BATH'S SACRED SPRINGAn Essay By Bruce Heydt Queen Anne's Visit Despite George's unresponsiveness to the curative water of England's ancient spa town, the precedent of a royal visitor to Bath caught the attention of seemingly everyone, and soon a trip to Bath became the astute thing to do, not only for those seeking a remedy for any of a wide variety of ailments, but also for anyone attuned to the customs of genteel society. Almost overnight, what had been a destination for the poor and infirm masses became a fashionable resort town. Georgian Rebirth of Baths The transformation began with the construction of a new Pump Room, where visitors to the baths could taste the water, mingle with other aristocratic pilgrims, and prepare to immerse themselves in the warm spa water. This elegant though modestly scaled building opened in 1706, but by the 1750s it could no longer comfortably accommodate the growing number of visitors who came to the baths. Discovery of Roman Baths The intrusive relics of the Roman occupation seemed to turn up everywhere. When the next major round of improvements began--including an entirely new Pump House designed by Thomas Baldwin--portions of the ancient temple courtyard came to light. The builders removed fragments of stone, but then once again reburied the site under the new building. The 19th century brought with it a change in outlook. Threats of war and economic depression put an end to the carefree, holiday mood that had characterised journeys to Bath, and the fashion of taking the waters gradually declined. With time, visitors no longer came primarily seeking cures, or high society, but rather to savour the city's architectural and historical gems. Bath's Roman roots comprised an integral part of this heritage. Mayor Davis' Sacred Spring Unlike his predecessors, Davis did not rebury his find. Energized by his discovery, he took up the floor of the King's Bath and dug through the rubble that filled the reservoir the Romans had built to control the spring. His finds sparked tremendous interest in Bath's ancient history, and he eventually convinced the city to buy the modern residential buildings standing over the Roman bath complex and demolish them, so that the ruins could be thoroughly excavated. Because of Davis's powers of persuasion, today's visitors to Bath are not able to visit a house where the painter Thomas Gainsborough once lived, just adjacent to, and above, the Roman Great Bath. What Davis found beneath the 19th century city, however, far outweighed what modern visitors lost. The archaeological work he began has continued periodically right down through the late 20th century, revealing a lost Roman world beneath the modern town. Decline of Baths after Romans Left Davis removed this layer of earth from over the Great Bath and visitors can now peer down from a late 19th century colonnaded terrace onto the Roman pavement surrounding the bath itself. Columns and the vaulted roof they once supported both vanished long ago, but the blocks of stone they stood on remain in place. Murky green water fills the pool, and placards advise curious visitors not to taste the untreated water in the bath, but rather to wait until they enter the Pump Room. The water's unusual hue, caused by algae, provides a more than adequate deterrent and, during my visit at least, no one seemed tempted to disobey the prohibition. Roman Plumbing and Engineering The Romans altered the layout of the complex several times throughout the three centuries of its use. Originally, this pipe fed a fountain and two smaller baths to the east of the Great Bath. From these, drains carried the run-off to the River Avon. Apparently, this arrangement caused some problems. When the water level in the Avon rose, water backed up through the drains and flooded the baths. In consequence, the Romans filled in the easternmost bath and raised the level of the floor to create a hypocaust, an open space beneath the room where heated air provided a kind of Roman precursor to modern baseboard heating, allowing the room above to be used as a Turkish bath. Many of the brick piles that supported the raised floor still stand, as they do in more perfect fashion in another similar room in the western baths. The pipework linking all these baths led back to a single source, the sacred healing spring dedicated to the goddess Minerva. In so dedicating the spring, the Romans followed the tradition of the native Celtic inhabitants of the region, who believed the water came from Sulis, a god with great healing and martial prowess. The Romans also had a god with identical talents, and reasoned that Sulis and Minerva must be one and the same. When the Romans arrived in Britain, the sacred spring amounted to no more than a muddy bog. Their engineers erected a two-meter-high wall of lead-lined stone around the spring to form a reservoir to contain the 250,000 gallons that gush up out of the ground each day. Although the vaulted ceiling they built over the spring collapsed long ago, and 18th and 19th century masonry now surrounds it, the spring itself must still look much as it did when pilgrims travelled here from throughout the Empire. The murky water bubbles as gasses percolate to the surface. Vapour rises from the water, which flows out of the earth at a temperature of 46 degrees Celsius. It really does look vaguely supernatural. The sacred spring became the hub of the Roman bath and temple complex. The bath houses stood to the south, and the temple precinct with its sacrificial altar flanked it on the north. While providing the water for the baths, the spring itself more properly belonged to the religious half of the site. The Romans allowed no bathing in the spring; rather, it was a site at which to appeal to Sulis Minerva for help, and to offer gifts in return for her favour. Gifts to Sulis Minerva - Objects found in the Baths But the most unusual objects drawn from the spring reveal that not everyone who came here did so in search of a blessing. Several squares of sheet lead found in the mud bear inscribed appeals to Sulis Minerva to curse the often unknown perpetrator of some minor offense. One inscription gave rise to speculation about the perverted pagan customs that seem to have been practised during the Roman occupation: 'May he who carried off Vilbia from me become as liquid as the water. May she who so obscenely ate her lose the power of speech. . . .' Things are not always what they seem however, and researchers investigating the previously unknown word 'Vilbia,' concluded that it was not a person's name, but an object--possibly a napkin. If so, the victim's curse certainly would have been more than adequate retribution for such an odd but trivial crime. Discovery of the Temple Precinct Pedestrian traffic now courses through a portion of the Temple Precinct once again, for the first time in 16 centuries. It takes some imagination to conjure up an image of what this crypt-like chamber must have looked like in its hey-day, when the Roman paving stones underfoot lay exposed to bright sunlight, rather than contemporary track lighting, and views across the courtyard did not include the pillars and posts necessary to support the foundations of later buildings. At one end of the excavated Temple Precinct, in a spot that would have been at the centre of the newly built facility, lie the remains of the steps that led to the temple. This shrine housed sacred relics and a statue of the spring's patron goddess--which is missing except for the head found by the sewer workers. The building itself suffered a similar fate. High above the temple steps, four tall columns once supported an intricately carved pediment. Archaeologists have recovered enough fragments of the pediment to attempt a reconstruction, which now adorns a wall elsewhere in the museum. The Sacrificial Altar Across from the altar, the steps at the foot of the doorway leading to the sacred spring remain, but the passageway and the wall into which it was set have long since crumbled into ruin. The steps themselves show little sign of the centuries of neglect that have claimed the rest of the precinct; instead, they bear the mark of a different sort of decay--one that speaks of constant use. The soles of countless thousands of shoes, worn by religious devotees passing into and out of the sacred spring, wore a deep grove in the soft stone. Collapse of Rome and the Arched Roof Post Romana Visitors to Bath can still taste the water and decide for themselves which of these two options is least objectionable. The most diplomatic comment many visitors find they can make about the flavour of Bath's curative waters is that it's not as bad as they feared. Jane Glaser of Sulis Guides, who first introduced me to Bath, compared it favourably to the water found at other spa towns in Britain, so maybe the secret to appreciating the spring water is to visit those sites first, in order to lower your expectations. But after all, patients have complained for centuries about the bad taste of their medicine, and the waters of Bath are among the most ancient of tonics. |