The bath-house at Ribchester (known to the Romans as Bremetennacum) was built in about AD 100. It continued in use for about 200 years.

It was designed to serve the needs of the soldiers garrisoned in the nearby fort and later for the local civilian population.

However, it was built outside the walls of the fort because of the ever-present risk of fire from the furnaces used to heat the various rooms.

Here visitors would enjoy time spent bathing in hot pools and sweating in steam rooms in order to open the pores and cleanse the skin. Attendants would scrape the sweat, dirt and grime from their bodies before they passed into cooler rooms, and finally a cold-plunge bath. This sealed the pores on their clean and refreshed skin.

(Filmed & photographed Sunday 26th March 2023)