Praying to 'saints'

[Shaker]

Rose, it is not a shame that we cannot bathe in the Roman baths if the water carries infection!
I've been there, many years ago.  Love Bath and the baths!  However it was probably always a bit borderline when you consider how many people bathed there and the green slime around the walls of the baths.  It only takes one person to catch something from the water for it to be considered unsafe.

The water is slightly radioactive, but a much bigger health risk is that it's also seething with lead, E. coli and salmonella. IIRC the last time somebody bathed in the waters was a young girl in the late 70s (maybe early 80s) and she died shortly afterwards.

[Rhiannon]

You can still bathe at St Winefride's Well in Flintshire.

http://www.saintwinefrideswell.com/information/4570077778

I have a rather tragic encyclopaedic knowledge of the Cadfael books.

[Shaker]

The memory still holds up most of the time!

"In October 1978, a young girl swimming with the Bath Dolphins, a local swimming club, in the restored Roman Bath contracted meningitis and died, leading to the closure of the bath for several years. Tests showed that Naegleria fowleri, an extremely dangerous disease-causing amoeba, was in the water."

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Visitors can no longer bathe in the Tunbridge Wells spa water, but those brave enough may still drink it (it tastes horrible).

[Shaker]

Visitors can no longer bathe in the Tunbridge Wells spa water, but those brave enough may still drink it (it tastes horrible).

Same at Bath - like warm nails in liquid form 

The water at Chalice Well at Glastonbury is equally high in iron or more so but is very drinkable - no wonder they say it has healing properties.