Best Archaeological Remains Nearby Leicester Near Me

4worldlovers:
Editor : This article was commissioned by HAD and written by Laura Hadland, who curates the display of Glen Parva Lady at Leicester. Her view is interesting, in particular because of the mixed views HAD has received about the display, including negative feelings about the way in which her remains are presented and strong feelings about her place in the local community. HAD will be involved in any consultation with regard to changes in the display.

In 1866, at Rye Hill Close, about a mile northwest of Glen Parva, to the south of Leicester, workmen were digging for gravel. About two feet below the ground ‘they came to some stones forming a rude arch, which, on being broken into, exposed a skeleton in perfect preservation, lying north and south’. These were the remains of a Saxon woman, who died around 500-550 CE, and who was buried with her rich grave goods. The ‘Glen Parva Lady’, as she is known, now sits on display in the Jewry Wall Museum, Leicester’s archaeological museum.

The Glen Parva lady is hugely significant to the displays of the Jewry Wall Museum because she is a gateway to our understanding of Saxon period Leicestershire. Her remains introduce the Anglo Saxon section because they are an important example of Anglo Saxon colonisation in the Leicester area, which was to develop through the sixth century. Many of her grave goods can be dated to the early part of the sixth century, particularly her brooches.

Her grave goods are many and varied. They include the following:

Fragments of a conical glass beaker, broken when the grave was opened (with a round base so unable to stand on its own, hence called tumblers)

Necklace beads of glass and an animal claw, pierced to be worn as an amulet

This selection of objects, in addition to the remains of the woman herself, provide vast amounts of information and potential for education in a number of areas, including Glen Parva lady’s life and context as well as her death.

The Glen Parva lady, due to her early date and evident high status and despite her distance from any known church sites and lack of ecclesiastical objects, is most likely to be a pagan burial. She is interesting to modern visitors not only as being a representative of pre-Christian religion in the UK but also as her sophisticated belongings demonstrate that the early Saxon period was not really the technological or cultural ‘Dark Age’ that many people assume. Without her and the material associated with her being on display in the museum, it would be hard to break people’s stereotypes about so-called Dark Age Britain. In this, she does us a great service.

Currently, the Glen Parva lady is on display in the Jewry Wall Museum laid out in a full-length case, with her grave goods arranged around her as they were found. Accompanying her display are a number of interpretive materials. These include:

A facial reconstruction made using a cast of Glen Parva lady’s skull.

A full size reconstructed model of Glen Parva lady in life, with her clothes and jewellery as indicated by the burial.

A large illustration by Mike Codd, showing a reconstruction of the Glen Parva lady’s burial.

Interpretation panels to give the visitor information about where she was found and what we can learn from her.

We have generally found this to be a very successful exhibit. There have been a number of occasions in the last two years I have spent working at the museum where people from Leicester accredit the root of their interest or even career in the historical field to a childhood visit to see the lady. I believe that there are solid reasons why the display of these human remains can have such a profound impact upon our visitors.

4worldlovers:
The monument includes the Roman villa surviving as buried archaeological deposits over an area of approximately 3ha.


The Roman villa, centred at SK 6463 0750, is situated approximately 6.7km north-east of the historic centre of Leicester and 4.5km east of the Fosse Way. Topographically the villa lies at around 75-85m above OD where it occupies a relatively steep south-facing slope overlooking Melton Brook to the south. It is under arable cultivation. The excavations of 1955 and 1976 have indicated the variable degrees of preservation across the site. In some places buried wall remains comprise two courses whereas in other areas only patchy footings remain. This may be attributed to medieval cultivation practices where the better preserved remains lie protected beneath the ridges.

There are three distinct areas of archaeological significance. The original villa remains, identified during the 1955 excavation, which encompass an 100ft ² area of buried building material centred at SK 6458 0758, with a short stretch of Roman access road running up to the villa from the west. To the south-east of this, the possible bath house, discovered during the 1976 excavation, encompasses a rubble spread centred at SK 6462 0754. Again to the south-east, centred at SK 6472 0743, is an area of possible ploughed building debris.

