© Cirencester Archaeological & Historical Society & Contributors 2016-2021
Registered Charity no. 287289
Projects
Researching, recording, interpreting and
celebrating our town
The Society has been in existence for over sixty years. In the early
days it sponsored "digs" in the area, supporting the then-new
Cirencester Excavation Committee. As archaeology these days is
now well catered for in the planning system and with professional
units such as Cotswold Archaeology nearby (successor to the old
Cirencester Excavations Committee), we restrict projects to things
where we rarely get our hands dirty. Members are encouraged to
take part in projects supported by the Society, and past and present
examples are listed here. Some are complete, but most come
round for renewal from time to time; interpreting local history for
the wider community is a continuous process! This is not a
comprehensive list - we have recently uncovered work the Society
did in rescuing items from Watermoor Hospital, for example. [They
are still on display in the current Cirencester Hospital]
If you would like us to mention an early project that you had a hand
in, please send your memories to the webmaster using the
message tab on the right.
Cirencester War Memorials
With an eye on the Centenary of World War 1, the Society marked
this significant event by bringing together various strands of
research on the town’s war memorials (we do have more than
one!). We hold considerable research undertaken by CAHS
members Deirdre & Jim Waddell with specialist input from Peter
Grace of Cirencester’s Living Memory Historical Association. This
work has now been taken on by Dale Hjort, and the result is our
Memorials Web pages, which you are encouraged to make use of to
recall family stories. The material was used to illustrate the local
effects of the war in an exhibition we staged in August/ September
2014 in The Corinium Museum, which received funding from the
Heritage Lottery Fund, together with other local organisations. An
artistic reminder of this collaboration can be seen high on the wall
of Brewery Arts.
The main war memorial, on the refurbished church South Porch,
looks better now than it has done for decades and those who gaze
on it must wonder about the individuals mentioned there. All we
know of these people is recorded in our Memorials pages. If you
know more, please tell us, using the mail symbol to the right.
Turnpikes around Cirencester
An ongoing project for many years has been detailed studies of the
various roads into and out of Cirencester, which is a good example
of a market town acting as a hub of routes in the turnpike system
of the 18th and 19th centuries. There were annual reports of
progress in our Newsletters. Today some of this activity is
undertaken by the national Milestone Society (formed in 2000) but
it remains our intention to bring all this work together for formal
publication using our own publications (for which a Ward Grant was
obtained from the CDC some years ago). If you can assist this
endeavour in any way to keep the record updated, our Editor as
project co-ordinator would be pleased to hear from you
Abbey Grounds
The Society’s Millennium Project provided information on the
history of the great Augustinian Abbey of St. Mary, which
dominated the landscape and lives of the people of Cirencester for
over 400 years. Today its site forms the Abbey Grounds public park,
where the building outline was marked with slabs and a plaque was
installed. This was completed with help from the Town Council
which owns the grounds, and was opened by the Mayor one rainy
evening during 2000. Unfortunately, the plaque suffered from both
graffiti and weather damage, and was removed some years later.
One successor is a CAHS leaflet that visitors can purchase for a
small sum from the Museum’s Information Centre, and it fits easily
into the pocket as you walk around the Abbey Grounds. The leaflet
also includes other history and features in the Grounds, notably the
Roman Wall and the Norman Arch.
In 2013 the Town Council decided to place two more explanation
boards in the Abbey Grounds. The Society has provided financial
assistance for these boards as part of its charitable aims. In 2017
Cirencester celebrated Abbey900. See the Abbey900 page.
Cirencester Park
In parallel, we also produced a familiarisation leaflet for
Cirencester’s other great public open space in Cirencester Park.
Provided primarily for visitors to the Caravan Club site in the Park
grounds, it gave guided walks through the park. Unfortunately the
leaflet is not being produced at the moment
Roman Garden at Corinium Museum
For about 20 years before the Corinium Museum was revamped,
members tended the Roman Garden in our fine museum and we
were proud to support in this way, providing a number of
improvements over the years. Today’s museum is considerably
enlarged from those days, but the Garden is still there and is still
doing its job of interpretation
The Queen’s 50th and 60th Jubilees
The Society contribution in 2002 was a set of 50 photographs of
items or places connected with Jubilees since Queen Victoria’s day,
presented to the local history section of the BIngham Library at our
December 2002 meeting, which was held in the Library. They are
still available to view. In 2012 CAHS did not adopt a particular
project but gave general support via individual contributions to the
programme of activities organised by the town’s Jubilee committee
The Kibble Photographic Collection
Some 150 colour slides of Cirencester celebrations in 1975 taken by
the late Bob Kibble have been loaned to us. We have now made a
digital record. Linda Viner has catalogued them. A photogallery of a
selection is available. We will need your help in identifying who,
what, where and why. They appear to show a carnival, a flower
show in Cirencester Parish church and several aerial photos taken
at the time of building the inner bypass.
