Letter from Richard Mann to W H St John Hope (Asst Sec to the Society)
Reference code
SAL/01/02/77/04
Title
Letter from Richard Mann to W H St John Hope (Asst Sec to the Society)
Date
September 1893
Level of description
item
Scope and content
Regarding excavation of the reservoir and Kings Bath in Bath.
Letter refers to destruction and removal of some of the masonry and includes a copy letter to the Chairman of the Baths Committee to stop the demolition. Letter appears to doubt Major C E Davis - Mann prepared for his contradiction by taking with him the proprietor of the Bath Chronicle to view the site. Includes references to tracings enclosed with the letter (none attached) which give an idea of the part of the bathing system lost by the erection of the wing of 1886.
The excavations were undertaken by Major C E Davis who was city engineer to the City of Bath. Richard Mann was Davis’s builder and produced drawings of the reservoir which together with others produced in 1900 are in the Society’s library (this mentioned by C E Cunliffe below).
Mann’s drawings were subsequently redrawn and used by W H Knowles in his paper “The Roman Baths at Bath; with an account of the excavations conducted during 1923” Archaeologia Ixxv(1926) 1-18.
See The Antiquaries Journal Vol XV Part2 1980 p187 Article by C. E. Cunliffe the Excavation of the Roman Spring at Bath 1979. See Proceedings 8 24 June 1880 p409 Paper by C E Davis on the result of earlier excavations at Bath.
Letter refers to destruction and removal of some of the masonry and includes a copy letter to the Chairman of the Baths Committee to stop the demolition. Letter appears to doubt Major C E Davis - Mann prepared for his contradiction by taking with him the proprietor of the Bath Chronicle to view the site. Includes references to tracings enclosed with the letter (none attached) which give an idea of the part of the bathing system lost by the erection of the wing of 1886.
The excavations were undertaken by Major C E Davis who was city engineer to the City of Bath. Richard Mann was Davis’s builder and produced drawings of the reservoir which together with others produced in 1900 are in the Society’s library (this mentioned by C E Cunliffe below).
Mann’s drawings were subsequently redrawn and used by W H Knowles in his paper “The Roman Baths at Bath; with an account of the excavations conducted during 1923” Archaeologia Ixxv(1926) 1-18.
See The Antiquaries Journal Vol XV Part2 1980 p187 Article by C. E. Cunliffe the Excavation of the Roman Spring at Bath 1979. See Proceedings 8 24 June 1880 p409 Paper by C E Davis on the result of earlier excavations at Bath.
Creator
Mann, Richard (fl 1870s-1890s)