Near to the Feathers Hotel, in Bridge-street, in a cellar now occupied as an earthenware shop, are the remains of the Roman hypocaust and sweating bath, the use of which appears to have been very general amongst the Romans, and regarded by them as one of their chief luxuries. From the details which have been handed down to us by ancient historians, respecting these curious erections, we learn that they were not only constructed so as to secure the comfort and convenience of the bathers to the fullest extent, but were often built in the most magnificent style of architecture. The one in Bridge-street, which circumstances have happily spared, is in a tolerably perfect state. It is fifteen feet long, and eight wide, and six feet seven inches deep. There is an adjoining chamber, or _præfurnium_, of the same dimensions. The Hypocaust is supported by twenty-eight square pillars, two feet eight inches high, and one foot square at the top and bottom. Over these pillars are placed bricks, eighteen inches square, and three inches thick, which support others two feet square, perforated with small holes, about six inches asunder, for the purpose of conveying the heat upwards. Immediately above this uppermost layer of bricks is a terrace floor, composed of several layers of lime, pounded bricks, &c., in different proportions and degrees of fineness. The room above is the Sudatorium, or Sweating Room, which received the hot air from the Hypocaust below. Around the walls were benches, rising one above another, on which the bathers sat, until they burst out into a free perspiration; after which they were scraped with a bronze instrument called a _Strigil_—thin and flexible, like a hoop—by which all impurities were removed from the skin; they were then _shampooed_, rubbed down with towels (_Lintea_), and their bodies anointed with oil, by an attendant called _Aliptes_, after which they returned to the _Tepidarium_, where they attired themselves, and cooled gradually before returning to the open air. In 1779, another Hypocaust, and the remains of several adjoining rooms of a Roman house, were discovered in digging the foundations of houses near the Watergate. The pillars of this Hypocaust, the altar dedicated to _Fortuna Redux_, _Esculapius et Salus_, and a few other antiquities, were found at the same time, and were removed to Oulton Park.