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Roman House At Billingsgate
Billingsgate Roman House and Baths is an archaeological site in Londinium (Roman London). The best preserved parts of the house are a bath with hypocausts. The ruins were discovered in 1848 while the Coal Exchange was built on the site. The remains were preserved and were visible in the cellar of the building. In 1967 to 1970, the Coal Exchange was replaced by another building and the Lower Thames Street was enlarged. Further excavations were made at the site and the remains were incorporated into the cellar of the new building, but were not open to the public. Pottery has shown that the Roman house was erected in the late 2nd century and had at this time a north and an east wing around a courtyard. There was most likely also a west wing but nothing of it survived. At this time the house was at the waterfront of the Thames. The rooms in the east wing had underfloor heating. In the 3rd century a bath was added into the open courtyard in the middle of the complex. It had a cold room ...
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Billingsgate Bath House, 23 September 2018 (13) (43208506210)
Billingsgate is one of the 25 Wards of the City of London. This small City Ward is situated on the north bank of the River Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge in the south-east of the Square Mile. The modern Ward extends south to the Thames, west to Lovat Lane and Rood Lane, north to Fenchurch Street and Dunster Court, and east to Mark Lane and St Dunstan's Hill. History Legendary origin Billingsgate's most ancient historical reference is as a water gate to the city of Trinovantum (the name given to London in medieval British legend), as mentioned in the ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' (Eng: ''History of the Kings of Britain'') written 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. This work describes how Belinus, a legendary king of Britain said to have held the throne from about 390 BC, erected London's first fortified water gate: Historical origin Originally known as ''Blynesgate'' and ''Byllynsgate'', its name apparently derives from its origins as a water gate on the Thames, ...
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Londinium
Londinium, also known as Roman London, was the capital of Roman Britain during most of the period of Roman rule. It was originally a settlement established on the current site of the City of London around AD 47–50. It sat at a key crossing point over the River Thames which turned the city into a road nexus and major port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century. Following the foundation of the town in the mid-1st century, early Londinium occupied the relatively small area of , roughly half the area of the modern City of London and equivalent to the size of present-day Hyde Park. In the year 60 or 61, the rebellion of the Iceni under Boudica compelled the Roman forces to abandon the settlement, which was then razed. Following the defeat of Boudica by the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus a military installation was established and the city was rebuilt. It had probably largely recovered within about a de ...
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London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ...
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Hypocaust
A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm the upper floors as well. The word derives from the Ancient Greek meaning "under" and , meaning "burnt" (as in ''caustic''). The earliest reference to such a system suggests that the temple of Ephesus in 350 BC was heated in this manner, although Vitruvius attributes its invention to Sergius Orata in c. 80 BC. Its invention improved the hygiene and living conditions of citizens, and was a forerunner of modern central heating. Roman operation Hypocausts were used for heating hot baths and other public buildings in Ancient Rome. They were also used in private homes. It was a must for the villas of the wealthier merchant class throughout the Roman Empire. The ruins of Roman hypocausts have been found throughout Europe (for example in Ital ...
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London Coal Exchange
The London Coal Exchange was situated on the north side of Thames Street in the City of London, nearly opposite to Old Billingsgate Market, occupying three different structures from 1770 to 1962. The original coal exchange opened in 1770. A second building from 1805 was replaced by a new purpose-built structure constructed from 1847 to 1849, and opened by Prince Albert on 30 October 1849. This third London coal exchange was one of the first substantial buildings constructed from cast iron, built several years before the hall at the Great Exhibition. It was demolished in 1962 to allow widening of what is now Lower Thames Street despite a campaign by the Victorian Society to save the building. Cast iron decorations from the 1849 Coal Exchange building were selected as the model for the dragon boundary mark for the main entrances to the City of London. Background Coal had been imported to London by sea since at least medieval times. A coal exchange was established in ...
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Lower Thames Street
Thames Street, divided into Lower and Upper Thames Street, is a road in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It forms part of the busy A3211 route (prior to being rebuilt as a major thoroughfare in the late 1960s, it was the B132) from Tower Hill to Westminster. The London Bridge underpass marks the divide between Upper and Lower Thames Street, with Lower to the east and Upper to the west. History Thames Street is mentioned in the diary of Samuel Pepys. The first mention of the road, however, is from 1013 when the Custom-house was founded on the street. During the reign of King Henry VIII, the street contained the London residences of many courtiers, including that of William Compton, where Henry VIII allegedly met his mistresses. In the culture of the twentieth-century, the street is probably best remembered for its place in T. S. Eliot's ''The Waste Land'': :O city city, I can sometimes hear :Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, :The pl ...
