Flintshire 3 - Prestatyn /a lost abbey/did not stop at the shrine /found the tiny baths house of the 20th Legion

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It was a cold and chilly end of January day. The nights are just starting to draw out but it still has that chill that only comes just before Spring arrives . We had not been out for some while. We were stagnating if the truth be known. We kept saying we ought to go out and just visit anywhere but anywhere was finding hard to find . We had been living here for a little over 2 years and in that time I had continued to find things to see and do. However, since Christmas things had quietened down. There were no new exhibitions to visit . Walking was not on the agenda. The roads had been flooded and we had suffered the first snow of the winter. We were getting complacent . Shall we go out today? No it is too cold . We will go tomorrow . The worse part of waiting for tomorrow is that it never comes . You also just manage to put off whatever you have planned for the day after tomorrow and so on it goes .

On this cold and chilly morning though we found ourselves parked up in the middle of a housing estate . Bungalows and houses hemmed us in. We had parked on the only two parking spots available to us and we were the only visitors to what is described sometimes as a hidden gem. The site was gated and the gate open. We walked in to what must have been the smallest Roman bathhouse we had ever seen. We wondered if there were more but guessed that if there were more of it then it would have excavated when the housing estate was developed . The tiny site boasted an information board full of data in both English and Welsh, a mosaic and the remains . So what were we looking at ?

Firstly the site was tiny. In fact far smaller than we imagined. We could walk around it in a minute. Exotic palm type trees had been planted. Perhaps if you thought about it you could be in Italy . Apart from the cold weather . The baths complex had been built for the Roman Twentieth Legion who had their headquarters some miles away in Chester. This was around 2000 years ago and possibly at this time a detachment had been based in a fort in the town of Prestatyn . We had not read anywhere that the fort had been found in the town so it must have been lost over the years of building and rebuilding. The bathhouse had been discovered in 1984 when the housing estate around Melyd Avenue was being built . Building would have halted until the archaelogists came to call and dig the site . I guess that would have been something the developers had mixed feelings about . They wanted to build and sell their houses and the Romans long gone had thwarted them.

The archaelogist excavated a large amount of masonry and three distinct rooms. Two were heated by a furnace at the western end of the complex. The map on the site told us that there were cold changing rooms in one part of the building at the eastern end complete with plunge pool . The thought made us feel cold . We imagined a bath house in sunny Italy and then thought how cold it must have been for the undressed Roman moving around the building . From changing room to the warm room . We guessed in the cold that the visitor to the baths would stay in the warm room a lot longer than they lingered in the cold room . After warming up they headed off of the hot room . The roman version of the sauna would produce so much heat and steam that any dirt clinging to the skin would come off easily . The clean body would then be oiled and scaped .

After the hard work of the day the experience probably was pleasurable. The route out of the bathhouse would take the bather back to the warm room for a cool down before going back and plunging themselves back in the icy cold water of the plunge pool . Our modern pool function in a similar way with jacuzzi and plunge pool and also serve as friendly social places for a chit chat. The baths would provide the soldiers not just with the implements and wherewithal to clean themselves but would provide a place of relaxation where they could read and talk . Catching up with friends , news and information from back home . What is there not to like?

A link with other forts and settlements in the area was proven when a tile made in Holt near to Wrexham was found in the complex. Trade was built up in the area as tiles were moved by river to Prestatyn , left in whatever sun there was to dry and then fired . The one tile found has a dogs paw imprint embossed on it . Whilst it was drying a dog walked over it leaving its mark for all to see . A very human thing . It is not hard to imagine the potter cursing the dog for damaging his tile whilst at the same time hiding it amongs the other tiles and left for us to find .

Why did the legion finds it way to Prestatyn . The mineral wealth of the area for one thing. Lead was mined at nearby Meliden . A processing plant was set up on site and the lead moved down the coast to Chester to be used in the fort there.

We also read that a number of bronze brooches were found on the site suggesting that there was a settlement in Prestatyn long before the romans rolled into town. Bronze was being mined and smiths were producing items presumably for sale . More strangely and Iron Age baby which was later carbon dated to 30BC was found on the same site . A history of settlement over time .

We read that someone on the nearby hills above the town was a piece of artwork in the shape of a roman helmut . We decided not to look for this today. We had had a day of not finding things . We had started out thinking of trying to park up on the extremely small car park for St Winifreds Well . A shrine on the pilgrimage route where pilgrims would have called in and dipped various parts of their body in the well in order to cure all ills . We sailed past not sure if it was open or closed . Another stop of the day should have been Basingwerk Abbey . A stop off further round the Pilgrim Trail. An abbey that once was rich until Henry VIII got his hands on it. We set the sat nag to take us there and she found where she thought it was but it ended up with nothing but another housing estate and no sign on any abbey. In the end , in the cold we set off for lunch. Haddock Chips and Garden Peas and a Smothered Chicken. Two lunchtime specials that cost less than two Paninis and a couple of glasses of wine in our nearby hostelry.

Perhaps next week we have another go at dipping some part of our anatomy into the murky waters of St Winifreds Well and finally finding our elusive abbey .

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