ROMAN BATHS AT WROXETER. 289 
a kind of granite, one foot six inches, and one foot two inches in diameter; others were 
of a red free-stone, ten inches in diameter; the four small square pillars at X [K in 
Mr. Telford’s View] were formed of tiles laid one upon another; in the openings 7 y ashes 
were found. 
R [LM in Mr. Telford’s View.] A small bath in one corner of the hypocaustum, 
with one seat or step on two of its sides; the whole of the inside is well plastered with the 
same sort of mortar as the bath K. ThlS bath stands upon pillars of tiles, one foot square ; 
the intervals between them are fr om four to seven inches wide, and one foot seven inches 
high. These pillars stand on the level of the floor of the hypocaustum. From this bath, 
in the direction RS [L M in Mr. Telford’s View], there was found a piece of leaden pipe, 
not soldered, but hammered together, and the seam or puncture secured by a kind of 
mortar ; and there appears a kind of channel or groove cut in large stones, which falls 
three inches in 12 feet. But for this circumstance of the pipe, I should conjecture R to 
have been a steam or vapour bath, rather than a water bath, because the eastern side has 
no wall ; but flues or tunnels were found sticking in a perpendicular position, which 
exactly filled the interval marked (||) between the bath R, and the wall dividing the apart- 
ments I and Q. These flues were of tile, with lateral apertures. I forbear to describe 
them, because it is already done in T. Lyster’s account of the hypocaustum formerly 
found at Wroxeter, m the Philosophical Transactions, No. 306, page 2226, of which 
hypocaustum there 1s a good small model in wood in the library of the schools in this 
town. Fragments of such flues were found in various parts of the ruin. The bath R 
seems to have wanted the southern as well as the eastern wall ; and both those sides might 
probably be occupied by flues. 
T is a place four feet deep below the level of the floor I. It has a paved bottom, and 
is formed by large granite stones on the southern and eastern sides; on the north by a 
large thin red stone set on edge. To the east of this place there appears to be another 
wall running north and south. 
ZZZ [NNN in Mr. Telford’s View] are intervals between the walls, of the different 
breadths marked in the plan, intended probably for the purpose of conveying heat by 
flues to the different apartments, and some possibly for carrying off the water. 
The river Severn lies to the west of these ruins, about a quarter of a mile distant. The 
ground declines from the ruins toward the south. The nearest spring is, I understand, 
200 or 300 yards to the north-east, in a situation something higher than these baths. 
There 1s no hot or warm spring in the neighbourhood. 
  
It should be understood by the reader of the above description, that Mr. Telford’s 
Isometrical View vepresents at once both plan and elevation, by what is commonly 
called a bird’s eye view; which, notwithstanding its eminent facility and fidelity of 
representation (well understood in the middle of the last century), is now much fallen 
into disuse.