Picture The Past

A whole-school local history project for Cirencester Primary School

Cirencester - a ‘Chronological Acrostic’Crossing the riverIron Age homesteads and horsesRomans rule!Early England – Facts or fiction? Norman conquerors, castles and cloistersChurch control and Charter marketsElizabethan estates – wealth for someStuart street life and Civil WarTurnpikes, Trade and TheatricalsEarnest EducationRailways, Troops and Children

Crossing the river

Local Interest:

Where Cirencester fits in...

A route crossing a river has always been one of the reasons for the start of a settlement.Cirencester has developed where the valley of the River Churn opens out into terraces, sheltered by rising ground. The ancient route called the Whiteway, that drops down to cross the Churn, is still marked to this day.

Iron Age homesteads and horses

So where does Cirencester fit in?

Iron Age families lived in the area that became Corinium and then Cirencester. Evidence for their homes and fields has been uncovered as the new housing estates have been built in the Kingshill area. These people were here when the Roman army arrived and built its military fort.

It seems likely that the local people kept up and then returned to Iron Age traditions and ways of life after the Roman occupation ended.

Romans rule!

So where does Cirencester fit in?Our town was called Corinium by the Romans, who built a military fort here soon after they invaded. It was built on the site of a possible earlier settlement called Caer-coryn, ‘the town on the Churn,’ at the crossing of the river. It became the junction of important pre-Roman and new Roman routes.As the town grew, Corinium became a busy centre for government and trade. Inside the town, and beyond in the countryside, many expensive houses and estates were built, like out at Chedworth, by people who made money and profited well under Roman rule and protection.

It is not clear whether the poorer locals benefited much from the Roman lifestyle within the town walls. When the army withdrew after 400AD, the use of the town changed and buildings slowly decayed; much of the stone was reused in later buildings; pre-Roman traditions and lifestyles reappeared.

The grand mosaic floors and wall foundations had to wait for the archaeologists of the 19th and 20th centuries to be recorded and protected.

Early England – Facts or fiction?

So where does Cirencester fit in?

Evidence for this period in the town’s history is limited. The graves of two Saxon warriors were found at The Barton in 1909, and some artefacts can be seen in the Corinium Museum.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, probably written in the ninth century, Cirencester is mentioned connected with battles between rival kings in AD577 and 628. In AD879 the Vikings were said to have moved their camp from Chippenham to Cirencester, and later when England was under Danish rule for some years King Knut (Canute) held a great Council here in1020.

It is likely that the settlement grew up here north-west of the old Roman walls, in the Cecily Hill area. This was called Instrop, or Inchthorpe, in the past. ‘Thorpe’ is a Saxon or Scandinavian word for village.Recently, part of a possible Anglo-Saxon building was uncovered near the Leisure Centre; the remains of a Saxon church were found during excavations of the Abbey Grounds in the 1960s. Much remains to be discovered about the local people who built and used them.

Facts or fiction? The town’s connection with King Arthur

Throughout history, people have filled gaps in evidence with good stories!In Earl Bathurst’s Cirencester Park there is a tree covered mound called Grismond’s Mount or Tower, just visible through a gate in the high wall near the Leisure Centre. It has been rumoured to be the site of the coronation of the legendary King Arthur!

Other writers have suggested he was crowned in the Chapel of St Cecilia, no longer standing, that gave the name to Cecily Hill. But did he even exist? What do YOU think?