Reading Rotary Events
Published by Bob & Tony in Events · Wednesday 13 Mar 2024
There are a number of forthcoming events and activities for club members and their family and friends:-
- 23 March 2024, at 10:00 - Hydro Centre for Litter Pick on View Island with Keep Caversham Tidy
- 26 March 2024, 12:30 for 13:00 - Fellowship meeting at CIRDIC (details to follow)
- 10 April 2024, 10:00-18:00 - Centenary House DIY support (Remove fence, move post, exterior wall minor repairs and painting)
- 12 April 2024, 10:00-13:00 - Centenary House DIY support (continuation)
- 23 April 2024, 12:30 for 13:00 - Fellowship meeting at JAC over soup (details to follow)
- 8 May 2024, 10:00 for 10:30 - Reading Rotary Walk in Cookham (follows 2nd deferral)
- 6 June 2024, 10:00 - Hydro Centre for Litter Pick near the Thames
- 18 June - Whole day visit to Carleon, Wales, allow for very early private transport departure and meet there at 10:15 for coffee in The Priory, followed by visits to nearby Roman baths (£5) & museum. Please see more information in Tony’s provisional description below.
- Handover meeting moved to 25 June 2024, 19:00 for 19:30
Please make a note of the dates in your diary and advise Tony which of event numbers 1, 3, 4, 6 and 18 you will join.
Life was hard for a Roman legionary in first-century Wales. When he wasn’t cooped up in his barracks or being barked at by a centurion he was out risking his life in skirmishes with ancient Britons.
But here in Isca, one of just three permanent legionary fortresses in Britain, there were compensations. He could always hang out with his friends at the fortress baths – or take a stroll to the amphitheatre to watch the gladiators.
Inside a modern covered building in today’s Caerleon you can still explore the remains of the immense natatio, or open-air swimming pool, that once held more than 80,000 gallons of water. Depending on the timing of your visit you may get a glimpse of a Welsh actor being a Roman soldier and swimming or diving in the cold pool there.
You can also see the cramped rooms where the men slept and stored their weapons – the only Roman legionary barracks still on view in Europe.
The legionary soldiers of Isca were originally from northern Italy, Provence and southern Spain. Even in chilly Wales, at the farthest corner of the Roman empire, they would have expected some of the comforts of home.
The fortress baths didn’t disappoint. They were a combination of state-of-the-art leisure centre and spa retreat. After bathing the legionaries could play ball games or gamble, meet friends, visit a masseur or even buy a pastry or a roast duck.
A long narrow open-air swimming pool or natatio with a fountain house at one end sat next to the bath building itself – three lofty vaulted halls on the same epic scale as a medieval cathedral.
A soldier coming to the baths would strip, hand his clothes to one of the bathhouse slaves and pass through into the frigidarium or cold bath suite. After a cold dip he’d anoint his body with oils and then visit the warm and hot bath suites in turn.
Luxuriating in the heat from the wood-fired furnaces he’d scrape the oil and sweat from his body with a metal tool called a strigil. It was all finished off with a final cold plunge and perhaps a trip to the latrine.
This wasn’t a completely men-only experience. Women and small children also used the Caerleon baths, although not at the same time as the soldiers. Mixed bathing was officially frowned on by Roman emperors.
Bathers often wore their rings and other jewellery – pilfering from lockers wasn’t unknown. This explains the wonderful collection of 88 engraved gemstones rescued from the bathhouse drain, all these are on display in the museum.
The approximate programme for the day will be to travel to Carleon, it is approximately a one hour forty five minute journey. We plan to meet at 10:15 for coffee at The Priory and then, having chosen our lunch, visit the baths and museum. We will start lunch at 13:00 at the Priory. In the afternoon it will be possible to visit the Amphitheatre and generally look round the town, making your own way home in your own time.