Welcome to the Roman Baths Blog!

This blog is a behind the scenes look at the Roman Baths in Bath. We hope you enjoy reading our stories about life surrounding the Roman Baths.



Wednesday 29 March 2017

Roman Baths investigates science


As part of British Science Week, the Roman Baths organised a number of events to allow visitors to find out about the science behind some of our museum objects, for which I was project manager. The week started with Science Busking which consisted of three tables explaining the science behind pottery, such as how the pot was fired; metals, what metals the Romans made and worked and bone, showing how you can sex and age a skeleton. These tables mainly were visited by adults however some children also visited the tables. The arch model was also set up and this attracted the attention with visitors of all ages. Over the three hour period this event ran it attracted 547 visitors. The BRSLI Science Cadets also had a variety of geology based activities in the education room to find out about Bath’s hot spring. 

 Our successful Science Busking event


Throughout the week hands-on tables ran next to Great Bath to allow visitors to handle some of the museum objects. These ranged from human remains, coins, mosaics and Roman architecture. A volunteer or placement student compiled the information and stood with their table to answer any questions the visitors may have had. The tables all attracted interest from visitors with numbers ranging from 90 to 220 visitors wanting to find out more. The most popular day was Thursday, with over 200 people wanting to find out about mosaics and to look and touch a real skeleton.

The final two events were Bath Taps in Science organised by the University of Bath. The penultimate event was held at the University and was to encourage children to be interested in science, the Roman Baths took the table top arch and some x-rays and objects. The children enjoyed building the arch and couldn’t quite understand how it stood up without anything supporting it. 

The final event was held at Royal Victoria Park, where the Roman Baths set up the aqueduct and arch model. Both proved extremely popular with 370 people engaging either on one or both of the activities. 
Overall, Science Week proved a success with all the events catering to all age groups and engaging both children and families.
Katharine Foxton 

Bradford University Placement Student