Note (return) — Re-printed from the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society. Vol. VIII., part I.

The hall enclosing the bath I have already spoken of as 110ft. 4½in. long by 68ft. 5in. wide. It has been completely thrown open since this paper was read at the British and Gloucestershire Archæological Society, in 1884. These excavations are open to the sky, excepting on the east end (over which Abbey Street, at a height of 23ft. is carried on a viaduct, which I have erected).20 The platform, or schola, surrounding the bath (measuring the original surface of the upper floor) is 13ft. 9in. wide on the four sides. This platform was formed by a layer of large freestone 9in. to 10in. thick, laid on the level of the top step but one, on a solid bed of concrete. Above this was another layer of concrete, and possibly on this, when the baths were first erected, a mosaic of tesseræ; but that, if it ever was there, has all disappeared, and its place has been supplied with paving, mostly of freestone also, of inferior thickness to the lower paving. Very little of this remains, and what there is is much fractured and worn; indeed not only is this paving much worn, but the lower paving also where the traffic was the greatest. I have given in the plan (Pl. VIII.) almost every detail of these floors, and shall speak of them again further on. The general appearance of the place is symmetrical, but there are remarkable variations and inaccuracies that point to the fact that the juxta-position of this bath with other buildings, of which we have at present no knowledge, must have rendered these variations necessary, ultimately interfering with the completion, architecturally, of the building.