Roman Britain / Learning resources
Design and daily life
Plan water for a Roman settlement
Create a water-supply proposal while considering baths, storage, maintenance and the evidence still needed.
Start here
Read about Ravenglass’s bath house and Frontinus’s later role managing Rome’s water supply. Draw a fictional settlement with homes, workshops and baths. Your plan is a design exercise: it is not a reconstruction of Ravenglass’s actual water system.
Try the activity
- Choose a possible water source and mark its height relative to the buildings. Explain how water might reach the users, and where your proposal would need more information.
- Add storage and a route for removing used water. Keep supply and drainage distinct on the drawing, with a clear key for each.
- Give the bath house a place in your plan and list other resources it needs, such as fuel and people to maintain the building.
- Write a decision note explaining one trade-off between distance, effort and reliability. Add two questions that an archaeologist would ask before accepting your design as a historical reconstruction.
Discuss and check
- Does every Roman settlement need a large aqueduct?
- Why does a channel need maintenance after it is built?
- Does Frontinus’s job in Rome prove he designed a British bath house?
Review your work
Check that the drawing is labelled as a proposal and that your sources support only the historical background. A workable sketch is not evidence that a particular ancient system existed. Finish by distinguishing one visible feature of the Ravenglass ruins from one element you invented for the exercise.
Sources and further reading
Romans in Britain · People · Places · Learning resources