For almost three hundred years, excavations have been carried out in
Roman Bath. At first these were rare and sporadic and archaeological
finds were made by chance. Even fewer were reported. But from the 1860s,
deliberate investigations were made and increasingly professional
methods employed. The Roman Baths were laid open to view, but little was
published. From the 1950s, interest accelerated, professionals and
amateurs collaborated, and there was never a decade in which some new
discovery was not made.
The first popular but authoritative presentation of this work was made
in 1971 and updated several times. However, from the 1990s to the
present there has been some sort of archaeological investigation almost
every year. This has thrown much new and unexpected light on the town of
Aquae Sulis and its citizens. In this book, Peter Davenport, having
been involved in most of the archaeological work in Bath since 1980,
attempts to tell the story of Roman Bath: the latest interim report on
the 'Three Hundred Year Dig'.