Other Public Buildings

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Position of church on 1909 plan

Position of temples on 1909 plan

Position of baths on 1909 plan

Position of Mansio on 1909 plan

You can use the Antiquaries Plan as a graphical menu to explore the buildings of Calleva. (This page contains large images and may take some time to download on slower connections)

The Church

Close to the south-east corner of the forum is a small building only 13 by 9m consisting of a nave flanked by aisles, an apse to the west and a porch to the east. An important feature of the building is the transept, which serves to distinguish it from earlier, simple basilica-style structures. Within the apse was found a geometric mosaic of black and white chequers, of which the central motif is an equal-armed cross.

left: Church in course of excavation right: Mosaic from the apse of the church.

Just 3.5m to the east of the porch is a tiled area, 1.2m square, which has been interpreted as the setting for a baptismal font. If the building is a church, it can hardly be earlier than 313, the year in which Christianity was first officially tolerated by Constantine the Great, but it has many features which are also found in pagan temples and, on a strict interpretation of the evidence, the building could be earlier than this, and therefore not Christian.

Reconstruction of the church with the corner of the forum in the background.

Temples

There are no known temples of classical type at Calleva; instead native architectural traditions persisted. A typical example of a Romano-Celtic temple consists of a small central square shrine (the fanum) surrounded by an enclosed ambulatory; an unusual type is the polygonal building in Insula VII.

Photo, head of egyptian god sarapis

Celtic Mars may perhaps be represented by some sculptured fragments in Insula XXXV and it is likely that Celtic deities, perhaps twinned with their Roman counterparts, rather than purely Roman gods, were worshipped in these temples. Foreign cults introduced to the citizens of Calleva included Sarapis, an Egyptian deity and, possibly, Mithras in Insula XIX.

Excavated foundations of the Romani-Celtic temple in Insula XXXV in 1907, with a reconstruction of the temple.

The Public Baths

South-east of the forum, on the side of the shallow valley along which runs a stream, stood the town baths. These were constructed in the first century AD, perhaps as early as the 50s, and were probably among the first Roman buildings constructed in the town.

The whole building measured 43.5 by 23m and was almost certainly supplied with water from the nearby stream as no evidence of any other source of water for it has been discovered.

Bathing in the ancient world was an elaborate affair: to clean the body it might first be smeared in oil, then exercise induced sweating and the dirt was scraped off the skin in the hot room with an instrument called a strigil. A dip in the cold plunge closed the pores and so concluded the ritual. The baths underwent many periods of alteration and may eventually have offered facilities for both sexes. Otherwise men and women would have bathed at different times each day. The warm and hot rooms were heated by means of hypocausts where the floor was supported on short pillars (pilae) enabling hot air to circulate from a furnace attached to the outside of the room. Gases were carried upwards by flues made of box-tiles set in the walls to ceiling height. In order to provide adequate heating, each hot room had to be served by its own furnace.

The Mansio

Towards the south gate in Insula VII is the second largest building of Roman Calleva. It has been identified as a mansio, or inn, which was specifically for the use of those using the imperial post, for rest and refreshment of personnel and mounts. It consists of three wings set around a large courtyard; each wing contains a suite of rooms of very similar dimensions, but the heated rooms are confined to the west wing. In the case of the north and south wings, the room arrangement is suggestive of self-contained suites grouped either side of small divided rooms. Similar symmetry may be detected in the west wing. Instead of an east wing there is an outer court to which is attached a bath-building in the southeast quarter. The duplication of rooms suggests that there was provision for bathing for both sexes. A latrine seems to have been a later addition on the southern side. Given the purpose of the building it is not surprising to find other examples, very similar in plan, in Britain and elsewhere. The nearest example to Calleva is that identified from aerial photographs at Wanborough in Wiltshire, about 30 miles (56 km) west of the town.

Plan of the inn (mansio) near the South gate.