[Plate VIII: Plan of Great Roman Bath, Bath. Discovered 1880-81 and
measured 1884, by Charles E. Davis, F.S.A.]

I should not omit mentioning the mark of a wooden seat in the northern
rectangular recess, and the place of a wooden rail for clothes, that
was let into the pilaster at one end with the _slot_ in a pilaster at
the other.

In my plan (_Pl. VIII._) I have endeavoured to show the massive lower
paving and the fragmentary upper pavement. Both are much worn; and,
where the upper pavement has disappeared against the upper step of the
bath, especially the step on the western _schola_, it has been worn
down on the inside to the depth of several inches. The lower pavement
through the south-western door is worn in holes, and across by the
angular fountain are similar wearings, marking "a short cut" into the
northern _schola_; and this is continued in a less degree to the other
doors,--save the north-western one, where the upper paving in part
exists, showing that this doorway was closed before the baths were
allowed to get so shamefully out of repair. This sadly dilapidated
pavement must have caused considerable inconvenience to the bathers,
and could only have been put up with by those too poor to incur the
expenses of repair; the baths therefore were continued to be used by
less prosperous citizens than those who provided them. Is not this a
strong argument that the Romans left behind them, when they abandoned
Britain (A.D. 420), a people almost as great lovers of the baths as
themselves, with, however, less ability to maintain them; and that
the residents of Aquæ Sulis daily frequented them during the 150 years
that succeeded until the city was overthrown by our more immediate
ancestors, who destroyed before abandoning it to desolation?