I have prepared a sketch section of the bath (which I hope
to communicate on a future occasion), transversely and a part
longitudinally, in order that a description may the more readily be
understood, adopting, in my restoration, the established rules of
proportion of Classical architecture, which may, more or less, have
been strictly adhered to when the baths were built; indeed, in the
best specimens of Roman work a licence was given to the architect
as to detail and proportion, that was refused him on the Classical
revival. The pilasters of these baths spring, as I have said before,
from an Attic base, of somewhat coarse proportions, 14in. high.[23]
The attached pilasters that supported the arcade that was carried
longitudinally along the bath are without a base; they must have been,
within a few inches, more or less, not lower than 10ft. in height,
including the impost moulding, of which there are fragments. The
arches springing from them would be about 14ft. wide. I have not
been able to find any fragments of the archivolt. The pilasters that
supported the arches which crossed the _schola_ have bases similar to
the larger pilasters. I can hardly speak positively of their elevation
or that of the arches, but I am inclined to think the height of the
impost moulding was raised, so that the arch, although a smaller span,
was the same in height as the longitudinal arches.
[Footnote 23: The bases of the columns found, on the contrary, are
most carefully designed and of most delicate proportions, which appear
to justify the belief that the bases of the pilasters were never
completely _worked_, or that they were coated with plaster and
decorated as in the western bath, now being excavated.]
The great pilasters, fronting the bath, stand on plain pedestals,
breaking forward into the water, on which rested the Attic base, the
shaft with Doric (?) capital rising 18ft. above. A complete cornice,
the architrave (which we have) and frieze, gave an additional height
of nearly 5ft. This cornice ran over the arcade horizontally, but
breaking forward the projection of the pilasters about 2ft. 7in. Over
this cornice, I conclude, were semi-circular openings, of the same
span as the arch beneath, with an architrave of 5 in. to 6 in. A
circular vault crossed the bath from pilaster to pilaster, groined
with the semi-circular arches just mentioned. Light may have been
admitted divisionally in the centre of this great vault, as I
previously mentioned, as well, as by the semi-circular arches in the
"_clear storey_." The extreme height from the floor of the _schola_ to
the under side of the vaulting may have been as much as 23ft., whilst
the height of the central vault above the floor of the bath could
not, I estimate, have been less than 48ft. 2in., exceeding by 5ft.
the height of the famous Ball Rooms of the Bath Assembly Rooms, and by
14ft. that of the Grand Pump Room.
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