What follows here is a brief account of some of the stories from history which have, together, made Cirencester what it is today. It is by no means the final word. If you read all of the available accounts there are often several different versions of the "facts". While the basic signposts of history are agreed, it is the individual human stories that add colour and interest, and it is those that have directed the choice of material presented here for your enjoyment. If you have more to add please let us know so it may be shared the next time the story is told.

The name?

There is no clear origin of the name as we know it today, but Korinion was mentioned by the Egyptian-born scholar Ptolemy in his "Geographica" written in about AD 150. It thus seems probable that the Romans adopted the name Corinium from the local tribe the Dubonnii, of the Cornovii peoples. Some references through the years are to the Romanised name of "Corinium Dobunnorum". There is also a probable connection to the Celtic word, corin, for corn; this is also thought to be the origin of the name Churn for the river which still flows through the town. By the time of the Domesday Book the Saxon "cester" had been added and it is recorded as the town of Cyrescestre; very similar to the present-day name which is often shortened, unofficially, to "Ciren" or more characteristically "Zoiren".

Historical Survey

The Roman Period

Cirencester’s recorded history begins soon after the invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius in AD 43. In the following years the victorious army over-ran the West Country. In order to link up with the forces fighting further north, a road known as the Fosse Way was constructed about AD 47 linking the Exeter area with Lincoln passing through the Cotswolds. The future site of Cirencester was selected for one of the forts for the military, especially the cavalry; it is thought that up to 800 cavalrymen and their logistical support were housed here. [Tombstones of two auxiliary cavalrymen have been found in Watermoor.]

Later, about AD 75, after the frontier had moved forward to Wales and the North, a town was established, replacing the fort as the chief city and administrative centre for the British tribe known as the Dobunni, who had not opposed the newcomers. Their tribal centre was formerly at Bagendon, some four miles north of Cirencester, where some earthworks survive today and excavations have revealed coin-mints and many pre-Roman artefacts. [These together with coins of kings of the tribe are in the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.]The new centre, now known as Cirencester, was formally called Corinium Dobunnorum in Roman references. By the 2nd century, it was the second largest town in Britain, covering 240 acres, compared with the 330 of London with a population of up to 15,000, not far short of the population of today!

The defensive "wall", at first built only of earth, was later faced by an external wall of stone and extra stone towers were added. [Most of these defences have disappeared, but their line on the eastern side can be traced in the form of an earthen bank alongside the river in the Abbey Grounds (where a section is exposed to view) and along Beeches Road to the City Bank Playing Field in Watermoor, where a footpath runs along the top of the bank.] Most was progressively removed after the withdrawal of the Romans as building stone or for road repairs in the district.

There were at least four gates in the encircling walls of Corinium through which the great Roman roads passed. They crossed in the centre of the Roman town, [now indicated by the crossing from South Way to Tower Street where it cuts Lewis Lane]. Ermin Street on the NW-SE axis passed north through the gates to Gloucester and Wales and departed south to Silchester and the south coast. The Fosse Way and Akeman Street, from Lincoln and Colchester (via Verulamium or St Albans) respectively, converged just outside northeast gate and continued as one road to Bath and the south-west. There were no doubt other local roads. [The Whiteway was one such older road which probably went, eventually, towards the north and Chester.]

The Town

Within the town, very little of the rectangular street system has survived, although a great deal of information has been revealed by excavation. The focal point of the street system and nucleus of the town’s life was the Forum, a large open market place surrounded by colonnaded shops. The area is roughly indicated by the line of the modern streets of Lewis Lane, Tower Street and The Avenue. (It measured 108 x 68 metres).

On its south side stood a huge public building, the Basilica. This building was 102 metres long and 29 metres wide and served as the town hall and the courts of justice. Nothing survives above ground although the apsidal western end of the Basilica, where the seat of judgment was placed, is marked out in the roadway at the junction of The Avenue and Tower Street and a plaque is mounted nearby.

