The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath

by Charles Edward Davis

Footnote 2:[(return)]

Mr. Smith gives a list of "Wonders in England": 1st. "The Baths at ye Citty of Bath are accompted one although yet they are not so wonderfull seeing that ye Sulphur and Brimston in the earth is the cause thereof but this may pass well enough for one."

Footnote 3:[(return)]

Evidently the ruin of a portion of the Roman Thermæ, repaired in the 12th or 13th century.

Footnote 4:[(return)]

Monday, August 18, 1755, Bath. A most valuable Work of Antiquity has been lately discovered here. Under the foundation of the Abbey House now taking down, in order to be rebuilt by the Duke of Kingston, the workmen discovered the foundations of more ancient buildings, and fell upon some cavities, which gradually led to further discoveries. There are now fairly laid open, the foundations and remains of very august Roman baths and sudatories, constructed upon their elegant plans, with floors suspended upon square-brick pillars, and surrounded with tubulated bricks, for the equal conveyance of heat and vapour. Their dimensions are very large, but not yet fully laid open, and some curious parts of their structure are not yet explained.—(Gentleman's Magazine.)

Footnote 5:[(return)]

In the library of the Society of Antiquaries is a drawing of this bath with an imaginary restoration.

Footnote 6:[(return)]

A correspondent in the Bath Chronicle, purporting to be Richard Mann, the builder employed under me to excavate the greater portion of the discoveries, but whose services were dispensed with, quotes the above as follows: "Adjoining to the inner walls of the central bath there are bases of Pilasters, as in Lucas's between the walls and the bath. There is a corridor paved with hard blue stone eight inches thick." The full-stop being placed at the word "bath," instead of before the word "between," gives to the quotation a totally different meaning from that conveyed by Dr. Sutherland.

Footnote 7:[(return)]

Fac-simile [Pl. V.]

Footnote 8:[(return)]

In the plate the reference describes the bath to be 90ft., but in the text of Sutherland the dimensions are given as 96ft. which agrees with the scale on the plan.

Footnote 9:[(return)]

These baths and adjoining rooms occupied the block between Church Street and York Street, including Kingston Buildings.

Footnote 10:[(return)]

"But the old municipal independence seems to have been passing away. The record of the battle in the chronicle of the conquerors connects the three cities (Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester) with three Kings; and from the Celtic names of these Kings, Conmael, Condidan, or Kyndylan, and Farinmael, we may infer that the Roman town party, which had once been strong enough to raise Aurelius to the throne of Britain, was now driven to bow to the supremacy of native chieftains. It was the forces of these Kings that met Ceawlin at Deorham, a village which lies northward of Bath, on a chain of hill overlooking the Severn valley, and whose defeat threw open the country of the three towns to the West Saxon army."—Green's "Making of England," p. 128.

Footnote 11:[(return)]

As there have appeared in local papers considerable discussions as to these baths, I quote from one of the letters the following as being remarkably clear and explanatory:—

