R
ising on the north bank of the Avon river valley the spring is one of only two in Britain that rises hotter than body temperature (more than 1 million litres per day at 40°C). It was recorded as a religious site during the Roman occupation, and was almost certainly built around an existing sanctury to a Celtic goddess called Sul.

Coinage distribution suggests that the springs were in the economic zone of the Dobunni centered further North from the Cotswolds across the lower Severn Valley to the Wye. It is not certain however that the boundary of the Dobunni, with the Durotriges to the south and soutwest and the Atrebates to the southeast, included the whole area around the springs.

Several hillforts were constructed within a ten mile radius of the Springs during the Iron Age. Budbury near Bradford on Avon is a high status site as well as Bathhampton, a 33 hectare area enclosed by a wall 3 metres thick. Both of these sites date from the eighth to sixth centuries BC, the earliest identified settlements. Little Solsbury Hillfort is likely to have been occupied from roughly the fifth to third century BC but the end date is inferred because it lacks the 'developed" multivallate defences of late hillforts. These defences are present at Bury Wood Camp 8 km to the northeast, which suggests that it was of greated importance in the first and second centuries BC. Other defended settlements to the east (Royal Camp, Little Down, Stantonbury, and Tunley Hill) have not been excavated sufficiently to give any indications of their development.

Iron Age settlements have been identified at Sion Hill and on the Lower Commons below Royal Victoria Park but no evidence of occupation has been found within the walled area of the later city.

The Roman author Lucan writes chillingly about a Celtic sanctuary in Gaul: "...on those boughs...birds feared to perch; in those coverts wild beasts would not lie down...The people never resorted thither to worship at close quarters, but left the place to the gods." It may be that there was something of this Celtic sensibility to the natural settings in the cult of Sul at the spring.

Sul was a goddess associated by the Romans with the attributes of Minerva. It is also possible that the cult had solar and lunar elements and a relation to hilltops. Sul was assumed to have significant powers for bringing judgement on malefactors as is recorded by hundreds of Roman era 'curse tablets' There is also a probable relation between Sul and a female triad, the Deiae Sulevai.

In a later age the area was disputed between Mercia and the bishopric of Worcester, and Wessex and the bishopric of Sherborne, and it may be that it was a similar buffer zone in the prehistoric era. In 'Medieval Bath Uncovered' (MBU) Peter Davenport offers a putative map of the sub-roman west 550-650 in which the river Avon separates the Dobunni and Durotriges partly because Winchester was then under Saxon control.

The Roman civitate of 'Belgae' possibly centered on Venta Belgarun (modern Winchester) and stretched fom the English Channel to the Severn Estuary to include the Springs. Belgae had been used as a tribal-grouping name in northern Gaul refering to a set of tribes all of mixed Gallic and Germanic origin, and having a common language or dialect. It could be that the Belgae Civitate represents a re-drawing of boundaries to suit imperial interests.

The archaeology of the Roman town can be followed well into the fifth century when substantial timber buildings and stone floors were being built in the vicinity of the springs. Excavations at Abbeygate showed a long sequence of structural alterations and occupation running for an uncertain period after the late fourth century. In the western part of town at Citizen Housetimber building on stone foundations were built after 395, and were succeeded by first more timber structures and then timber buildings on dry stone foundations which can be no earlier than mid to late fifth century.

The Saxons generally called the town Baðon or Baðan but in documents from the time of King Edgar's coronation in the town in 973 it is referred to as Acemannesceastre, Achamanni or Aquamania. It has been suggested that this was a scholarly revival of a post-Roman name for Bath replacing the pagan 'waters of Sul' with a neutral or christian-friendly 'Place of water' (Aquaemann: from the British mann: place)(MBU) This could also explain the Saxon name for the road from Bath to St Alban's - Akeman Street.

Sources for text and images include:

"Medieval Bath Uncovered" by Peter Davenport, 2002, Tempus, ISBN-10: 075241965X

"The City of Bath" by Sir Barry Cunliffe, 1986, Alan Sutton Publishing (UK), ISBN 0-300-03808-9

"The Roman Baths at Bath" (museum guidebook) by Sir Barry Cunliffe, 1993, Bath Archaeological Trust