A larger area surrounding all three of the identified areas is scheduled to allow for inaccuracies in locating the specific sites as well as to protect any archaeology that may remain between the three areas. Although intrinsic evidence indicating archaeological remains outside of these areas is not available, it should be assumed that the identified structures situated here would have been related during the Roman period even if they are not fully contemporary. Other features such as tracks and leats may have also run between the areas. It is also possible that there are other minor structures between these sites that have not been detected by the archaeological techniques deployed to date.

The area of protection includes the site of the Roman villa. Any track surfaces, fences and fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.

The Roman villa north of Hamilton Grounds Farm is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Roman villas are amongst the most characteristic settlements of the Roman period and as such are of great national importance;

* the site includes a diversity of features, notably the villa, possible bath house and a short stretch of Roman access road;

* despite undergoing cultivation, the site is reasonably well preserved, retaining information relating to its construction, layout, use and abandonment, as well as its duration of use;

* the villa not only adds to our understanding of Roman society and its economy but should be considered as a very important component within a rich historical landscape where archaeological remains and deposits in and around the villa would provide further information on the development of both the villa itself and the wider urban and rural landscape;

* it is more than likely that the archaeological remains would have had a strong relationship with the vast multi-phased prehistoric settlement sites to the west. The proximity of the scheduled abandoned medieval village of Hamilton, also to the west of the Roman villa, locates it within a sequence of sites that developed through time, further enhancing its group value.

1977 ‘Archaeology in Leicestershire and Rutland 1977’, Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, Transactions, 52, 87.

Charles, B H, Parkinson, A and Foreman, S 2000 ‘A Bronze Age Ditch and Iron Age Settlement at Elms Farm, Humberstone, Leicester’, Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, Transactions, 74, 113-220.

Clarke, D T-C 1956 ‘Archaeology in Leicestershire 1956-57’, Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, Transactions, 32, 94-5.

McWhirr, A 1976 ‘Archaeology in Leicestershire and Rutland 1976’, Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, Transactions, 51, 98-9.

4worldlovers: The Jewry Wall is one of the largest remaining Roman masonry structures in Britain

Kathleen Kenyon is one of the greatest archaeologists of the 20th century. She also made ground-breaking discoveries at Jericho and Jerusalem in the Middle East

No one really knows how the Jewry Wall got its name. It may have come from the latin janua (gateway) or medieval jurat (juror)

Today, the only visible reminder of Leicester’s Roman past, in-situ, is the Jewry Wall. At 23m long, 9m high and 2.5m thick, it is one of the largest pieces of Roman masonry still standing in Britain. Since the medieval period, when it was commonly believed to be part of a Temple to Janus, there has been much discussion about what the Jewry Wall may have been. It was not until it was excavated in the late 1930s by the pioneering archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon (coincidentally in preparation for the building of a new swimming baths) that its role as part of a substantial bathing complex was demonstrated, and not the town’s forum as previously thought. Kenyon’s excavations were the first large-scale archaeological investigation of Roman Leicester and paved the way for eighty years of archaeological discoveries.

Bathing was an integral part of cultural and social life in Roman towns regardless of who you were. Bath-houses were not just places to get clean: customers would also exercise, relax, eat, socialise and conduct business. They would now be considered similar to community centres, combining all the facilities provided by gyms, spas, libraries, shopping centres and restaurants.

Built in the mid-2nd century CE, the bath complex did not change much and probably remained in use until the 4th century. Access to the baths is thought to have been through arches in the Jewry Wall. This was the west wall of a large, aisled basilica on the eastern side of the complex, most of which now lies beneath the Church of St Nicholas. This was the palaestra, the exercise hall where men could meet, box, wrestle and play ball games.

The central focus of the baths themselves was the tepidarium, the warm room heated from under the floor through a hypocaust, where bathers could assemble and relax before moving on to the hot or cold baths – the caldaria or the frigidarium. Bathers would cover themselves with oils and use a tool called a strigil to scrape off the dirt and oil. The hot rooms were maintained at a temperature of about forty degrees centigrade – this made them very humid, much like a modern sauna. The final step was to plunge into a pool of cold water, to close the pores and refresh the body.

Bathing was not the only way to relax in Roman Leicester. Recent archaeological excavation on the corner of Highcross Street and Vaughan Way found parts of a substantial Roman public building, most likely the supports for the curved seating of a theatre, built in the early 3rd century behind the town’s macellum (market hall).

