Roman Baths

The Roman Baths stand in the heart of Bath, Somerset, beside a natural hot spring that rises from deep underground. The site began as a Celtic shrine to the goddess Sulis, later becoming Aquae Sulis under Roman rule. A temple was built between 60 and 70 AD, and the bathing complex grew over the next three centuries. The Romans lined the Great Bath with Mendip lead and built hot, warm and cold rooms for public use. After the Roman withdrawal in the 5th century, the baths fell into ruin and were buried by silt and floodwater. The baths remain one of Britain’s most important Roman sites, drawing over a million visitors each year. Archaeologists have found 130 curse tablets in the Sacred Spring, many asking for stolen clothes to be returned. A gilt bronze head of Sulis Minerva, discovered in 1727, shows the goddess with snakes in her beard and wings above her ears. The museum holds more than 12,000 Roman coins thrown into the spring as offerings. The temple stood on a high podium with four Corinthian columns and a wide pediment featuring a fierce Gorgon head. Visitors enter through an 1897 concert hall with a glass dome, continuing into the Grand Pump Room. This Neoclassical salon, begun in 1789, still serves for drinking the waters and social gatherings. The Great Bath, once open to the sky, is now covered by an 18th-century building with a lead-lined pool. Nearby, the Queen’s Bath and museum display Roman finds and the temple’s surviving pediment fragments. The surrounding colonnades and later extensions show how the site has been reshaped over centuries while keeping its ancient heart.