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Unusual Roman bath-house discovered in Colchester

An exceptionally well-preserved room of what appears to have been a Roman bathhouse has been uncovered during building works in the grounds of the Colchester Sixth Form College. The walls of the room are of stone (septaria and mortar) and are 0.65 m wide. They stand to a maximum height of 1.3 m. The room has a plain red tessellated floor with a square setting (1.3 m across) for a basin. A well-preserved wooden water-main lies under the floor and crosses under the centre of the basin showing that the water must have been under pressure and thus either provided a small fountain or, perhaps more likely, was drawn off via a tap. The room is 6.0 x 4.0 m in area.

Most unusually, the walls incorporated a heated stone bench around all sides of the room. The bench was 450 mm wide and 500 mm high. Like the walls of the room, the surfaces (i.e., upper and inner face) were plastered and painted plain red. The bath was filled in during the Roman period when it was no longer needed. Parts of its walls and bench were broken up about a thousand years later to salvage the building materials for reuse elsewhere. The size of the room indicates that it was not part of a public bathhouse, but belonged to a private house.

The bathhouse (if that is what it was) was built on the side of North Hill to take advantage of one of the many springs which, even today, can be found along the 15 m contour across the town. The spring which fed the bathhouse is still active because the remains of the room partly fills with water. The water-logged conditions explain why the wooden water-main has survived so remarkably well.

Roman bathhouses generally had a cold room (frigidarium), a warm room (tepidarium) and a hot room (caldarium). But with smaller establishments such as this one, there could be variations which are hard to classify. It is not possible to say at present which of these rooms is represented here. Some bathhouses were detached buildings whereas others (as is probably the case here) took the form of a series of heated rooms in a private house.

The remains of the building are to be preserved and not built over. The College is delighted with the find and, in consultation with Colchester Museums, is to consider if it is a practical proposition to leave the remains on permanent view.

The archaeological investigation is being carried out by the Colchester Archaeological Trust on behalf of Colchester Sixth Form College.