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Room 28, which
was excavated in 1963, must have obtained its supply of heat
through Room 39, though demolition and further building in
Period IV have prevented the discovery of a flue connecting
these two rooms; it is now very probable that this room, too,
was a hot plunge-bath which, less hot than Room 58, would have
become the main hot plunge-bath from Phase B onward (see also
Room 39, below). The evidence for this is a large drain which,
beginning from the west corner of this room, passed underneath
the floors of Rooms 58, 55, and 56, and thence to the
north-west of the site below the courtyard wall and the
tessellated floor of Room 51.
This is the main drain of the bath building, fed by the drains
serving Rooms 31 and 58. It was very solidly constructed, with
walls of ragstone set in bright yellow mortar to a thickness
of 1 foot 6 inches; the bottom consisted of roofing-tiles set
with their flanges uppermost in bright yellow mortar directly
upon the subsoil and overlapped by the sides of the drain. To
the south-east of Room 51 and under the courtyard wall, the
drain was arched and this would probably have been the case as
far as the north-west wall of the main range of rooms; the
depth of the drain, from the top of the arch to the top of its
tiled floor, was a little over 3 feet, and the arch was
constructed of bonding-tiles set in opus signinum (Plate
IIB). There were no traces of any rendering, either in opus
signinum or mortar, on the sides of the drain, and it may
be concluded that it contained lead piping.9
Room 39 was completely cleared where not covered
by the massive north-west wall of the baths in Period V; the
full size of the room was 32 by 12 feet 6 inches, excluding
the apse, Room 38, which was fully excavated in 1963. The
south-west wall of Room 39, which abutted against the wall of
Rooms 53 and 54, was only 1 foot 6 inches thick whereas its
north-west wall was the standard thickness of 2 feet; to the
south-west, this room terminates against an earlier wall, 2
feet 6 inches wide, which may have continued further to the
north-west beyond its present termination at the south-west
wall of Room 57 where it was found removed. The floor of Room
39 was of opus signinum, 2-3 inches thick, upon which
were found slight traces of its hypocaust-pilae. Heat
for the hypocaust was provided through a flue at the southeast
end of the south-west wall of the room from its own
furnace-room (Room 52). The function of this room, certainly
in this phase and probably throughout the whole period, was
that of a caldarium.
Room 52, the praefurnium of Room 39, was only
partly exposed. It was 11 feet 6 inches wide and had walls of
standard construction, except for the south-east wall which
was only 1 foot 6 inches thick.
9 A few courses of bonding-tiles
found in 1963 in a narrow trench outside the north-west wall of
Room 28 and thought then to be part of a drain are now known
to belong to the foundation courses of the walls forming the
east corner of Room 68. |