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Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn. The river rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, and flows into the North Sea near Tilbury, Essex and Gravesend, Kent, via the Thames Estuary. From the west it flows through Oxford (where it is sometimes called the Isis), Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The Thames also drains the whole of Greater London. In August 2022, the source of the river moved five miles to beyond Somerford Keynes due to the heatwave in July 2022. The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its long tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. Its tidal section includes most of its London stretch and has a rise and fall of . From Oxford to the Estuary the Thames drops by 55 metres. Running through some of the drier parts of mai ...
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Underfloor Heating
Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling that achieves indoor climate control for thermal comfort using hydronic or electrical heating elements embedded in a floor. Heating is achieved by conduction, radiation and convection. Use of underfloor heating dates back to the Neoglacial and Neolithic periods. History Underfloor heating has a long history back into the Neoglacial and Neolithic periods. Archeological digs in Asia and the Aleutian islands of Alaska reveal how the inhabitants drafted smoke from fires through stone covered trenches which were excavated in the floors of their subterranean dwellings. The hot smoke heated the floor stones and the heat then radiated into the living spaces. These early forms have evolved into modern systems using fluid filled pipes or electrical cables and mats. Below is a chronological overview of under floor heating from around the world. Description Modern underfloor heating systems use either electrical r ...
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Frigidarium
A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or ''thermae'', namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool. The succession of bathing activities in the ''thermae'' is not known with certainty, but it is thought that the bather would first go through the apodyterium, where he would undress and store his clothes, and then enter the ''elaeothesium'' or ''unctuarium'' to be anointed with oil. After exercising in a special room or court, he would enjoy the hot room, known as ''calidarium'' or ''caldarium'', then the steam room (a moist ''sudatorium'' or a dry ''laconicum''), where he would most likely scrape the by now grimy oil with the help of a curved metal ''strigil'' off his skin, before finally moving to the ''frigidarium'' with its small pool of cold water or sometimes with a large swimming pool (though this, differently from the ''Baptisterium, piscina natatoria'', was usually covered). The water could be also kept cold by using snow. The bathe ...
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Tepidarium
The tepidarium was the warm (''tepidus'') bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat which directly affects the human body from the walls and floor. There is an interesting example at Pompeii; this was covered with a semicircular barrel vault, decorated with reliefs in stucco, and round the room a series of square recesses or niches divided from one another by telamones. The tepidarium was the great central hall around which all the other halls were grouped, and which gave the key to the plans of the thermae. It was probably the hall where the bathers first assembled prior to passing through the various hot baths ( caldaria) or taking the cold bath (frigidarium). The tepidarium was decorated with the richest marbles and mosaics; it received its light through clerestory windows on the sides, the front, and the rear, and would seem to have been the hall in which th ...
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Caldarium
230px, Caldarium from the Roman Baths at Bath, England. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor. A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex. This was a very hot and steamy room heated by a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system using tunnels with hot air, heated by a furnace tended by slaves. This was the hottest room in the regular sequence of bathing rooms; after the caldarium, bathers would progress back through the warm bathroom to the cold water room. In the caldarium, there would be a bath (alveus, piscina calida or solium) of hot water sunk into the floor and there was sometimes even a laconicum—a hot, dry area for inducing sweating. The bath's patrons would use olive oil to cleanse themselves by applying it to their bodies and using a strigil to remove the excess. This was sometimes left on the floor for the ...
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Roman Withdrawal From Britain
The end of Roman rule in Britain was the transition from Roman Britain to post-Roman Britain. Roman rule ended in different parts of Britain at different times, and under different circumstances. In 383, the usurper Magnus Maximus withdrew troops from northern and western Britain, probably leaving local warlords in charge. Around 410, the Romano-British expelled the magistrates of the usurper Constantine III. He had previously stripped the Roman garrison from Britain and taken it to Gaul in response to the Crossing of the Rhine in late 406, leaving the island a victim to barbarian attacks. Roman Emperor Honorius (emperor), Honorius replied to a request for assistance with the ''Rescript of Honorius'', telling the Romano-British culture, Roman cities to see to their own defence, a tacit acceptance of temporary British self-government. Honorius was fighting a large-scale war in Roman Italy, Italy against the Visigoths under their leader Alaric I, Alaric, with Rome itself under s ...
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