The Roman Bath (lower ground floor) and Pump Room (ground floor)
The Roman bath
Cathedral at Bath, with Roman bath in the background
Cathedral at Bath
Roman bath at Bath
The Roman Baths
A visit to the Roman Baths and Pump Room will take you through 2,000 years of history. From the earliest Roman use of Bath's natural hot waters to the fashionable 18th century elegance of the Georgian Pump Room.
The Roman Baths is below the modern street level and has four main features, the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman bath house and finds from Roman Bath.
The Georgian Pump Room is on the ground level, built so that patients
"might be supplied with water from a covered pump and afterwards take the
exercise prescribed to them, sheltered from the inclemency of the the
weather." Another source notes, visitors "would once drink the waters from the adjoining Roman baths, hoping to gain strength and healing therefrom. You can still buy a glass of the bitter-tasting water at the Pump Room—and only at the Pump Room—for 45p (less than US$1), but today tea seems to be the favored drink. In the airy salon, you can sip tea and nibble scones with jam and clotted cream, and perhaps a cucumber sandwich or two if it takes your fancy, to the sound of live piano music or even a string quartet. And if you're a Jane Austen fan, you can revel in the fact that her characters did the same."
Text mostly from: http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/index.cfm?UUID=6A9265EC-DE05-4966-80EEB7B1A7249A63
Pump Room / Roman Bath facade
The Pump Room, by Palmer
Assembly Rooms
The Upper Assembly Rooms were built in
1771 to supercede the older Lower Assmbly Rooms. They were large spaces
for public gatherings, especially so-called "assemblies": at which a
"large number of guests met together to dance, drink tea, play cards and listen to music – or just walk about, talk and flirt."
And of course, public balls were held there, for which the gentry bought tickets
that included the price of tea (the meal, not just the beverage). Bombed in 1942, they were subsequently restored and are now let to Bath & North East Somerset Council, which has its Museum of Costume in the basement
Text mostly from: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/scripts/nthandbook.dll?ACTION=PROPERTY&PROPERTYID=287
Assembly Room west facade
Assembly Room ballroom
Assembly Room tea room