Corinium Museum

The Corinium Museum sits in Cirencester, a Cotswold town once home to the Roman settlement of Corinium Dobunnorum. Its displays stretch from Neolithic finds to Victorian objects, with the strongest section covering the 2nd to 4th centuries. Two private collections, started in the mid-19th century by the Bathurst and Cripps families, form the core of the exhibits. The museum’s Roman mosaics and carvings rank among the finest in Britain. Prehistoric tools and Iron Age items from Bagendon hillfort sit alongside Anglo-Saxon grave goods from Butler’s Field. Later galleries trace Cirencester Abbey and the town’s rise through the wool trade. Major refurbishments in 2002–2004 and 2018–2020 expanded and modernised the displays. Visitors walk through light, modern rooms that once formed part of an 18th-century house called Abberley House. The galleries lead from Stone Age tools to Roman armour, mosaic floors and everyday pottery. Medieval manuscripts and wool-trade ledgers sit beside Anglo-Saxon brooches and tools. Outside, Cirencester’s market square and nearby churches sit on ground first settled two thousand years ago.