Bath

Sunday, August 31 was spent in Bath. The hallmark of our visit was to walk through the remains of the Roman baths which were constructed around the 1st and 2nd centuries AD around a natural hot spring. The remains are remarkable, considering they were buried for at least 1400-1500 years until the 1800s when a homeowner noticed his basement was filling with “hot” water. Excavations began to determine the source of the problem and discovered the first steps of the “tepiderium” room (warm pool - the large pool you see in most of the photos included). The city purchased all houses in the vicinity and began a serious, archeological dig. Can you believe the Romans used lead pipe to transport some of the water to special rooms? They built the sheet metal, rolled it around a wooden piece, then set the wood on fire and they had their pipe! The welding job is rustic but incredibly effective as they are still in use. This is truly an amazing site; they had steam rooms, cold rooms and warm pools, food stands around the main pool and dramatic arches surrounding the main building. One of the photos shows the remains of one arch and the hollow brick construction used for the roof.

An Abbey was constructed next to the roman baths and you can see what its dramatic architecture in the photos.