Corinium must also have contained many shrines dedicated to Roman and native deities. These together with the public baths, mansion inn and theatre, all essential elements of a large Roman town, have yet to been found. [During the construction of Ashcroft Road, a representation of the three Celtic Mother Goddesses, the DeaeMatres, was uncovered and this and other fine religious sculptures can be seen in the museum.]

The most important cult, however, seems to have been that of Jupiter, but in a native form in which a column was set up crowned by a group of statuary. The fine capital of such a sacred column was found in 1838 near the museum where it may be seen.

It was in the 4th century that Corinium seems to have been the centre of the general wealth of the Cotswolds and on the evidence available was probably the capital of the Province of Britannia Prima. At the peak of its prosperity it must indeed have been a splendid city and excavation has shown the presence of wide colonnaded streets, imposing public buildings including the second largest Amphitheatre in the country and richly furnished private houses, many decorated with fine mosaics (over 80 mosaic pavements have been discovered so far) and painted wall plaster - the typical trappings in fact of Roman urban civilisation to be found in one of the largest and most important towns of the Empire. [Modern excavations continue to reveal buried secrets; there are many examples in the Corinium Museum. The site of the amphitheatre, to the west of the town, can still be visited, but is little more than a series of imposing earthworks.]

When in the 5th century (AD 415) Roman rule officially came to an end, urban life probably lingered on inside the wall but was eventually largely abandoned. Some Saxons came to settle in nearby Fairford in the upper Thames valley, but not until Cuthwin and Ceawlin took the offensive in AD 577 and defeated three British kings at the Battle of Dyrham did Cirencester fall into Saxon hands.

The Saxon and Medieval Town

Cirencester became an important centre in the Saxon period, but little tangible evidence survives. Burials and the site of the minster church are all that remain to reflect its former status.

[Some burials were discovered in 1909 at The Barton, on the edge of Cirencester Park, and they included that of a warrior buried with his spear and shield. His grave had been dug through the fourth-century Orpheus mosaic which is now on display in the Corinium Museum.]

The Saxon settlement itself was probably sited in the vicinity of the present Cecily Hill, to the north-west of the abandoned Roman city. Little else is known of the details of the life and times for the next 350 years.

The minster church of St Mary, founded in the 9th or 10th century, was probably a royal foundation. It survived into the 12th century, to be replaced by the Augustinian abbey also called St Mary. [Both the Anglo-Saxon church and the medieval abbey church lay to the north of the parish church, and the site is now marked out in the Abbey Grounds with an explanatory plaque.]

At the Norman Conquest the royal manor of Cirencester was granted to the Earl of Hereford, William Fitz-0sbern, but by 1075 it had reverted back to the Crown. The Domesday Survey of 1086 records ‘the new market’ of Cirencester, which paid an annual toll of 20 shillings and attracted trade from the surrounding area.

Cirencester Abbey was founded by Henry 1 in 1117, the biggest of five Augustinian houses in the country founded by the king, and following half a century of building work the great abbey church was finally dedicated in 1176. However, the first Abbot was installed in 1131 at the initial consecration and started to control life in the town. Building work was interrupted by the civil war between Matilda and Stephen when another of Cirencester’s landmarks was destroyed: the castle. Documentary records show that this was a wooden structure, fortified by Matilda, but attacked and burnt by Stephen in 1142. Its probable site is somewhere in the area of the present mansion house behind the huge yew hedge in Park Street.

It is difficult to imagine now, but throughout the medieval period the townscape would have been dominated by the bulk of the great abbey church with its central tower, overshadowing the parish church and houses clustered around its precinct.

Thus for more than four centuries the great Augustinian Abbey of St Mary and the parish church of St John the Baptist stood side by side, to the north of the busy market place. As lord of the manor, the abbot had jurisdiction over the market rights and drew rates from all the transactions. His power was absolute in matters of law and order, and at times abbot and citizens were in fierce dispute. The Abbey lands were spread as far as Winchester, Pulham in Northamptonshire, Frome in Somerset and even in County Kerry in Ireland; usually based on churches but also land and houses. They were accumulated by both Royal and private donation. The number of canons varied to as many as 40 with an unknown number of lay brothers who carried out domestic duties. The canon’s black fur-lined cassocks and black hoods would have been a familiar sight.