"In 1755, Dr. Lucas discovered a Roman bath, east of, and immediately adjoining, the Great Bath, which is now attracting so much attention. Lucas's Bath stood north and south—an important fact to bear in mind, as the great Roman Bath stands east and west—and measured 43ft. by 34ft. But this was not all. 'To the north of this room,' he says, 'parted only by a slender wall, adjoined a semi-circular bath, measuring from east to west, 14ft. 4in.' After the publication of Lucas's 'Essay on Waters,' the ground was further cleared away, and there appeared another semi-circular bath to the south, of the same dimensions as that to the north. The extreme length of Lucas's bath—including the N. and S. Baths, exclusive of the central semi-circular recesses—would be, roughly speaking 69ft.; and this fact should be carefully borne in mind, as we shall see presently to what use it was turned. Dr. Lucas's discoveries were pushed one stage further by Dr. Sutherland, who in his work entitled 'Attempts to revive Ancient Medical Doctrines' (1763) clearly indicates ([Pl. V.]) that he was on the track of another bath, the Great Roman Bath, in fact, with which we are now so familiar. His words are as follows: 'From each, corner of the westernmost side of Lucas's Bath, a base of 68ft., there issues a wall of stone and mortar. These walls I have traced six or eight feet westward under that causeway, which leads from the Churchyard to the Abbey Green. When, as we may suppose, they have run a length proportionable to their width, they compose a bath which may indeed be called great, 96ft. by 68ft.... From the westernmost side of Lucas's Bath a subterraneous passage has been traced 24ft., at the end of which was found a leaden cistern, raised about 3ft. above the pavement, constantly overflowing with hot water. From this a channel is visible in the pavement, in a line of direction eastward, conveying the water to Lucas's Bath' (pp. 20-21). Thus then in 1763 (1) the north and south walls of the great Roman Bath had been traced 6ft. or 8ft. west of Lucas's Bath. (2) Furthermore, starting from the centre of the west side of Lucas's Bath, a line had been traced to the east steps of the great Roman Bath. These are plain historical facts, open to everyone who will look into the plans of our baths, as given by Sutherland in 1763, and by Prebendary Scarth in his 'Aquæ Solis' in 1864. But our City Architect has been charged with suppressing these facts for his own glorification. Now, Sir, I think no unprejudiced man, who has heard Major Davis's addresses and read his books, can justly bring this charge. If I mistake not, he fairly stated the case in 1880, both in his address before the Society of Antiquaries, and in his lecture at the Bath Literary Institution. He has most certainly concealed nothing in his published works 'The Bathes of Bathe's Ayde' and 'Guide to the Roman Baths.' In the former work he says (p. 81), 'Dr. Sutherland indicates a large bath westward of that which had been discovered in his time, in fact there can be little doubt that the steps at the eastward end of a great bath had then been found;' in the latter, whilst alluding to the published plans of Sutherland, he says (p. 10), 'These plans indicate a large bath westward of that discovered in 1754 (? 1755), in fact the eastward steps of a bath had then been found.' Here then is a full and candid admission of all the facts known about the great Roman Bath in the middle of the last century; and this anyone can see by reference to the map in Prebendary Scarth's 'Aquæ Solis'—the diagram (copied from Spry) there being almost similar to Sutherland's conjectural plan of the baths, except that the section of Lucas's Bath, correctly represented in Sutherland's map is figured upside-down by Spry and Scarth. It is quite clear what Sutherland knew of the great Roman Bath; it is equally clear that when he proceeded, on the strength of his very limited observations, to draw a conjectural plan of the whole bath, he fell into absolute errors, such as, commonly enough, spring out of hasty generalisations based on scanty data. Thus, he gives the dimensions of the enclosure of the great bath as 96ft. by 68ft.; whereas, as a matter of fact, they are 111ft. by 68ft. How is this discrepancy to be explained? 'A Citizen' in your last weekly issue, says 'The alleged discrepancies in the measurements, which Mr. Davis has used to prove his case, are but the differentiations of the external measurements with the sinuous subterranean windings.' These are indeed brave words, indulged in rather to diminish Major Davis credit than to rescue Sutherland; but a truer explanation of the real discrepancies stares any man in the face who will open Dr. Sutherland's work. There is no occasion to be wise beyond what is written: 'When, as we may suppose, they have run a length proportionable to their width, they compose a bath, which may indeed be called great, 96ft. by 68ft.' The fact is, Sutherland supposed that the dimensions of the great Roman Bath would observe the same relative proportions as Lucas's Bath. The room of Lucas's Bath, let it be remembered, was 43ft. by 34ft., or rather 30ft. 6in. from the face of the pilasters. In other words, the length was equal to the diagonal of the square of the base. Then, having observed that the base of the room of the great Roman Bath—formed by the length of Lucas's Bath—was 68ft., Sutherland assumed that its length also would be equal to the diagonal of the square of base, namely 96ft. This patent error, assuming that the unknown would have a relative correspondence with the known quantities, was the fruitful source of many more. (1) The dimensions of the outer rectangular area formed by the room of the great Roman Bath being false, the dimensions of the inner rectangular area formed by the water surface of the bath were necessarily false also. (2) Steps were observed at one end only of the water surface of Lucas's Bath; therefore it was inferred that steps would be found at one end only of the water surface of the great bath, the eastern end as figured in the maps of 1763 and 1864, whereas we now know that steps run all round. (3) The exedrae at the back of the schola having no existence in Lucas's Bath, were omitted from the conjectural plan of the great Roman Bath. (4) Lucas's Bath being a plain hall without piers, Sutherland assumed the same form for the hall of the great Roman Bath, and altogether omitted the arcades that divide it into three aisles. (5) Not to dwell on other errors built on the baseless fabric of conjecture, it is evident that Sutherland imagined a system of baths existed west of the great Roman Bath similar in all respects to that known to exist east of the great Roman Bath. But here, again, theory has been upset by facts. And now is a fitting opportunity to draw attention to what has been actually discovered west of the great Roman Bath, namely, the octagon Roman Well, which I should be disposed to consider Major Davis's greatest discovery, though I observe that hostile critics take no notice of this, possibly because it is beyond the region of dispute. If any one, able to point what he reads, still believes that the great Roman Bath was ever practically opened up in the last century I would refer him to Mr. Moore's able and suggestive paper, entitled 'Organisms from the recently discovered Roman Baths in Bath,' read to the members of the Bath Microscopical Society, in May, 1883. Once more I insist that we must clearly separate what Sutherland knew from what he conjectured. Indeed, Sutherland himself fairly draws the distinctions. On page 21 he says, 'This ground plot is exhibited in the plate annexed, as far as the earth is cleared away. The remainder is supposed, and drawn out in dotted lines.' These dotted lines represent a vast terra incognita covering, practically, the whole of the ground recently opened up. That the existence of the great Roman Bath has been transferred from the region of conjecture to the region of fact we owe entirely to the enthusiasm and unwearied zeal of Major Davis, and no fair mind can deny him the credit of being the practical discoverer of the great Roman Bath. More credit than this he has never claimed; less than this only the churlish and envious will grudge him."