THE ROMAN BATHS

Melissa Blease takes a tour of Bath’s most popular visitor attraction and discovers a world-class experience.

Despite Senator Tacitus describing the taking of the waters as “one of the luxuries that stimulate vice,” the Romans started the development of Aquae Sulis as a sanctuary of rest and relaxation some time after the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. Over the next three decades, they built a reservoir, a sophisticated series of baths and a temple dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva around the natural hot springs. The temple was constructed around 60–70 AD, and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.

But after the Roman withdrawal in the first decade of the fifth century, the bathing complex fell into serious disrepair and was eventually lost to silting and flooding. The vaulted building around the spring collapsed into the waters in the sixth or seventh century, but the oak piles that were sunk into the mud continue to provide an integral part of the stable foundations today.

The various street level aspects of the Roman Baths, The Grand Pump Room and the Stall Street entrance were designed in the 18th century by Thomas Baldwin and John Palmer, two of the leading architects of Georgian Bath who, alongside John Wood the Elder, John Wood the Younger, Robert Adam and John Ev eleigh, are responsible for most of the Palladian-style architecture for which Bath is so highly regarded.

Throughout the 18th and early 19th century, visitors flocked to fashionable, genteel Bath from far and wide to drink the mineralrich spring waters and socialise in the Grand Pump Room, the neo-classical salon within the Roman Baths complex. As Jane Austen – who moved with her family to Bath in 18 01 for what her family deemed to be health benefits – wrote in Northanger Abbey, “every morning brought its regular duties: shops were to be visited; some new part of the town to be looked at: and the Pump Room to be attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour, looking at everybody and speaking to no one.”

Both the Pump Room (which remains in use as a tea room and restaurant today) and the Roman Baths fortunately offer a far friendlier, more accessible welcome to contemporary visitors, centuries on – and the complex still remains very much a fully functioning, sparkling jewel in the city’s crown.

On Show

In 2021, a new area was unveiled at the Roman Baths. The Roman Gym (part of the main visitor journey around the Roman Baths) was renovated amongst newly excavated remains, and allows visitors access to a courtyard where Romans worked out before heading into the baths. The gym itself includes the remains of an ancient sauna (a laconicum) and one of the best preserved doorways from Roman British times, while projections showing how the Romans would have used the gym, and audio commentary explaining Roman workouts and the Roman attitude to health, wellbeing and medicine brings the whole area to fully authentic life.

The state-of-the-art Clore Learning Centre – an ambitious restoration initiative (also part of the Archway Project) that allows school and community groups to learn all about history and heritage in a hands-on, accessible way – opened a year later and was unveiled at the same time at Bath World Heritage Centre, which offers a central point for visitors to find out about the citywide UNESCO World Heritage site’s hot springs, Roman remains, Georgian architecture, Georgian town planning, the social setting of the Georgian spa town and the city’s natural landscape setting.

Time may not stand still for the Roman Baths, but the defining purpose at the core of the complex remains the same. The site’s permanent collection contains thousands of archaeological finds from pre-Roman and Roman Britain including a fairly recent addition known as the Beau Street Hoard, which was excavated by archaeologists on the site of the Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel in Beau Street in 2007 and is today widely acknowledged to be one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries ever to have been made in Bath: 17,655 Roman coins were found fused together in eight separate money bags and spanning the period from 32 BC–274 ad.

Elsewhere, exhibits range from the divine to the domestic. In the Temple Worship area of the museum, the gilt bronze head of the goddess Sulis Minerva, for example, is an ancient, awe-inspiring showpiece, while catching the eye of the imposing Gorgon’s head that glowers down from the top of the grand ornamental Temple Pediment (the temple itself being one of only two classical style temples in Britain, depicting the merging of local and Roman beliefs) is a curiously thrilling experience. Offering delightful contrast to the more dramatic exhibits on display, the brooches, combs, jewellery, glass bottles and general domestic paraphernalia discovered buried beneath the foundations of the present buildings offer a fascinating, evocative snapshot of everyday Roman life and create a strong link of familiarity between the past and the present.

Meanwhile, the curiously moving Roman Curse tablets (‘defixiones’, inscribed on to small sheets of lead or pewter and believed to range in date from the second to the late fourth century ad) depict the private and personal prayers and wishes of 130 individuals and provide a uniquely personal insight into Roman life. Addressed to the goddess Minerva Sulis, many request stolen items be returned, but others are scarily malevolent, seeking more severe levels of justice be served: “Docimedis has lost two gloves and asks that the thief responsible should lose their minds and eyes in the goddess’ temple”.

The tablets are the only objects from Roman Britain to be included within UNESCO’s Memory of the World register, which aims to preserve, promote and protect written and audiovisual heritage while encouraging universal access to social history.

Your Visit

A visit to the Roman Baths is a multi-textured, comprehensive experience offering broad appeal to all ages, tastes and interests. Even those who may n ot think they’re visiting Bath to learn more about the history of the Heritage City can’t fail to realise that it’s all around us, at every turn – and never more so than within the domain where Bath began.

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It is recommended that you allow between around 90 minutes up to 2 hours for your visit. Portable, fact-packed audioguides that can be stopped, started, and rewound according to your schedule and particular interests are included as standard in the admission price, including all-age guides and a children’s guide –or, take the popular Anglo-American travel writer Bill Bryson’s witty, incisive thoughts and observations on Roman life, history and society on the tour with you. While it may not be to everyone’s taste, at the end of your visit you have the opportunity to sample the hot natural spa water. Salute!

 The Roman Baths, Abbey Church Yard, Bath BA1 1LZ

 The Roman Baths is open every day except 25 and 26 December.

 For specific seasonal opening times, admission prices, special events and accessibility details, visit the Roman Baths website.

 Tel: 01225 477785

 Web: romanbaths.co.uk