Sheep rearing, wool sales, weaving and cloth-making were the main strengths of England’s trade in the Middle Ages, and many Cirencester merchants and clothiers took advantage of the wealth and prosperity to be gained from national and international trade. At its greatest the very best cloth to be found in Europe was from Cirencester. Their tombs survive in the parish church, while their fine houses of Cotswold stone still stand in and around Coxwell, Dollar, Park and Dyer Streets. [The "woolgatherers" barn and house at the north end of Coxwell Street give a hint at the size of some of their businesses. Indeed Coxwell himself (he died in 1618 aged over 100) was a very rich merchant who owned many properties in the town, several of which he bought from Queen Elizabeth.] Their wealth also funded the second rebuilding of the nave of the parish church in 1515-30, to create the largest parish church in Gloucestershire, often referred to as the Cathedral of the Cotswolds. The profits from wool also provided the means for many legacies to the benefit of the community. A grammar school founded in 1458 and there were many charities founded by townsmen and women for the benefit of the poor and sick, many of which survive to this day. The Hospital of St John in Spitalgate was originally founded by Henry II, and the St Thomas’s Hospital in Thomas Street (the oldest surviving secular building) was founded by Sir William Nottingham, for four poor weavers, in 1483. This last building is still an Alms House today, but now as 2 dwellings.

At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, Henry VIII ordered the total demolition of the buildings so that today the Norman Arch, built in 1180, and parts of the precinct wall are all that remain above ground of the old abbey. (Many local buildings can be found with re-cycled stone from the Abbey from a few large stones in a cottage’s foundations to whole windows and doorways in larger houses.)

17th and 18th Centuries

Cirencester found itself involved in the Civil War like so many other towns in the area. The streets were the scene of several skirmishes as the Royalists and Parlimentarians fought for dominance. The townsfolk supported the Parliamentarians, but the gentry and clergy were for the old Royalist order. After an earlier unsuccessful attempt three weeks before Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles 1 and one of his most successful commanders, took the town on 2nd February 1643. There was fierce resistance at a major engagement by Barton Farm. Over 300 citizens were killed and 1200 were held captive in the church overnight without food or water. Many of the old stained glass windows were broken that night as the families tried to get supplies in to them. The next day they were marched to Oxford, the King’s headquarters. Most were persuaded to support the Royalists and allowed to return home. By April the Parliamentarians had returned, but only briefly. The civil war continued for a further 2½ years before the Royalists were finally defeated in 1645. Three years later the King was executed.

The return of the monarchy in 1660 was welcomed by many [the Parish Church bells are still sounded on 29 May ("oak apple day") to celebrate the Restoration].

Meanwhile, the 17th century saw the development of the two private estates which came to encircle the town. Following the dissolution of the monasteries the Abbey’s property had been redistributed amongst favoured courtiers. The Oakley Manor was given to Sir Thomas Parry, treasurer to Elizabeth 1, and in 1564 he sold the site of the abbey to the Queen’s personal physician, Dr Richard Master. Both began to build fine Elizabethan houses, set within landscaped grounds and parkland.

The Oakley estate was eventually sold to Sir Benjamin Bathurst in 1695. His son, who became the first Earl Bathurst in 1772, with the advice of his friend Alexander Pope the poet, was responsible for the extensive landscaping of Cirencester Park, with its broad avenues and follies dotted amongst an extensive wooded park. [It is still considered to be the very best of Forest Parks in the country.]

On the opposite side of town the Master family (Chester-Master from 1742) replaced the Elizabethan manor house in the old abbey grounds in 1776 with Abbey House, which was demolished in 1964 when the grounds were given to the town. The modern park – often called The Abbey Grounds – created now provides a pleasant parkland oasis behind the parish church.

