With a population of 80,000, the city of Bath still manages to hold tight to its timeless history by preserving the many historic chapters written here. A World Heritage City, Bath is probably best known for its Roman baths, although there are myriad other sites to engage and enchant any guest.

From the Roman invasion of Britain beginning in the first century A.D. until the fifth century when the Roman Empire was in decline, the invaders would forever change the English landscape.

But as Britons chafed under the yoke of the conquerors, the Romans built an enduring legacy of forts, towns, walls, public buildings and fine roads, and transformed Bath into England's first spa resort. Around Britain's only hot spring, the Romans built a breathtakingly beautiful temple and bathing complex where naturally hot water still bubbles up from below ground.

The complex includes the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple and the Roman Bath House, all below the level of the modern street.

When the Romans left England, the baths were covered over and forgotten for nearly 1,400 years only to be rediscovered in the late 19th century.

A terrace — lined with statues of Roman governors of Britain, emperors and military leaders — overlooks the Great Bath. The statues, dating to 1894, were carved in advance of the grand reopening of the Roman Baths in 1897.

The open-air, lead-lined Great Bath at the center of the Roman spa complex is filled with hot spa water to a depth of 5 feet with steps leading into the bath on all sides. It once stood in an enormous barrel-vaulted hall that rose 130 feet high. Leading off this magnificent pool were various bathing chambers that became increasingly sophisticated during the centuries of Roman occupation. Water continues to flow from the Sacred Spring into the corner of the Great Bath at a constant 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

Excavations of the Roman plumbing and drainage system, still largely in place, shows the ingenuity of Roman engineering. Designed and built nearly 2,000 years ago, lead pipes still carry hot spa water around the site using gravity flow. The spring overflow, not needed for the baths, travels out to a Roman drain where the water is plumbed from the site to the River Avon 1,300 feet away.

The Sacred Spring at the heart of the original Roman bath complex was believed to be the work of the gods, so the Romans built a temple to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a deity with healing powers, next to the spring. Originally, the Roman Temple stood on a podium more than 6 feet above the complex. The temple colonnade is now on display in the Roman Baths Museum.

Visitors threw objects into the Sacred Spring as offerings to the goddess, including more than 12,000 Roman coins. Curses, messages inscribed on sheets of lead or pewter, were rolled up and thrown into the spring where the spirit of the goddess was believed to dwell.

These treasures and others were salvaged from the spring and are now on display in the museum. Other items in the museum collection help explain the people who lived and worked in the area at the time and those who visited the great Roman religious spa.

The 18th century Pump Room is at street level and has been regarded as the social heart of Bath for more than 200 years. Hot spa water is drawn for drinking in the neo-classical salon, which is filled with its own history including the Tompion clock, given to the city in 1709 by Thomas Tompion, one of England's best known clockmakers.

Towering over the Roman baths is Bath Abbey, one of the last of the great medieval churches in England. The west front depicts the dream of Jacob's ladder to heaven that inspired the abbey's founder, Bishop Oliver King, to pull down the ruined Norman cathedral and raise the present building on its foundations.

Over the past 12 1/2 centuries, three different churches occupied the site of today's abbey. An Anglo-Saxon abbey church dating from 757 A.D. was the first house of worship on the site, pulled down by the Norman conquerors of England soon after 1066.

Construction of a massive Norman cathedral began about 1090. Because it was larger than the monastery could afford to maintain, it was in ruins by the end of the 15th century.

The present Bath Abbey was founded in 1499 and subsequently ruined after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by order of Henry VIII.

The abbey was later restored and has been supported since by generations of worshippers and generous benefactors.