Billingsgate Bath House
One of the most important Roman sites in London is the so-called Billingsgate Bath House. It comprises a smallish Roman bath house, bordered on the east and north sides by other ruins, whether domestic or commercial is not entirely clear, but probably the latter. It is underneath a 1960s office block at 101 Lower Thames Street. It was first discovered in the 19th Century and extensively further excavated and explored by archaeologists in the 1960s. Conservators have just finished a short programme to give it a bit of maintenance to ensure that it remains in good condition for the next twenty years or so.
Today it was open to the public through the good offices of Thames Discovery Programme and it will be open again this weekend. Members of the maintenance team from UCL will be on hand to demonstrate how they go about their work to clean and repair the masonry, tiles, bricks etc. Find out more here. It’s free.
You say a smallish Roman bath house, but the pictures show quite a large space. Certainly far bigger than a family could have, even if they were wealthy and influential enough to build one for themselves. If tiles were used to soften the surface of the bricks, did any bits of tile survive?
Sorry, should have captioned the pics, but was in a hurry to post before going out. Bath house itself is the middle picture. It was certainly a public bath house and definitely on the small side, size of a medium apartment, I guess. The large space is the cold room. The two smaller spaces to the right, each about the size of a domestic bath room, are the hot room and the warm room. Plenty of tiles, but all undecorated. No mosaics, or anything like that.
I live in Bath, and (though I certainly didn’t assume that the Roman Baths here were the only Roman baths left in the UK) I wasn’t aware of any in London. If you have seen the baths in Bath, how do they compare?
Haven’t been to the Bath baths for about 20 years (although I did visit Bath a few months back). No comparison. The London one is significant historically and archaeologically, but that’s it. If you walked past them in Rome, you wouldn’t give them a second glance.
That would be why I’ve not heard of them! Now I just need to go to Rome….