The Roman Baths is below the modern street level and has four main features, the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and finds from Roman Bath.

Take a walk through the areas of the site below. Click here to view a 3D model of the Roman Baths.

Walk around the terrace which overlooks the Great Bath and is lined with Victorian statues of Roman emperors and governors of Britain. The statues on the terrace date to 1894, as they were carved in advance of the grand opening of the Roman Baths in 1897.

The Roman Baths were not discovered and explored until the late nineteenth century. The view from the Terrace is the first view you have as a visitor to the baths, but what you can see from here is less than a quarter of the site as a whole.

The Roman Baths extends under the modern ground level, beneath adjacent streets and squares, so many visitors are surprised when they discover just how big the site actually is!

See the front of the Temple, one of only two truly classical temples from Roman Britain. It was here that the statue of the goddess Sulis Minerva was housed.

The great ornamental pediment survives, and has been re-erected in the museum. An animation shows how the pediment would have looked in Roman times, and visitors can watch from the amphitheatre style seating. 

The pediment carries the image of a fearsome head carved in Bath stone and it is thought to be the Gorgon's Head which was a powerful symbol of the goddess Sulis Minerva.

The people of Aquae Sulis visited the baths and temple to worship the goddess Sulis Minerva. In this area you can see some of the private altars that once littered the temple courtyard and find out about the sacrifices made there.

The Facade of the Four Seasons
This unusual building is known from various sculptured stones found in the excavations that took place for the building of the Pump Room in 1790. A facade with carvings of the four seasons was surmounted by a decorated pediment containing an image of the goddess Luna.  The purpose of the building is not clear, but it may have been a place where worshippers might spend the night in the sacred courtyard next to the Temple of the goddess. Here they might have visions in their dreams.

The curse tablets
Some very special objects are the curses, with messages inscribed on sheets of lead or pewter, which were then rolled up and thrown into the Spring where the spirit of the goddess dwelt. The Roman Baths collection of Roman curse tablets, which include Britain’s earliest prayers, has now been included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register of outstanding documentary heritage.

The Tholos
Three large curved and decorated blocks supported by a stone column survive from the frieze of a tholos, a kind of circular temple, which probably stood to the east of the Temple of Sulis Minerva.

Visitors pass beneath the tholos blocks as they descend a staircase in the displays, so they can see the decoration as it was intended originally – from below. Temples like this are known from the eastern part of the Roman Empire and from Gaul, but this is the only one known from Roman Britain.

See the Sacred Spring, at the very heart of the site. Naturally hot water at a temperature of 46°C rises here every day and has been doing so for thousands of years.

1,170,000 litres (240,000 gallons) of water rises here daily. In the past this natural phenomenon was beyond human understanding and it was believed to be the work of the ancient gods. In Roman times a Great Temple was built next to the Spring dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a deity with healing powers. The mineral-rich water from the Sacred Spring supplied a magnificent bath-house which attracted visitors from across the Roman Empire. 

Objects from the Spring
Many objects were thrown into the Sacred Spring as offerings to the goddess, including more than 12,000 Roman coins which is the largest votive deposit known from Britain. Some very special objects are the curses, with messages inscribed on sheets of lead or pewter, which were then rolled up and thrown into the Spring where the spirit of the goddess dwelt.  

Metal pans, known as paterae, might have been used for making offerings of holy water. They are inscribed with the letters DSM or the words Deae Sulis Minerva which shows that they were dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva

Spring Overflow
See the Spring overflow which carries surplus water from the hot spring to the original Roman drain, and on to the River Avon four hundred metres away. The Roman plumbing and drainage system is still largely in place today and shows the ingenuity of the Roman engineers. Lead pipes were used to carry hot spa water around the site using gravity flow.

The Roman great drain can be seen through a glass floor in the museum. Some important finds have been made in the drain including a group of 34 gemstones and a mysterious tin mask.

The Roman Baths were in use for four hundred years and underwent many changes. To help visitors understand the way the bath house was used, we have suspended walls on this east part of the site above the Roman walls.

The eastern range of the Roman bath house contained a large tepid bath fed by water that flowed through a pipe from the Great Bath. A series of heated rooms was developed here which became progressively larger until the site reached its maximum extent in the fourth century AD.

The East Baths area of the Roman Baths, adjacent to the famous Great Bath, includes displays immersing visitors in the sights and sounds of the Roman bath house. Projections, soundscapes and CGI reconstructions show the Roman Baths at the height of their popularity as a working, living and leisure space.  You can watch, listen and step into the Roman Baths as they would have looked in the first to fourth centuries, as Roman characters of all social classes interact with each other.

The spa water fountain is currently not in use.

Taste the famous spa water, containing 43 minerals, which for centuries has attracted visitors to Bath for curative purposes.

Spa water has been used for curative purposes for two thousand years. Originally treatments involved bathing in the hot waters, then in the late 17th Century drinking spa water also came to be a recognised treatment for certain conditions. Today we use the hot spa water to heat the Roman Baths and Pump Room site in winter.

Click here for a full list of the minerals and elements in the water. Visitors can taste the water from a spa fountain in the west baths, or alternatively from the traditional fountain in the Georgian Pump Room above.