Roman Baths (Bath)
The Roman Baths in Bath, Somerset draw more than a million visitors a year, and not one of them is allowed to touch the water. Behind the walkways and railings, a spring still rises from deep underground, exactly as it always has, only now it is watched rather than used. What could turn a spring into a source of both worship and danger? Why did people, centuries apart, keep returning to rebuild this one spot? And what exactly makes the water here unsafe today, when for so long it was thought to heal?
Rain falling on the Mendip Hills, a range of limestone hills near Bath, begins a journey that ends deep underground. It percolates through limestone aquifers to a depth of between 2,700 and 4,300 metres. There, geothermal energy heats it to between 69 and 96 degrees Celsius. Pressure forces this heated water back upward, through fissures and faults in the limestone, until it reaches the surface at Bath. The process resembles what modern engineers call an enhanced geothermal system, tapping the pressure and heat found beneath the Earth's crust. At the Pennyquick fault, 1,170,000 litres of water a day rise into the baths at a temperature of 46 degrees Celsius. In 1982, engineers sank a new spa water borehole, giving the Pump Room a clean, safe supply of water for visitors to drink.
A Royal Charter of 1591, granted by Elizabeth the First, gave the city of Bath formal responsibility for its hot springs. That duty now belongs to Bath and North East Somerset Council, which monitors the water's pressure, temperature and flow rates. The thermal water itself carries high concentrations of sodium, calcium, chloride and sulphate ions. The Great Bath is lined with lead from the Mendip Hills. In October 1978, a young girl swimming in the nearby Beau Street baths, fed by the same spring complex, contracted naegleriasis and died. Tests on the water found Naegleria fowleri, a deadly pathogen, and the baths closed for several years as a result. Bathers can still reach the same waters today. The Thermae Bath Spa, built on the former Beau Street site, and the refurbished Cross Bath both draw on more recently drilled boreholes.
Archaeological evidence suggests Celts already worshipped at this site before the Romans arrived, dedicating the natural springs to a goddess named Sulis. The Romans would later identify her with their own goddess Minerva. A separate, far less reliable account comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth. His largely fictional Historia Regum Britanniae credits the spring's discovery to Bladud, a legendary pre-Roman British king. Bladud is said to have built baths there himself. Early in the 18th century, this obscure legend gained new prominence, promoted as though it were a royal endorsement of the water's qualities. Storytellers added an embellishment: that the spring had cured Bladud, along with his herd of pigs, of leprosy after they wallowed in its warm mud.
The name Sulis survived the Roman conquest, giving the settlement its Roman name: Aquae Sulis, meaning the waters of Sulis. Construction of the temple began between 60 and 70 AD, and the wider bathing complex grew gradually over the following three hundred years. Engineers, possibly acting on the orders of Emperor Claudius, drove oak piles into the mud to create a stable foundation. They then enclosed the spring in an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. By the 2nd century, a wooden barrel-vaulted building covered the site. It contained a caldarium for hot bathing, a tepidarium for lukewarm bathing, and a frigidarium for cold bathing. Roman rule in Britain ended in the first decade of the 5th century, and the baths fell into disrepair soon after. Silting and flooding eventually buried what remained, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests the baths were destroyed by the 6th century. Archaeologists have recovered about 130 curse tablets from the site, many of them written by bathers cursing whoever had stolen their clothes.
John of Tours built a curative bath over the King's Spring reservoir in the 12th century, one of several times the site was reworked. In the 16th century, the city corporation added the Queen's Bath just south of the spring. Anne of Denmark visited Bath twice for her health in the early 17th century. Her court physician, Théodore de Mayerne, bathed her in the King's Bath on the 19th of May 1613, and she returned in August 1615. During one visit, a flame caused by natural gas startled her in the King's Bath. Afterward she used the New Bath, also called the Queen's Bath. There, a column bearing a crown and the inscription 'Anna Regnum Sacrum' was added in her honour.
The spring now sits inside 18th-century buildings designed by the architects John Wood, the Elder, and his son John Wood, the Younger. Visitors drank the waters inside the Grand Pump Room, a Neoclassical salon still used today for taking the waters and hosting social functions. Victorian-era expansion of the baths followed the same Neoclassical style the Woods had established. In 1810, the hot springs were thought to have failed. William Smith opened up the Hot Bath Spring down to the bottom. He discovered the spring had not failed at all; it had simply flowed into a new channel. Smith then restored the water to its original course.