In the town the religious diversity and eventual tolerance was illustrated by the early establishment of the Baptist Church some time before 1651– still on the same site in Coxwell Street – and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) built the Friends’ Meeting House in Thomas Street in 1673. The Weslyan Methodist building in Gloucester Street was added in 1808. Later the Salvation Army took over the Temperance Hall (built on the site of the Old Masters Brewery in 1846) in 1881 in Thomas Street and, after a move to Watermoor for about 80 years, returned to be there today. The Roman Catholic church in Ashcroft was built in 1896. The Kingdom Hall for Jehovah's Witnesses' moved from Coxwell Street up to Chesterton in the 1970s.

The 18th century saw the changes and eventual decline in the wool trade and growth of the corn trade together with the market and banking activities needed to support the trading. By the turn of the century the centre of local wool and cloth trade had gravitated to Stroud, where the demands of water for the new larger scale industries could be better met. However, the building of the Severn-Thames canal - through the famous Sapperton Tunnel - helped maintain some industry based on the coal that was made more readily available until the arrival of the railway.

19th Century to the Present Day

Various attempts to keep the textile trade going were attempted, such as the carpet factory in Gloucester Street (which closed by 1842), but change was inevitable as machinery was introduced to production elsewhere. Some textile manufacture did continue into the 1880s. The growth, in the first instant, of the edge-tool manufacture – making knives and agricultural implements – was very successful but gave way, by the 1880s, to the railway engineering works in Watermoor. Here running-gear – wheels and axles – and coaches were made for a while to support the two rail companies that set up services from 1841. The new faster form of transport caused the rundown of the canals. In 1882 the GWR (Great Western Railway company) bought the last of the canal companies.

In 1800 the population of about 4,000 was still quite modest with the town still confined to an area half the size of the Roman town. By 1837 it was expanding and had reached 6,000.

Business still maintained some wealth for the few but, as elsewhere, overcrowding and poor sanitation were rife. The next generation took the first big step towards serious change. The lord of the manor, the Earl of Bathurst, and Miss Jane Master, owner of the Abbey Estate, combined with others to improve the town by setting up a Commission.

From its beginnings in 1825 until its role was taken over by the Cirencester Local Board in 1876 (itself later replaced by the Urban District Council), the Commissioners worked to improve the living and working conditions of the town’s now rapidly expanding population created by the arrival of the railway.

Over the centuries temporary market stalls had gradually been replaced by more permanent structures and buildings until by the early 19th century the area in front of and adjacent to the church porch was tightly packed with groups of houses and shops in Shoe Lane, Butter Row, Butcher Row and The Shambles. These were removed from about 1830 and the area opened up to give the wide market place which exists today. Drains and sewers were dug, open watercourses were culverted, paving stones were laid, street cleaners were employed, and regular policemen were appointed to control law and order. The first gasometer was built in Watermoor in 1833 and gas lights replaced oil lights in the streets, with the lamplighter taking up his duties as dusk fell. Mains water was not installed until 1872 [in time to prevent the disastrous fire of April 1890 in Coxwell and Park Street which would have been much more damaging in the absence of mains water.].

In 1841 a branch railway line was opened to Kemble to provide a link to the Great Western Railway at Swindon. The station building, designed by Brunel, still stands, opposite the original Corinium Museum building in Tetbury Road. The Midland & South Western junction Railway also had a station and extensive locomotive works at Watermoor, opened in 1883. In this way, from then until 1963, Cirencester was served by two railway lines, providing passenger and freight links to all points of the compass. By 1847 the town centre improvements had removed the cattle market from the centre of the town to a purpose-built market a short distance west of the GWR station (on the present site of the Leisure Centre).

The cultural life of the town expanded and a number of clubs and institutions were started. A public subscription library was opened in 1835. The Wilts & Gloucestershire Standard newspaper, which had started life in Malmesbury in 1837, moved to Cirencester in 1840 and soon developed a wide circulation. The writer Richard Jefferies was once a local reporter here, and vigorous campaigns to extend the franchise and improve the town’s facilities were fully reported in its pages.

