Archaeologists have found a rare cold bath below the 18th-century Bath Assembly Rooms.
The rooms, completed in 1771, were fashionable places of entertainment, conversation, dancing and gambling and cold baths were seen as good for people's health.
The cold bath is in the centre of a suite of three rooms beneath one end of the ballroom. It has dressing rooms on either side.
The excavation involved removing a later floor that had been installed over the cold bath and removing tonnes of rubble to reveal steps down into it.
Bruce Eaton, of Wessex Archaeology, which oversaw the excavation, told the Guardian: “Although historical records indicated that there was a cold bath buried beneath the Bath Assembly Rooms, we had no idea what preservation of the bath would be like.
“The building suffered damage at the hands of the Luftwaffe and the rooms were remodelled in the late 20th century but, after carefully excavating tonnes of concrete and rubble, we saw the original structure emerge in its entirety.
“It’s tremendous to be able to piece together this rare archaeological evidence of an 18th-century cold bath with social historical accounts from the time.”
Tatjana LeBoff, a project curator at the National Trust, said: “The cold bath at the assembly rooms is highly unusual. It is a rare, if not unique, surviving example, and possibly it was the only one ever built in an assembly room.”
The trust was researching records, letters, diaries and other documents to discover more about the cold bath, she said.
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