Workmen tap into ancient springs to heat Bath Abbey

FIRST, it was the Celts, who worshipped at the waters bubbling up from beneath the surface of the earth; then the Romans, who created a complex of baths and steam rooms to harness the power of the sacred springs.

Now, a scheme is under way to use the water from the same hot springs beneath the city of Bath to heat its medieval abbey.

Builders will shortly begin work on an underfloor heating system using the source that supplies the historic Roman baths.

As part of the £19.3million project, heat exchangers will be installed in the Great Roman Drain running beneath the city’s streets – through which 250,000 gallons of hot water flow from the spring beneath the baths to the river Avon each day – to capture the heat and direct it to the abbey.

The scheme, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, envisages 1.5 megawatts of continuous energy – enough to heat the church and surrounding buildings, as well as the Romans Baths and Pump Room complex itself.

Charles Curnock, director of Bath Abbey’s Footprints project, said yesterday: “This has really captured the public’s imagination – it’s an innovative project potentially using Bath’s famous hot springs to harness natural energy in order to heat two of Bath’s famous landmarks.”

The system would allow the abbey to replace the Victorian pipes and gasfired heating system.

The earliest English reference to Bath, in the seventh century, calls it Hat Bathu – hot baths. That’s what had made it so attractive to the Romans. It is not before time, then, that the 250,000 gallons of water at 113F that daily wells up under the Roman Baths was put to full use before it flows into the Avon. It will now heat nearby Bath Abbey. Since the spring water is too corrosive to fill heating pipes directly, heat exchangers will draw off its energy, while avoiding the environmental harm done by the valiant but expensive Victorian boilers. Britain is not Iceland, and geothermal heating rarely finds such a chance as at Bath or at the outdoor Jubilee Pool at Penzance, where drills have gone down nearly a mile to bring up hot water. It’s a welcome change to be in hot water environmentally while remaining quite blameless.