CIRENCESTER

Known as the Capital of the Cotswolds, Cirencester is a beguiling introduction to the delights of the wider region

- JENNY ROWE

Cirencester began life as Corinium Dobunnorum, a Roman city whose 2nd-century walls encompassed the second-largest area of any in Britain at the time. Almost 20 centuries later, the most panoramic window into its past can be found at the Corinium Museum, whose new interactive galleries will open imminently – pandemic allowing – following six years and a £1.87-million investment from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, sponsorships and donations. It showcases the history of the Cotswolds, starting with the hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age, who settled here 700,000 years ago, and continuing through the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages to the early Roman period.

One part of the museum’s extensive collection, though, has being reliably drawing the crowds for well over a century. The building of the first Corinium Museum was funded by the 4th Earl Bathurst to house two mosaics, some of the finest Roman survivals in Britain, which were discovered in 1849 during sewerage works in the town.

The Bathurst family have contributed to modern-day Cirencester in more prominent ways too. It was the first earl who laid out the now Grade I-listed Cirencester Park. The estate comprises 15,000 acres and was partially designed by poet and landscape gardener, Alexander Pope.

Venturing away from its structured heart, rolling farmland offers you the chance to see the Cotswold countryside while staying in town, and new walking routes outline the best-waymarked footpaths.