I never get sick of looking at buildings and recognisable portions of buildings still in place after thousands of years. So last weekend in Bath was no disappointment. We started with tea in the Grand Pump Room a la Jane Austen who lived in Bath for a while. Someone made a rookie mistake of pouring her tea without straining it, but to save her the embarrassment, I won't name which one of us it was…
Getting back to the Roman baths, it is fed by a natural hot spring and the Romans built a bath house and temple complex around it. Everything below ground level (which is the tops of those square pillars around the edge of the Great Bath pictured above) is Roman, including the lead-lined baths and the conduits that still today carry the water to and from them. The other malarkey (which I like to call: The Roman Bath Experience) was built by the Victorians. Most museums are very ineffective in their use of audio visual media, but not so here. There is this awesome space that has the exposed foundation and stairs to the bath house to one side, and to the temple on another, and an outdoor altar on another. They put screens at two different spots in that space that start out with you looking at the current view from where your standing and then slowly it layers on more and more of the complex as it looked in Roman times, zooming out and around and then back to where you are standing. It really gives you a sense of the space and changes your whole perspective of the ruins.
The abbey church is right next to the baths and you can see it popping out in the background in the picture of the Great Bath, above. It has the most stunning sculpture of Jacob's ladder on the front of the church. I have never seen anything like it. The inside was inspiring as well.
Photo Credits
Us standing on a Roman floor: a member of staff at The Roman Baths
The Great Bath: Wikipedia
Jacob's Ladder on Bath Abbey: TripAdvisor
