Pupletts in Sweden: UK Trip Pt 4 - Bath, Stonehenge and Weston-Super-Mare

Tuesday 23rd was a rugby free day, so we decided to take a drive into England to see some of the sights. I remembered Bath as a major highlight, so I wanted to share it with Kris and the kids and I was very keen to see Stonehenge as I'd missed it on my previous trip to the UK.

We started fairly early as it was a long drive to Bath. I also needed to call the UK Heritage group as I accidentally booked the Stonehenge tickets for Wednesday not Tuesday, but luckily that was easily fixed.

So our first stop of the day was the Roman Baths in the town of Bath. The kids loved walking through the old Roman Baths with the audio devices providing a history and Kris and I had fun exploring and looking at the bath and the artifacts that had been recovered. We took 280 photos of Bath alone, so this has been a post I've been dreading having to sort through...

The Bath's were build somewhere between 1st and 4th century AD by the Romans and ended up buried beneath the city before being discovered in 1879, 20 feet below the city.

Bath itself was a very pretty town with lots of old buildings and ornate arches and facades:

Arch in Bath

Bath Abbey

But our main goal was the Roman Bath complex.

Map of the Bath Complex

After paying and collecting our audio devices (various locations had numbers you could key in and hear details of the history or additional information), we headed in.

Our first view was of the baths from the upper terrace, looking down into the main bath:

Main Bath

Main Bath and Roman actor

Our next stop was the hot spring. Water rises from the spring at 1,170,000 litres a day at a temperature of 46 degrees C. The Baths are designed so that the spring bubbles into a reservoir and then into the King's Bath, which was built in the 12 century.

Hot Spring and King's Bath

We then headed out to the raised terrace around the main bath, where statues of Roman emperors and governors look down on the bath. The terrace was built in 1897 when the baths were first open to tourists.

The Terrace

Statues (from Julius Agricola (closest) to Constantine the Great - see list below)

Statues from Julius Caesar to Ostorius Scapula (see list below)

Julius Caesar and Claudius with Bath Abbey in the background

The Roman Statues in clockwise order are:
1. Julius Caesar
2. Claudius - Emperor
3. Vespasian - Emperor
4. Ostorius Scapula - Govenor
5. Suetonius Paulinus - Govenor
6. Julius Agricola - Govenor
7. Head of Roma - Symbolizing the spirit of Rome
8. Hadrian - Emperor
9. Constantine the Great - Emperor

Designs around the terrace

The town was called Aquae Sulis in Roman times or Aque Calidae meaning "Hot Waters". The earliest inscription found at the baths was from 76 AD, reading "in the 7th consulship of Emperor Vespasian"

The baths were dedicated to the god Sulis Minerva - a blending of the original god of the area, Sulis, and Minerva the Roman god. On the site was the Temple to Sulis Minerva, and several parts of the pediment (the triangular area with a design above the door) have been recovered.

The Pediment

There is a lot of debate about the meaning of the pediment. Is the head in the middle a gorgon surrounded by snakes, or the face of a man lying on the water with his beard and hair flowing around him?

The remains of a boar statue recovered from the site

Pottery and other items uncovered - some may have been given as offerings and some may have been left behind

Roman Tombstone - "Antigonus, of the Sergian voting tribe from Nicopolis, veteran of the 20th legion, aged 45, lies buries here. Gaius Tiberinus, his heir, had this set up."

There were also many Roman graves uncovered during the excavations:

Sample of the mosaic tiled floor

One of the things that the baths were used for was requesting favours from the Goddess. Curses would be engraved on tin sheets and thrown into the waters. On the sheets were listed the crime, recommended punishment and if possible a list of suspects to make the job of the Goddess easier.

Curses

The curses above are:
1. Complaint about the theft of a woman's cape - Lovernisca complains to the Goddess that her cape has been stone.
2. Complaint about theft of Vilbia (possibly a woman and/or slave) - includes a list of possible culprits
3. Complaint about the theft of a cloak and bathing tunic
4. A list of possible culprits for a crime
5. Text is British Celtic - These are the only words of British Celtic known to survive anywhere. It is currently untranslatable.
6. Folded curse - this curse has been folded before being thrown into the baths.

More curses

These next batch of curses are:
1. Theft if a hooded cloak - Docilianus promised this when recovered to the "most holy goddess Sulis"
2. Theft of six silver coins - This lists Christians as well as pagans as the possible thief.
3. Theft of part of a plough
4. Theft of a blanket - the spelling is unusual and the writer may have been dyslexic
5. Theft of a pair of gloves - Docimedis says the thief should lose his mind and his eyes
6. Theft of a Bracelet
7. Theft of six silver coins - States that it was copied from a written page by a scribe
8. Theft of 2 silver coins (the large vertical curse above) - Names one thief only: Verecundius
9. Theft of a bronze vessel - The person who has stolen my bronze pot is utterly accursed
10. Theft from a house - Deomiorix does not say what was stolen from him.

As can been seen, the curses were usual for small, almost trivial items. The people likely to throw curses into the baths were common folk. Often they would pay scribes to engrave the curses for them to ensure that the Goddess could read them.