We are stimulated to consider how current photographs might
record the changing scene, particularly of the Cirencester
conservation area.
The Linda Walls Regal Photographic Collection
In the final days before the last cinema in town closed, CAHS
committee member Linda Walls, with full permission, took a large
numbers of photographs of the exterior and interior of the Regal,
which stood in Lewis Lane. The Society holds a disk of these
photographs. Linda sadly died in 2006, not long after this exercise.
History was one of her several enthusiasms. The photo record is
our memorial to her. Some of the pictures are in this photogallery.
Today the site is occupied by the Bingham Close housing
development.
Building studies
There is a growing interest in Cirencester’s historical buildings and
those who lived in them, but so far a relatively small number of
studies have appeared in the Society’s publications. Those that
have are being added to the website for easy reference and with
only gentle editing to update them.
The Old House in Gloucester Street and No 33 Dyer Street share a
common theme of relating historic town houses to their occupants,
the author in each case being resident at the time of contributing
each piece. They serve, if nothing else, as a reminder that research
into the history of individual buildings offers a fascinating task to
which all can contribute.
For the most recent essay on the general study of Cirencester’s
historic buildings, see David Viner, ‘A Rich Resource: Studying
Cirencester’s Historic Buildings’ in Excavations and Observations in
Roman Cirencester 1998-2007 (Cirencester Excavations, Vol. VI),
December 2008, pp. 15-27.
Disclaimer: reference to these two historic buildings in Gloucester Street
and Dyer Street, each of which remains privately-owned property, does
not imply any rights of access to either, for which the Society takes no
responsibility.
Indexing the Wilts & Glos Standard
Long before the development of computers and back in the world
of index cards, members laboriously catalogued back copies of the
Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard kept in the Bingham Library
(the librarian of the time was Librarian to the Society). The Standard
dates back to 1837 and is central to any research on town history
and community life. This project ran from 1968-75 and over 2,000
index cards were compiled covering the years 1855-1940.
Determined not to lose this resource (and all that effort) and deny
modern researchers, CAHS volunteer Linda Viner has recently
typed up the card index and it is now available on line via the
Gloucestershire Archives website. An article on this project appears
in CAHS Newsletter No 56 for Autumn 2012
Endangered buildings
Throughout its existence the Society has been concerned for the
preservation of Cirencester’s fine stock of historically-significant
buildings, supporting numerous campaigns over the years. Most
recently CAHS supported the Trustees of St John’s Hospital in their
fund-raising and conservation programme to preserve this fine
12th Century structure in Spitalgate. Improved interpretation may
yet be possible with CAHS support.
Street Naming
Street names, if carefully selected with an historical eye, can raise
all sorts of interest in what went before, for new as well as existing
residents. We have been recording the town’s fine set of old-style
blue street signs and for some years have been suggesting suitable
street names for developers of new schemes, inevitably with mixed
success. For example, we had nothing to do with the dodgy Latin in
the ‘Corinium Via!’ promotion alongside Burford Road, but a walk
into this Kingshill North development as well as the Kingshill South
development accessed off the Tesco roundabout will reveal an
interesting range of names taken from a specific historical source.
Old field names such as Forstall have been used but most are taken
from an 1897 group of the Cirencester Tradesmen’s Society, whose
names once graced their town centre shops and businesses. You
can see a group photograph on the wall in Walter Bull & Son in
Dyer Street. Taken together, they represent the dominant part of
the town’s commercial history from the later Victorian and early
20th century. Trotman, Winstone, Moss, Savory and others are all
remembered here. The Society will continue to campaign in this
way
Military Colours in Cirencester Parish Church
The Colours of the local 4th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment
and the Royal North Gloucestershire Militia were given into the care
of the church in 1908 on the disbandment of these regiments and
hung there for ninety years, being removed from display some
years before the recently-completed comprehensive refurbishment
of the church.
For over a decade, led initially by our member Fred Petrie (who
wrote about them), CAHS campaigned for their re-hanging and
prepared a detailed report on their historical and social
significance. This report has since been published in the final issue
of Glos Rural Community Council’s journal Gloucestershire History
(no. 25 for 2011, pp.18-28).
Two of the colours are now rehung, the oldest is now nearly dust to
dust. They were rededicated on Remembrance Day November 11,
2012 . It might be asked, why do they look so sad? The answer lies
in military tradition that laid up colours should not be restored but
allowed to decay gracefully with old age, ‘dust to dust’. So they are
memorials too
And more ....
Other research by individual members and others is reported
throughout our run of publications, especially in our yearly
Newsletter. See the Publications pages
Page last updated 13 April 2018