The ancient baths that lent this city its name have for centuries drawn visitors here to Somerset, in South West England. Archeological evidence suggests that when the Romans first built a temple over the bubbling natural hot springs here between 60-70 CE, they may have been adapting a previous center of worship established by ancient Celts. In any case, the Romans built up a complex of bathhouses over the course of 300 years or so, until the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 410. The baths gradually fell into disrepair, but were rebuilt several times, culminating in the elaborate 18th-century bathhouses that still stand today. Designed by the father-and-son team of John Wood, the Elder and John Wood, the Younger, the luxurious baths made Bath a fashionable spa town by the late 1700s.
Sounds of Bach come to Bath
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
National Garden Week begins today
-
Looking back at Yellowstone, 30 years after the fires
-
Ravens
-
Roques de Benet, Els Ports Natural Park, Catalonia, Spain
-
An opulent backdrop for a historic event
-
It’s Opening Day for Major League Baseball
-
A rock in a wild place
-
Mountain mists over Bavaria
-
In the Garden of Europe
-
National Bison Day
-
New Years Eve in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
-
Entoloma hochstetteri mushroom at Lake Mahinapua, New Zealand
-
Take a break! It s Labor Day!
-
Caribbean flamingos, Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
-
Saint Andrews Day
-
Looking down on the Otter
-
Fall comes to the Last Frontier
-
The ‘Night of Nights’
-
It s truffle season here in the Dordogne Valley
-
A glittering diamond in the rough
-
Short-beaked echidna, Adelaide Hills, Australia
-
Meet our fuzzy Earth Day mascot
-
Do spirits haunt the Gardens of Versailles?
-
International Day for Biological Diversity
-
Point Reyes National Seashore, California
-
Union Square, Manhattan
-
Siblings Day
-
Merry Christmas!
-
Castle ruins on the island of Halki, Greece
-
International Day of the Tropics
Bing Wallpaper Gallery