We then walked through the underground section where the main courtyards had been, including the sacrificial altar, where animal sacrifices would have taken place.

The cornerstones of the altar

Outside the remains of the temple is displayed the head of Sulis Minerva

Sulis Minerva

Offerings thrown into the baths for the Goddess, including temple plates, personal belongings and jewellery

After passing a few more displays, including one showing a variety of coins that had been found in the Baths, we came to the overflow. This was a clever drain system engineered by the Romans to handle overflow from the springs:

The overflow

The water ran through a tunnel under the floor and into the main drainage tunnel:

Drain

We then headed out into the main bath, the one we had seen from above. The flooring was the same as that which the Romans had walked on 2000 years ago. There was still an old lead pipe running through a trench in the floor:

Pipe

The bath

Bath

Kris contemplating the bath

The kids posing

Looking down the bath

Roman actors

Inside we visited the final sets of baths, the tepidarium, frigidarium and the plunge pool

Under the floor of one of the baths

The kids left behind a little bit of Sweden, throwing a 10sek piece each into the pool:

After bath we headed out to Stonehenge. This was somewhere I was really excited to see. You can no longer walk among the stones, instead there are two ways to view the site. First you can see Stonehenge from the road for free but at a distance, or second you can arrive at the visitor centre and pay to take a bus tour out to the stones. You cant walk into the ring (due to risking damaging the site) but you can get fairly close. We took 200 photos here too....

Stonehenge visitors centre with the medieval village in the background

Just a rough shot showing how many cars were there. It was pretty busy

Our first stop was the visitor centre which had an information room and a exhibit of medieval houses and some examples of how they would have moved the stones:

A replica stone on a sled that could be similar to those used. (its a replica as there are no unbroken sarsen stones that size available any more)

There were two types of stone used to build Stonehenge - Sarsen (a very hard sandstone formed 26 million years ago) and Bluestone (volcanic rocks from West Wales). Sarsen is a difficult stone to work due to its toughness, but its believed that the stones were sculpted to fit together and had the rough outer surfaces removed to give the site a bright appearance. All of this was done using stone-age tools around 2500 BC.

Stonehenge was built in several phases, first was a circular ditch and bank made in the chalk soil, approximately 3000 BC. The chalk would have made the circle bright white. There was also a circular array of holes (now known as Aubrey Holes) which lie close to the inner edge of the bank and likely held upright timbers or small stones. In many of these stones, human cremains were found, making it likely that the site was used as a burial site. It is believed that the holes were dug with antlers and similar stone-age tools.

One of the signs showing what 3000BC Stonehenge may have looked like (note the weather in England hasnt changed much in 5000 years..)

The bluestones are believed to have been transported from West Wales (240km away) and weight approximately two tonnes each. It is thought that they were initially brought as grave markers, possibly standing in the Aubrey Holes.

Stonehenge is not officially a henge, as a henge is a raised bank with a ditch inside. In Stonehenge the ditch runs outside the bank.

The design of Stonehenge means that the main entrance corridor matches the exact location of the midsummer sunrise and mid-winter sunset. It's believed that the Sarsen stones were added around 2500 BC from a quarry 40km away and fitted with mortise and tenon (peg and hole) designs.

It is thought that Stonehenge may originally have been fully enclosed and approached down a long corridor in the chalk.

First view of Stonehenge

Stonehenge (from NW)

Us at Stonehenge (NW)

The lump on the single standing stone (the one with a bird on it) shows how the top stones were mounted - they would have a hole or slot that was fitted around the pin (South)

Station Stone (west)

The photo above is one of the four Station Stones placed in a rectangle around the inner sarsen circle.

Aubrey Hole marker

Another angle - this is one of my favorite shots

Shot showing the two central Bluestones

Far side of Stonehenge (NE)

The Heel Stone

The Heel Stone lies in the NE of the sarsen stone circle outside of the henge. This is an unshaped sarsen.

View of Stonehenge from the Heel Stone (NE)

View from the entrance to the site (NW)

Showing the crowd present

When we headed back to the car Chateau De Kris was in full swing making lunches and we headed off to Weston-Super-Mare.

Chateau De Kris

Our final stop of the day was one of the most famous beaches in England - Weston-Super-Mare. I had told Kristine about it and mentioned the fact that we used to joking call it Weston-Super-Mud, but she still wanted to go and see.

Weston has a large pier with an arcade and a smaller one with an amusement park. There is also an aquarium and water (somewhere off in the distance). The tide was out when we arrived and we could maybe catch the slightest glimpse of water on the horizon.

The big pier and the impressive buildings int he background

Looking out over the beach towards water.. maybe?

It was a nice evening so the kids took of their shoes and went for a walk on the sand

Which soon turned to mud...

Sticky mud

and more mud

But the view back up the beach was pretty awesome

And they laughed when I called it super-mud

But mud is good for skin, right?

The kids tried their best to wash off (except for Cam who thought that he could drop to his knees in more mud to clean off)...

Then we saw this sign:

DANGER! the sticker face on the man makes the sign much better

This was about 200m before the bit we walked to...

I'm used to some signs being in Swengrish (A mix of Swedish and English) in Sweden, but this sign has no excuse - it's in England and I still have no idea what it's on about: