A Bath Story: Roman Baths

I woke up the other day and decided to pay a little visit to The Roman Baths. I didn’t realise until booking my 10am ticket that entry is complimentary to Bath locals with a discovery card.

Sitting at the very heart of Bath, this is one of the best preserved Roman religious spas in the world.

The moment you descend below street level and feel the warm, mineral-thick air settle around you, it becomes very easy to believe it. The ancient spring still flows here, as it has for over two thousand years, pushing over a million litres of geothermally heated water to the surface every single day. The Romans found this, recognised it as sacred, and built a temple worthy of it.

They called the goddess Sulis Minerva. They threw offerings into the water, coins, jewellery, and small lead tablets inscribed with curses against enemies and stolen property. Some of those tablets are still here, still legible, still startlingly human in their fury and longing.

It is a place of calm, history and hopefully the coin I threw in brings my wish to life.

www.romanbaths.co.uk.