Chester's Roman Fort contains a museum of finds made by landowner John Clayton when he escavated the fort. The finds were kept in the home and garden, but after Clayton's death, a museum was built and it has been welcoming visitors since the late 1800s. Last year, the museum was shut due to the pandemic, but it has reopened this year, so I was able to see inside. I discovered that the museum primarily contains stonework and stone carvings - alters, statue fragments, inscriptions, tombs, but there are other items too (jewellery, coins, pottery, metal, pins, combs, glass). In fact, there are over 27,000 items in the collection, and they helped discover where the soldiers came from and the social aspects of their lives through items discovered.
In addition to the items discovered at Chester's, there are some items that made their way into the collection through relatives, friends, and neighbours of Clayton and his family. These items come from different parts of the UK and even the world. One friend gave Clayton some coloured stones for mosaics from Pompeii.
To read about Chester's Fort and Baths from my last visit to Chester's, see my post:
For additional Hadrian's Wall posts, see:
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