Traces of other public entertainments and Roman culture enjoyed by Leicester’s populace have been found on other sites, including a small graffitied sherd of pottery bearing the names Verecunda the actress (or female gladiator) and Lucius the gladiator, and a mosaic depicting the story of Cyparissus from Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses.

Left, An early drawing of the Cyparissus mosaic by S. Carter in 1788. Right, The Cyparissus mosaic, found on Highcross Street in Leicester in c.1675. The mosaic is one of the earliest recorded mosaics in Britain

A sherd of red-slip Roman pottery with the inscription VERECVNDA LVDIA LVCIVS GLADIATOR meaning ‘Verecunda the actress (or female gladiator) and Lucius the Gladiator’. Possibly a love token meant to be worn

A cut-away impression of how the Jewry Wall baths may have looked during the late 2nd century CE

'The Roman Building commonly called the Tempe of Janus (Jewry Wall) at Leicester' by W. Stuckley, 1722

4worldlovers: Recently, University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) had a couple of enquires about the link between King Leir and the Jewry Wall in Leicester – and so ULAS Project Officer Mathew Morris investigated…

One of Leicester’s most enduring legends is that of King Leir, the tragic king made famous by William Shakespeare’s titular play. Leir was a legendary king of the Britons whose story was first told by the chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in the early 12th century AD in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).

In Monmouth’s original account (Book II, 10-14), which differs slightly from Shakespeare’s, King Leir ruled in Britain for 60 years in the late 9th / early 8th century BC (his death being recorded as 7 years before the founding of Rome in 753 BC). He was credited as the eponymous founder of a city built upon the River Soar, “called in the British tongue Kaerleir, in the Saxon, Leircestre”. Growing old and without a male heir, Leir decided to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, Goneril, Regau (Regan in later versions) and Cordelia. The elder daughters flattered the king and were duly rewarded with half his kingdom, whilst Cordelia refused to sweet-talk her father and was disinherited, eventually leaving Britain to marry a king of the Franks. At first Goneril and Regau treated their father with respect but eventually they rebelled and seized his entire kingdom, forcing him to flee to Cordelia in France. Cordelia led an army back to Britain, successfully overthrew her sisters and restored her father, who ruled a further three years before dying. Cordelia succeeded him and “buried her father in a certain vault, which she ordered to be made for him under the river Soar, in Leicester, and which had been built originally under the ground to the honour of the god Janus.”

To muddy the waters, despite its early Iron Age setting, Monmouth’s story utilised Roman deities, the post-Roman geopolitical landscape and medieval titles of nobility and the story has a distinctly post-Roman vibe. Clearly, Monmouth’s account is fictional, probably invented by the author himself who drew on a mixture of Welsh legends and historical anecdotes to concoct a narrative for Britain’s early history, starting with its settlement by Trojan refugees led by Brutus, a descendant of Virgil’s Trojan hero Aeneas. So how close to reality does the story come? What truths lie behind the narrative, and where did the story of King Leir come from in the first place?

First, Leicester’s foundation. Archaeological excavations across the city have firmly established that the first permanent settlement at Leicester occurred a little over 2,000 years ago, during the 1st century BC, seven centuries later than Monmouth claimed. This first settlement was sited over a ten-hectare area along the east Bank of the River Soar near St Nicholas Circle in the modern city. The settlement was regionally important, with extensive contacts with the rest of Britain and the Continent and was probably a royal centre (as Monmouth intimates) for a group of the Corieltavi, a loose federation of peoples which controlled much of the East Midlands during the late Iron Age but not all Britain.

It was not called Kaerleir. The earliest recorded name for Leicester, written in Ptolemy’s Geographia (c.AD 150), was Ratae, thought to be a Romanised Celtic (British) word meaning ‘ramparts’. Later in the Roman period it became Ratae Corieltavorum and it was still described as Rate Corion Eltauori in the early 8th century AD. By the end of the 8th century something had changed, and it had come to be known as Legorensis Civitatis. It wasn’t until the early 9th century, however, that it was first called Kaerlier (by the Welsh monk Nennius) and it wasn’t known as Leircestre until the 11th century (the Domesday Book being the earliest use of that spelling) – in between it was Legraceastre, meaning ‘the fortified Roman town of the people of the Legra’.