The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath

the lead and other valuables. Soil then gravitated into the ruins and thus further assisted in preserving the antiquities, so that they were altogether hidden from the people who re-built the ruined city of Bath, and from those who in successive generations succeeded them. The subterranean "passage traced 24ft." from the western side of Lucas's bath, "at the end of which was found a leaden cistern," was not in any way Roman work, but mediæval, and was formed some time after the construction of the Abbey house, as an aqueduct for the hot water with which the soil was saturated. This construction is the only evidence of an early discovery of this eastward wing of the bath, indeed the only evidence of mediæval work of any kind in connection with the baths, except the enclosure of the various springs or wells. The King's Bath, the Cross, and the Lepers' Bath were simply the wells or cisterns of the springs which were bathed in to the damage of the purity of the water, without dressing-rooms of any kind.

[Foot