Visitors today enter through an 1897 concert hall designed by J. M. Brydon. It forms an eastward continuation of the Grand Pump Room, with a glass-domed centre and a single-storey radiused corner. Thomas Baldwin began the Grand Pump Room itself in 1789, before resigning in 1791; John Palmer then carried the project through to completion in 1799. The elevation facing Abbey Church Yard features four engaged Corinthian columns, complete with entablatures and a pediment. Historic England has designated the building grade I listed. Baldwin also designed the north colonnade, while the similar south colonnade gained an upper floor later in the 19th century. Charles Edward Davis designed the museum and the Queen's Bath in 1889, including the Bridge spanning York Street to the City Laundry. Together they form a southward extension of the Grand Pump Room that still contains parts of the 17th-century Queen's Bath.
The museum displays artefacts from the Roman period, many of them objects that people threw into the Sacred Spring, presumably as offerings to the goddess. Among these are more than 12,000 Denarii coins, the largest collective votive deposit known anywhere in Britain. A gilt bronze head of the goddess Sulis Minerva, unearthed nearby in 1727, also stands on display. The Roman temple itself stood on a podium more than two metres above the surrounding courtyard, reached by a flight of steps. Four large, fluted Corinthian columns lined the approach, supporting a frieze and a decorated pediment above. That pediment, parts of which now sit in the museum, measured 26 feet wide and 8 feet from its apex to its base. At its centre glowered a possible Gorgon head, staring down from a height of 15 metres at everyone who approached the temple. The carved head has snakes woven into its beard, wings above its ears, heavy brows and a thick moustache. Because Gorgons are usually female, scholars disagree about what the image represents. Most now read it as a deliberate blending of Minerva's Gorgon attribute with the face of a local god who watched over the sacred spring. Others have suggested it depicts a water god such as Oceanus, or a local Celtic sun god. More recently, the pediment's design has also been compared to the Jupiter-Ammon clipei found across Roman fora. These sometimes portrayed local river gods in Celtic provinces.
Late 19th-century carvings of Roman emperors and governors line the terrace above the Great Bath, and acid rain steadily damages their surfaces. Conservators protect them with a sacrificial shelter coat, reapplied every few years. Inside the temple precincts, warm air poses a different threat, drawing corrosive salts out of the ancient Roman stonework. A new ventilation system, installed in 2006, now works to reduce this damage. In 2009, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport/Wolfson Fund granted £90,000 to Bath and North East Somerset Council. The fund exists to support improvements at museums and galleries across England. This particular grant went toward redeveloping the displays and improving access to the Roman Baths. Later grants paid for further work on the exhibition design and layout, carried out by the London-based firm Event Communications. Early in 2010, workers conserved and rearranged several of the pediment's stones. In 2016, planners approved a new learning centre for schoolchildren, to be linked to the baths by a tunnel. Funding was being sought from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and if that funding came through, organisers hoped the centre would open in 2019.
Common questions
What is the Roman Baths in Bath, England?
The Roman Baths are well-preserved Roman thermae, or bathing complex, in the city of Bath, Somerset, England, built around a natural hot spring. The site is preserved today in four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House, and a museum holding artefacts from Aquae Sulis.
Why can't visitors enter the water at the Roman Baths in Bath?
Visitors cannot enter the water because it carries Naegleria fowleri, a deadly pathogen. In October 1978, a young girl swimming in the nearby Beau Street baths, fed by the same spring complex, contracted naegleriasis and died, which led to the baths' closure for several years.
How many visitors does the Roman Baths in Bath receive each year?
The Roman Baths, together with the Grand Pump Room, receive more than 1 million visitors annually, making it a major tourist attraction in the UK.
Who was the Roman Baths in Bath dedicated to?
The site's springs were dedicated to the goddess Sulis, who the Romans identified with their own goddess Minerva. The Roman settlement that grew up around the springs became known as Aquae Sulis, meaning the waters of Sulis.
Where does the hot water at the Roman Baths in Bath come from?
The water begins as rainfall on the nearby Mendip Hills. It percolates through limestone aquifers to a depth of between 2,700 and 4,300 metres, where geothermal energy heats it to between 69 and 96 degrees Celsius, before rising back to the surface through the Pennyquick fault.
When was the temple at the Roman Baths in Bath built?
The temple was constructed between 60 and 70 AD, in the first few decades of Roman Britain. The wider bathing complex was then built up gradually over the following three hundred years.
All sources
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- 43DCMS Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund A Public Private Partnership (2002 to 2010)The Wolfson Foundation