By the mid-19th century, cloth and edge tool manufacture in the town had almost ceased, but trade in corn and cheese continued and a new covered market hall, the Corn Hall, was built in the Market Place, opening in 1863 replacing the old Booth Hall, the site of the former wool trading.

The growing population of the town necessitated the building of a second church, and in 1850 Sir Gilbert Scott built Holy Trinity Church at Watermoor. A similar increase in people attending non-conformist chapels led to new places of worship for Baptists, Methodists and Congregationalists; the Roman Catholic Church was built on the former Ashcroft Estate in 1896.

Private benefactors included most notably Daniel George Bingham who funded the building of the Bingham Library, opened in 1905 and the Bingham Hall which was opened in 1908.

In 1894 the passing of the Local Government Act brought into existence Cirencester’s first independent elected body, the Urban District Council. For three years meetings were held in the former town hall above the church porch, but in 1897 the Council moved to premises in Castle Street before transferring to Gosditch Street in 1932. Local government reorganisation in 1974 led to the demise of the Urban District Council, replaced by the present two-tier system of Cotswold District Council and Cirencester Town Council. The District Council occupies the former Union Workhouse in Trinity Road, while the Town Council has its offices in Dyer House in Dyer Street.

During the 20th Century there were many changes and considerable town expansion. Housing development has extended the town’s boundaries, with residential areas on almost all approaches to the town. Only from the west does the extensive area of Cirencester Park (itself a grade one parkland) provide a buffer.

Early development of land at The Whiteway was followed by The Mead and Bowling Green areas in 1933, and the Chesterton estate in 1938. After the Second World War, building on the Beeches Estate began, and in the early 1970’s redevelopment of land at Watermoor, and the former Abbey Estate in the old Abbey grounds extended the housing provision within the town. More recently estates on the periphery have extended the town’s limits even further.

Commercial development is centred on designated land at Love Lane, which was an early example of a business park, while within the town a real attempt has been made to provide sympathetic office space within listed buildings. Most recently some accommodation has reverted to residential with the increasing demand for smaller and affordable units. 2009 has seen the start of new developments at Kingshill, the London Road and Watermoor.

Public services and facilities both within and around the town centre include a Police Station and Magistrate’s Court in South Way, a Leisure Centre off the Tetbury Road, a refurbished Museum in Park Street and a single-site Hospital at The Querns. Edge-of-town shopping, and college and school facilities also serve the needs of the community.

Transport links have changed dramatically in recent years. The loss of canal and rail links has led to a total dependence on road transport. An inner ring road system was completed in 1975 in an attempt to reduce town-centre congestion, and has now been augmented by an outer bypass with the dualing of the A417. Within the town centre car parks have been developed.

But it is not all tarmac and concrete. Cirencester residents and visitors can enjoy the green lungs provided by the open spaces and parks which survive within the town in the Abbey Grounds, St Michael's Park and Cirencester Park; further plans to open access to areas of woodland following the original path of the Whiteway are in process. These are reminders not only of the town's interesting history but also of individuals and benefactors who over the years have added to its public amenities.

A last word on street names, which are as fascinating in Cirencester as in many historic towns. Shoe Lane may have gone, but there is still Dollar Street (Dole Hall Street after the almshouse gate of the medieval abbey) and Coxwell Street, named after the Coxwell family, 17th-century clothiers who lived there (and formerly Abbot Street). Round the corner is Black Jack Street, the origins of which are still in dispute. A favourite explanation is the alignment of the street with the former statue of St John which, soot-blackened (hence Black Jack), was removed from its niche high up in the church tower in 1963 for safety reasons. Another origin for the name is from the nickname for recycled leather tankards used to dispense beers which were often discarded on the street. There are plenty more such stories to be unearthed in a wander around the town.