Truckle Hill Roman Bath-house

Flue arch between the warm room and cold room of the Roman bath-house

In 2004, the remains of a small Roman building were uncovered on the side of a narrow, steep-sided valley near North Wraxall in Wiltshire. The building, a bath-house, is a short distance from an imposing Roman villa, excavated in the mid 19th century.

In 2007 English Heritage, Wiltshire Council and Wessex Archaeology funded a community excavation to find out as much as possible about the building and to conserve it for the future.

The three-week investigation achieved an astonishing amount, thanks to nearly fifty volunteers who came to help.  Their work confirmed that the building was a bath-house, probably built in the early second century AD. The original building had been altered by the addition of a second frigidarium (cold room), probably to replace the first which may have suffered from subsidence. Later on, when it was no longer used as a bath-house, the building had been adapted for corn drying.

The success of this work led to the establishment of a community project. Excavations in 2008 and 2009 set out to explore the unusual nature and difficult location of the bath-house and have shown that it was preceded by a high status building with glass windows, a mosaic floor, and painted wall plaster. The character of this building is not yet established with certainty but it may be a temple, which would be both rare and important.

2008 Excavation Blog

The 2008 excavations were covered on our Events blog.

Reports

View the interim reports for Truckle Hill in our archaeological reports section (2009 report now available).

Photos

See photos from the site on our Truckle Hill Flickr gallery:

Plan of the Roman bath-house

Plan of the Roman bath-house at Truckle Hill as of October 2007. Click to view a larger version (the plan is included in the report).