Roman Baths Visit

The Roman Baths is a museum located around the legendary Roman Baths. It shows visitors the history of the Roman baths from the Roman era until present. There are a lot of shows on and exhibitions including interactive exhibitions such as a guide phone and talks. There are also actors who dress in the traditional roman costume who you can talk to and partake in activities with. Another interactive aspect is that there are projectors which show you the before and after of parts of the building and information.

The majority of the exhibitions were artefact's such as clay pots, statues and parts of the buildings there was also a coffin and small items like coins. The most interesting parts of the whole exhibition was the roman baths themselves. The Baths had been recreated using models made of wood and perspex to show what the Baths would have looked like in the 4Th century and who may have used them, for example up until a certain point the men and women would have bathed separately, this was demonstrated with models of before and after and information written on plaques which accompanied the items. The plaques were quite big and the writing was very easy to understand. The models had aspects which highlighted important parts like led lights which showed areas of water which was very clever and easy for any age to understand. The difference between the wooden model which showed before and the perspex model showed a difference in not only time but also culture which was very helpful in understanding different aspects of the Roman Baths.

Most of the exhibits were behind glass as they could easily be damaged or stolen by the public. Items such as Roman pottery and coins were displayed very clearly with either plaques explaining information about them or an explanation talked through the interactive phone.

Larger items were sometimes displayed mounted onto walls or embedded into the floor. I noticed a lot of items in the floor such as coffins were under glass so the public could walk over them. This was very clever as at some points it got very busy and the exhibition was set out so that at any point throughout the exhibition there was always something to read or look at. Items were also hung from the ceiling which meant you were surrounded with history about the Roman era and added to the atmospheric feel.

I particularly liked the way information was told to you down the phone. You could select the language you spoke which was helpful for tourists who spoke little or no English and the voice which read the information wasn't boring which made the experience much more pleasant. Other ways information was presented were on projectors or plaques. A lot of information was also presented on walls and leaflets you could pick up as you walked around.

The whole exhibit was suitable for all ages and types of people. The plaques were also displayed in braille and there was a time line which might help children learn about the Roman era. The theme was constant throughout the exhibit which added to the experience as a whole. You could also see the foundations of the Roman Baths and remains which were no longer recognisable. My favourite part of the exhibit was a wall which only had parts of surviving stone mounted on it. It was positioned opposite a seating area where you could rest and watch as a projector showed you what the wall would have looked like in its original state.