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Published: July 18th 2011
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The weather for 21 June wasn’t promising and we could expect some spells of rain in the southwest of the country. We caught the No.151 bus for Cirencester at 10:10. It was brightly sunshining in the morning and it offered wonderful views of lush rolling hills and countryside and honey coloured houses from the bus.
Cirencester Parish Church
We got off in the centre of Cirencester. We decided to explore the abbey grounds on the back of the Parish Church. There were two historical monuments in the abbey grounds, i.e. The Norman Arch and Roman Walls. We firstly walked to the Norman Arch on the northwest corner, which was only survivor of Cirencester Abbey, which was built in the 12th century but destroyed in 1539 due to the Henry VIII’s reformation of the Roman Catholics and abbeys. Next, we took my parents to the viewpoint of the Parish Church along the brook in the abbey grounds. We found the remains of the Roman Wall as well.
Afterwards, we went back to the Parish Church. Because of its size, the Parish Church of Cirencester can be mistaken for Cirencester Cathedral. Although much of Cirencester Abbey was demolished, the building of
the place for the worship was remained and many of the treasures and artefacts of the former abbey have survived. Thus, there were quite a few things to see in the Parish Church, which was built with the wealth gained from the wool industry. We looked round the Trinity Chapel, St Mary Chapel, and Chancel and found the brasses of the couple, three merchants, and four sisters, the wall painting of St Christopher and him carrying baby, Anne Boleyn’s cup, and the 14th century font. The organist was practising his recital for the afternoon in the morning. My mother bought a couple of postcards and bookmarks.
Next, we headed for the Corinium Museum. I showed my parents the Europe’s biggest yew hedge established at the manor house near the museum. We decided to have lunch at the coffee adjacent to the museum.
Corinium Museum
After the lunch, we started looking round the Corinium Museum. With the map of the museum, we followed the route of the exhibitions which had been laid out with the chronological order.
We saw the reconstructed burials of the Stone Age and Iron Period, together with the fragments of earthenware, swords, assorted accessories,
Roman monuments of the famous soldiers, knights, equestrians, and Celtic treasures, the model of Julius Caesar in the first exhibition rooms.
The suggested route led us to the Hall where the Roman mosaics were displayed on the wall and floor. We popped in the Roman Garden and learnt that the Romans were the first people who had begun planting flowers outside of their houses.
We then moved to the Roman Exhibition rooms. It seemed there had been dozens of fringes and bases of columns of Roman Walls and buildings discovered in and around Cirencester and those items and Samien earthenware found around the site of the amphitheatre were displayed in the first Roman exhibition room.
There were models of the Roman butcher, kitchen, and heating room, mosaic floors, and displays of the 2nd to 4th century wall paintings, piece of which had been partially found and assembled.
We went upstairs and continued looking round the Roman exhibition rooms. At the upstairs of the Roman Exhibition rooms, we saw monuments, artefacts, and accessories classified with transport, religion, health, cosmetics, education etc displayed in the glass cases. We overlooked mosaic floors, columns, and fringes from the balcony and
they all looked striking than we saw them from the ground floor.
We then went back to the ground floor and moved to the Anglo Saxon Exhibition Rooms. The burial of the wealthiest lady and her treasures, the burial of the man and child, their personal belongings, earthen vessels, and armoury goods were displayed.
Following the suggested route, we entered the Medieval Exhibition room. We saw numerous types of accessories, fragments of earthenware and cutleries, artefacts and pieces of the medieval buildings found the abbey grounds and in and around Cirencester, replicas of the brasses and the portraits of John Coxwell who was the head of the wool industry.
Cirencester had a beleaguered period of the time in the 17th century and many of the Roman and medieval buildings and communities were destroyed and dissolved by the civil war. There were a handful number of war period items, collections of porcelain and textile items between 18th and 19th century. The exhibitions of Corinium Museum gave us an insight of Roman Britain and overall history of Cirencester.
We finished looking round the museum at 2 o’clock. There were several pools of water on the street. Luckily, the
showers had been over and it was brightly sunshining when we left the museum. Mark was interested in Cirencester Park. We walked uphill on the Cecily Hill and reached the entrance of the park. My mother decided to sketch the honey terraced houses opposite to the Victorian Barracks while sitting on the beach in the Cirencester Park. After that, we headed to the relics of St John Hospital, which was built by Henry II.
My mother sketched the tower of the Parish Church from the abbey grounds.
We caught the bus for Cirencester at 15:20. We went back to hotel and rested till 6 o’clock. We had an Italian meal for our dinner.
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