieces of the pediment of the temple and slowly faded in to show what the full design would have looked like; it eventually faded to the bright colors that probably ordained this all important piece.

Several artifacts have been found in the surrounding areas that have given archaeologists a lot of information about the community that surrounded the Roman Baths. One interesting set of artifacts were lead curses thrown in the spring to ask the patron goddess, Minerva. People would write on the soft lead curses like “I hope boils and dismemberment come to whomever stole my horse: Achilles, Axle, Smith, Barney.” The writers would include the offense, the desired punishment and their suspects. Some were wadded up before being thrown in and others were carefully folded.

We were able to walk into several rooms that have piles of squarish stones on the floor. These piles were actually supports for the real floor and would have been heated with steam in order to have heated floors in the bath house in the winter. It was actually quite ingenious and the museum had a very nice animation of the construction of the room that included placing 10-12” stacks of 6”x6” tile about the same distance apart from each other, throughout an entire room, and then covering that floor with several layers of flooring material for strength.

The whole time we were listening to a free audio tour that explained a lot about the Roman Baths, their discovery and restoration. It was a great way of getting information as we walked along.

As we exited the Roman Baths you had the option to go into the Pump Room which is a restaurant but also displayed how the spring water was pumped out. On our way back to the bus we walked past the Bath Abbey which has angels climbing up carved ladders on either side of the tower. Our bus was delayed by a few people that were late and we ran off to our next stop, Stonehenge.