The Welwyn bath house is a small detached suite serving a Romano-British roadside settlement on the road between Verulamium (St Albans) and Baldock, situated near where the road crossed the river Mimram. It was constructed in the early 3rd century AD and appears to have remained in use into the 4th century, comprising the standard sequence of cold, warm and hot rooms typical of modest civilian bathhouses in the region.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
It is one of the few Roman structures in Britain preserved in situ and accessible to the public — conserved beneath the embankment of the A1(M) motorway in a purpose-built vault — and it illustrates the provision of bathing amenities at a minor nucleated settlement rather than at a villa or town.
Excavated by Tony Rook in the late 1960s ahead of motorway construction, the building was found to consist of three small rooms with hypocaust pilae, a stoke-hole, plunge bath, and surviving painted wall plaster fragments; the campaign to preserve it led to the construction of the protective steel vault opened in 1975. The bath house's associated settlement is poorly defined, but finds of pottery, coins, and tile attest occupation throughout the Roman period.
The Welwyn bath house is a small detached suite serving a Romano-British roadside settlement on the road between Verulamium (St Albans) and Baldock, situated near where the road crossed the river Mimram. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a bath house site from the Roman period in Britain.
Welwyn 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 Lockleys Roman villa (0.4 km), Lockleys (0.6 km), Roman site 440yds (400m) E of Backlane Wood (5.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around Welwyn