| 
n August 2002, as part of our travels around
the South of Wales & England, we stopped off at the Historic Roman World
Heritage City of Bath, and the highly historically important World Heritage site
of Stonehenge. We spent a day at both locations, and had a thoroughly good time,
with a lot of sightseeing, and of course after dark the obligatory restaurants
and pub crawl.
Bath City Centre
Bath Abbey & Pump
Room
Over Pulteney
Bridge...
Orange Grove
Korina at Pulteney
Weir on the River Avon
At the Royal
Victoria Park
Robert at The Royal
Crescent
Korina at the
Circus...
Some more sights...
Korina and Abbey
Around about town
Robert & Korina at
Bath Abbey
Bath Roman Spa...
For two thousand
years Bath has been a spa town, built around Britain’s only hot mineral springs.
For centuries this natural phenomenon has attracted visitors to Bath, and led to
a unique historic urban environment around the springs.
The thermal waters rise from a depth of about 3000 metres 10,OOO feet at a daily
rate of around l.l7 million liters ¼ million gallons, at a constant temperature
of 46.5 C I16F. The waters are thought to originate as rainwater which fell on
the Mendip Hills to the south between 20— 80,000 years ago. They reach the
surface in three places in the city centre, and baths have them built over each
of them. In 1984 a new inclined borehole was drilled to tap the spring 84 metres
below street level, as shown in the diagram on the left to ensure a pure supply
of water.
The Romans were the first to realise the value of the hot mineral water. They
built their religious spa of Aquae Sulis around the three springs. The plan
below shows the Roman spa remains superimposed on the present day street plan.
In addition to the baths and temple on the site a reservoir and possible shrine
are known at the CrossBath spring and another bath house adjacent to the Hot
Bath spring
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is one of Britain's best-loved monuments. It was built in the Bronze
Age, between about 3000BC and 1500BC, and is located on Salisbury Plain. No one
knows quite how the huge structure was built, or why. In the past it has been
attributed to the Phoenicians, Romans, Vikings and aliens from outer space.
Nowadays it's thought to have been a temple.
Robert & Korina at
the Stone's
Korina & Stonehenge
Salisbury Hill...
Visit
Bath &
Stonehenge Here!
All photographs were taken in Bath & Stonehenge -
England on the 17th & 18th August 2002.
|
