Jewry Wall Museum, Leicester

[poliphilo]

Leicester's Jewry Wall is the largest slab of non-military, free-standing, Roman masonry to survive in Britain.  It was originally part of a Roman bath house, was re-used as the west wall of a church (which is what saved it from demolition) and now forms part of the boundary of the Jewry Wall Museum.

The name is a mystery. It has nothing to do with Jews or ghettos. The best guess is that it derives from "jurat"- the title given to senior members of the medieval city council- which may- or may not- have held meetings in the adjoining churchyard.

It's a good little museum- especially rich in Roman material.
 


Jewry Wall from St. Nicholas churchyard.



Looking through the wall towards the museum, with the foundations of the bath house in the foreground.



Looking back up, through the wall, at the west front of the church.



A small mosaic

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Roman mosaics...I love them. Seville is especially rich in that sort of thing. Out at Italica (birthplace of emperors Hadrian and Trajan) there are some really nice mosaic floors in the ruins. A lot of them have been placed in the Archaeological Museum here for safekeeping but they've left some in situ to admire.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Roman mosaics in Britain tend to be unsophisticated and clumsy- not all of them, but the majority- and actually that's part of the charm.