A little more about Bath

Yesterday I went on a wonderful walking tour of the city of Bath. It was led by one of the 80 volunteer guides and runs under the auspices of the Mayors office.  We covered quite a bit of ground and got a good idea of the history of Bath, but this, and the concert later in the day, meant that I ran out of time to see the two famous sites of Bath - the Abbey, and the Roman Baths.  Thus this morning I spent a few hours wandering about both sites.  I know there are a number of people expecting me to make some comments on the Roman baths and show a few pictures, hence this post.  I must also point out that there are many other things to see in Bath - the Jane Austen museum and a fashion museum to name a couple.

It seems incredible that the baths, huge and sprawling under the streets of Bath for many hundreds of metres, are really the only thing left of the Roman times in the region, and even then they were changed quite a bit by the Georgians when the baths became popular as a healing, restorative, and social venue.  Things such as balconies were added so that the public could view the baths and statues were carved to decorate the site, though the Romans too did their fair share of changing the baths in the 400 years or so that they were there.  They raised and lowered floors, opened new pools, built new rooms and closed others, and so the place has always been, to  some degree, a place of change.

 The colour of the water is a pearly green and this main pool would have been a meeting place.

 The ancient Roman baths are overlooked by the very old, but young by comparison, Abbey.

 The holy spring, the source of the hot water, was deepened in in Georgian times (the reddish line part way up the wall), but lowered in the 70's to the level it was in Roman times.  The spring bubbles up at 1,170,000 litres per day and the temperature is 46°.

The opposite side looking through a " window"

 The overflow from the spring flows into a drain, which in turn flows into the river.

This drain takes the overflow from the baths to the river.

 Inside the Abbey the lines are simple and elegant.

 I mentioned previously about the famous people who have association with Bath.  Here, in the Abbey, is an Australian connection, a memorial plaque for Admiral (we've demoted him to captain!) Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of NSW.

A couple of different views of the Abbey in the morning sunshine.