The Billingsgate Roman House and Baths comprise the remains of a substantial late Roman riverside townhouse in Londinium with an attached private bath suite, located on Lower Thames Street just north of the original Thames waterfront. The house was built in the later 2nd century, with the bath wing added in the 3rd century, and occupation continued into the late 4th or even early 5th century, making it one of the latest known functioning Roman buildings in London.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As a well-appointed private residence with its own balneum positioned close to the quays of Roman London, the building reflects the wealth of a prosperous merchant or official, and its prolonged late occupation is significant evidence for continued urban life in Londinium at the very end of the Roman period. A coin of Honorius found within the bath house is often cited as marking the end of formal Roman occupation on the site.
The remains were discovered in 1848 during the construction of the Coal Exchange and re-examined in 1967–70 by Peter Marsden, who recorded a courtyard house with east and north wings and a hypocausted bath suite containing cold, warm, and hot rooms with a praefurnium. The site is preserved in situ beneath a modern office block at 101 Lower Thames Street, where the surviving walls, hypocaust pilae, and apsidal caldarium can still be seen.
The Billingsgate Roman House and Baths comprise the remains of a substantial late Roman riverside townhouse in Londinium with an attached private bath suite, located on Lower Thames Street just north of the original Thames waterfront. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a bath house site from the Roman period in Britain.
Billingsgate Roman House and Baths is classified as a Roman bath house — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including The Roman riverside wall and wharves at Sugar Quay (0.2 km), The Roman riverside wall and wharves at Three Quays (0.3 km), London Wall (0.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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