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‘The Old Work’ at the Roman Public Baths at Wroxeter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Graham Webster and
Paul Woodfield
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Extract

The Public Baths in the Roman town of Viroconium, the tribal centre of the Cornovii, have long attracted the attention of the antiquary through the miraculous preservation above ground of a length of walling. This is in fact one of the only three substantial portions of walls of Roman civil buildings in Britain which have survived the stone robbers of medieval and later times. The other two, the Mint Wall at Lincoln and the Jewry Wall at Leicester must owe their survival to being incorporated in later buildings in the middle of a medieval town. But at Wroxeter ‘The Old Work’, as it has been called since Camden's time, stands today as it has stood for centuries in the midst of cornfields. Why this wall should have stood while others were demolished and even their foundations grubbed out must remain a problem. It was clearly a place to begin excavations and Thomas Wright records that ‘on the 3rd February 1859 a pit was sunk against the northern side of the ‘Old Wall’. His excavation developed to the north and revealed the long basilican hall which can now be recognized as the palaestra of the Baths, although at the time this was not fully understood. Indeed after further work by G. E. Fox and W. H. St. John Hope in 1896 and 1899, summarized by F. Haverfield, the identification of this as the Basilica or lawcourts of the town persisted.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , September 1966, pp. 229 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1966

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References

page 229 note 1 This is a blank wall, 70 feet long, but it is not yet possible to decide of what kind of building it formed part, Arch. J. ciii for 1946 (1947), 37–38.Google Scholar

page 229 note 2 Considered by Miss K. M. Kenyon to have belonged to the Basilica of the Forum, Excavations at the Jewry Wall Site, Leicester, 1948; it could, however, equally well have been part of the palaestra of the Bath-house and there remains doubt as to whether there ever was a Forum on this siteat any period. A building of this type has now been found elsewhere in the town, J.R.S. liv (1964), 162 and Fig. 13.Google Scholar

page 229 note 3 Perhaps as at the Mint Wall at Lincoln the stones were too small to be attractive to stone robbers.

page 229 note 4 Uriconium, 1872, p. 110.Google Scholar

page 229 note 5 Arch. J. liv (1897), 123–73.Google Scholar

page 229 note 6 V.C.H. Shrops. i, 226–34.Google Scholar

page 229 note 7 Arch. lxxxviii (1940), 175–227.Google Scholar

page 229 note 8 Excavations at Wroxeter 1923–27 (1942).Google Scholar

page 230 note 1 Arch. J. liv (1897), 147.Google Scholar

page 230 note 2 Arch. lxxxviii (1940), fig. I on p. 182.Google Scholar

page 230 note 3 I am grateful for a helpful discussion on these and following points with Mr. C. M. Daniels.

page 232 note 1 Arch. lxxx (1930), 229–37 andGoogle ScholarBull. Board Celtic Studies, xv (1953), 164.Google Scholar

page 232 note 2 Trans. Birmingham Arch. Soc. lxxiv for 1956 (1958), 21.Google Scholar

page 232 note 3 Carried out as part of a scheme organized by the Dept. of Extra-Mural Studies of the University of Birmingham for training students in excavation techniques with the close collaboration of the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

page 232 note 4 A close parallel to this arrangement is in the bath-house at Avenches, Ur-Schweiz, xxii, Part 2 (1958), 17–24.Google Scholar Large open pools which may be associated with water sanctuaries or healing cults, apart from the outstanding example at Bath, have been found at Well in Yorkshire, Gilyard-Beer, R.The Romano-British Baths at Well, 1951, and Gadebridge, Hemel HempsteadGoogle Scholar, where it has been tentatively identified by the excavator, Mr. D. S. Neal, as a swimming pool) published as a pamphlet by the Hemel Hempstead Excavation Society). The Wroxeter piscina does not appear to have been used or even completed and it was filled in to ground level by dumping town rubbish in which a large amount of late-second-century pottery has been found.

page 233 note 1 This would also account for its survival while the main wall has been robbed down to its foundations.

page 234 note 1 By the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

page 237 note 1 Grenier, A, Manuel d'archéologie gallo-romaine, i, 568Google Scholar; it is also illustrated by Pobé, and Roubier, , in Art in Roman Gaul, pl. 156.Google Scholar

page 239 note 1 I am most grateful to the late Professor Sir Ian Richmond for considerable assistance in preparing these notes and in the reconstruction.