![Thermae Bath Spa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Thermae_Bath_Spa.jpg)
Thermae Bath Spa is a combination of the historic
spa
A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as balneoth ...
and a contemporary building in the city of
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
, England, and reopened in 2006.
Bath and North East Somerset
Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) is a unitary authority district in England. Bath and North East Somerset Council was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the county of Avon. It is part of the ceremonial county of Somerset.
Th ...
council own the buildings, and, as decreed in a Royal Charter of 1590, are the guardians of the spring waters, which are the only naturally hot, mineral-rich waters in the UK. The Spa is operated by YTL Hotels.
The main spa building, the New Royal Bath, was designed by
Grimshaw Architects
Grimshaw Architects (formerly Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners) is an architectural firm based in London. Founded in 1980 by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, the firm was one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture. In particular, they are known for thei ...
and is constructed in Bath stone, enclosed by a glass envelope. It has two natural thermal baths, an open-air rooftop pool and an indoor pool, and a large Wellness Suite with two aromatic steam rooms, an Ice Chamber, Infrared Sauna and a Celestial Relaxation Room. It also has a cafe, three relaxation areas, and 27 spa treatment rooms, including the 18th century Hot Bath, in which water-based massage such as Watsu takes place. The separate
Cross Bath
The Cross Bath in Bath Street, Bath, Somerset, England is a historic pool for bathing. The surrounding structure of the pool was built, in the style of Robert Adam by Thomas Baldwin by 1784 and remodelled by John Palmer in 1789. It is recorded i ...
is a grade I listed Georgian building containing one open-air thermal bath.
History
One of the city's main attractions has long been its famous hot spa water, fed by the area's
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
s. The Bath springs are the
warmest geothermal springs found in the UK. These natural
geothermal mineral spring
Mineral springs are naturally occurring springs that produces hard water, water that contains dissolved minerals. Salts, sulfur compounds, and gases are among the substances that can be dissolved in the spring water during its passage underg ...
s fed into the
Roman Baths
In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout ...
complex, which was responsible for the prominence of Bath in the
Roman period
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
, as well as for the later development of Bath as the country's leading eighteenth and early nineteenth-century health resort. In the middle of the 20th century, the city's swimming pool sourced its water directly from the King's Spring through one of three pipelines beneath the
River Avon. However, the old municipal hot pools were closed in 1978 after the discovery of an
infectious organism in one stratum of the
aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characterist ...
. After that date, bathing was prohibited.
Development
With the approach of the year 2000, money from the
National Lottery-funded
Millennium Commission
The Millennium Commission, a United Kingdom public body, was set up to celebrate the turn of the millennium. It used funding raised through the UK National Lottery to assist communities in marking the close of the second millennium and celebra ...
was made available towards a major project to reopen a safe commercial spa once more, supplemented by funds from
subscribers
The subscription business model is a business model
A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners f ...
and from the local authority.
Originally planned to open in 2002, and despite a formal opening with the aid of the
Three Tenors
The Three Tenors were an operatic singing trio, active during the 1990s and early 2000s, and termed as a supergroup (a title normally reserved for rock and pop groups) consisting of Italian Luciano Pavarotti and Spaniards Plácido Domingo and ...
in 2003, the project ran seriously behind schedule and over budget as a result of a variety of legal disputes with contractors: the project's budgeted costs spiralled from an estimated £13 million in September 1996 to a final cost of £45 million.
Present day
![Thermae Bath Spa rooftop pool](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Thermae_Bath_Spa_rooftop_pool.jpg)
Thermae Bath Spa eventually opened to the public on 7 August 2006, ending a 28-year period during which the waters remained unavailable for bathing.
The spa is largely sited in a new 'Glass Cube' building by Sir
Nicholas Grimshaw
Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, CBE, PPRA (born 9 October 1939) is a prominent English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall. He was Pre ...
, near the site of the ancient Royal Bath, which has been interlinked with historic Georgian spa buildings such as the nearby Hot and Cross Baths. The building is in a strongly contemporary style in contrast to its
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
surroundings. The complex houses both traditional and modern spa facilities.
A 2014 survey indicated the spa attracted an extra 260,000 visitors a year to Bath, who contributed an extra £15 million a year to Bath's economy.
References
External links
*
Photo tour
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Buildings and structures completed in 2006
Nicholas Grimshaw buildings
Buildings and structures in Bath, Somerset
Tourist attractions in Bath, Somerset
Buildings and structures celebrating the third millennium
Spas
Public baths in the United Kingdom