Leicester's Neglected Roman Ruins

[@AquarianStarr]

Leicester Jewry Wall museum is now going through a full restoration that started late 2020 and the work has continued on and off during the pandemic. New archeological finds in 2019-20 of Roman origin in Leicester, are now going to be part of the museum’s artefacts. This includes new mosaics. Leicester has gone through a lot of ‘new development’ in the west of the city centre that has opened up the ground for more archeological digs. There is a lot more investigating to do to answer many questions.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Great to hear!

[@DaveMottram-pj7iy]

@@WorldofAntiquity PIty you didn't ask anyone before dissing the place!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@DaveMottram-pj7iy I visited 4 years ago, when nothing was being done.

[@DaveMottram-pj7iy]

@@WorldofAntiquity The museum closed for refurbishment in 2017 so 6 years ago. You were probably there when the refurbishment project was delayed due to a contractor going bust and not because the city does not care about its heritage,

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@DaveMottram-pj7iy I am happy that is the case.

[@AncientArchitects]

My wonderful home town of Leicester! Good video, David.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Thanks, Matt!

[@neilfarrow1535]

Ha, I never knew that. I work there, live close by (when I am in the country).

[@AncientArchitects]

@@neilfarrow1535 Leicester is the greatest city in the world. I'm not biased in any way.

[@samaelcole7825]

I'm from leicester, born & raised. some of my fondest memories as a child were on school trips to that ancent roman bathhouse. I remember exploring the ruins with my friends as a small boy, it led to a life long fascination with history & ancent civilizations.....we'd also use the ancent bathhouse ruins as a convenient pit stop to take a discreet piss or throw up after a day of heavy drinking 🤔

[@scoon2117]

Don't pee on ancient ruins, it can ruin them.

[@markfortnam1980]

I remember Jewry Wall. One of my first school trips was there in the late 80's. I've still got the replica Roman coins I bought from the gift shop.

[@admiralsquatbar127]

Thank you for a great video, and thank you for not misspronuncing the town and city names.

[@orianegenol7907]

I worked as a museum assistant at Jewry wall for 10 years. Happy memories.

[@dentonstales2778]

Your videos are amazing, so well presented and full of interesting, and correct, information. Love them.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Thank you very much!

[@Acts--wn9zq]

Nice video. You have a good voice for narration. It may be only my preference, but could you consider having music down a lower volume. It is difficult for the hearing challenged to listen and think about what you are speaking of. Thank you for sharing this. Fascinating indeed!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

I will take that into consideration in future edits!

[@scottsound4711]

Music is fine 😉

[@SaszaDerRoyt]

Fun to watch the bit in York as an archaeology student here. I shall have to pay a visit to the Perky Peacock tomorrow, after my field trip discussing the various churches dotted around the city

[@SaszaDerRoyt]

Can't believe you talked about old Durham having a "Diagon Alley feel" but didn't visit the Shambles in York lol

[@johnrichmond.4783]

I happen to be typing this ten minutes walk from the ruins. It's a shame the museum was closed as there is an interesting error in the mural. Mr. Hardy, a teacher who took us to see the ruins circa 1978, pointed out the error to us. Great fun.

[@neilfarrow1535]

Great video. Clearly the moment has passed for you to visit it, but there is a church nearby built late 8th C., (archaeological dating) or late 7th C., (documentary dating): Brixworth Church. It has been found by Leicester University that Brixworth Church was built with Roman materials salvaged from Leicester, perhaps even from the Jewry Wall / Bath house itself. That's not merely guesswork, either, because some of the arches in the church look very similar to the arches in the Jewry Wall. Also, the Church of St Nicholas you mentioned used to have an old organist who had been at the church for over 50 years. He was in his late eighties when I last saw him - each time we had exactly the same but thoroughly interesting conversation. What a local legend :)

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Ah, it would have been nice to see! Thank you for sharing.

[@johnstead6315]

I liked this. I’m a stone mason and did find this interesting.

[@immature4hisage]

Dear Mr Histravel:As a songwriter, I have a couple of tunes that I think would work well on your Travel Guide program. How can I get them to you?

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Um...I suppose you could bring them over, Dad.

[@siddharthabanerjee6155]

12:59 literally nothing there, I'm dead 💀

[@stephenchappell7512]

Should have trekked a little further to Lincoln as I'm sure you would have appreciated the Newport Arch. Its preservation is without equal on these shores.

[@thisisbob1001]

Thanks. I live in Leicester. Whennthe museum was open some nice mosaics inside. Unfortunately the UK conservative government cut council's help so they had to just close it.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

That's too bad!

[@m1pete]

Leicester City Council just wastes money on crap stuff.

[@theshedtramways]

The museum is now open, also please see "hidden history of Leicester" for more information on Leicesters roman past.

[@ratheonhudson3311]

13:00 "Here is the site where Ceasar's imaginary friend stands to this day!"

[@andrewcrossley1939]

Great video. Just a comment - no granite in these walls.

[@TWOCOWS1]

very nice. really. i just scribed to your channel since this one--my first, was done so nicely and informatively. btw/ ur a yank, right?

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Ha yes

[@TWOCOWS1]

@@WorldofAntiquity Ab fab; ditto

[@tree_relics]

Where my family name originated! Cool!

[@samaccardi]

It's wild that Leicester doesn't care about archaeological tourism considering they also found the body of Richard III under a parking lot in their city about a decade ago.

[@paulrichardspencer]

Sooooo, the reason you only find the odd place that has proper display of roman ruins here in the uk is because we have so many of them that it would cost millions of pounds to do so for often small not very good examples of roman architecture, so only the really good examples are placed inside buildings and displayed. For instance, the roman baths in bath are of national importance, are preserved extremely well and on display to this day. It's a matter of scale and value to archeology really.

[@surters]

You got to make translations of those weird Roman city names :)

[@benr7475]

My home city is actually interesting

[@TheGeekyHippie]

Is there any relation between the word brigand and the name of the tribe Brigantes? I did some Googling and it *appears* no, but the top search result is an archived Reddit post stating: "The Old Italian word *brigante* , whence English and French brigand and brigade, occurs in medieval Latin in the 14th century in the forms brigancii, brigantii, brigantini, *brigantes* (OED). Although an ultimate Celtic origin for the word is possible, any connection of the Italian term to the Celtic ethnonym seems unlikely since the Brigantes had not played any significant role in Italy and had disappeared as a people for some thousand years by the time the word is attested." (emphasis mine) What makes me wonder is the fact that the Italians are obviously the descendants of the Romans (unless somehow I am seriously misunderstanding something), and even if they didn't retain current knowledge of all of Rome's exploits in Britain, surely the name Brigantes would have stuck somehow within the culture in some way over the centuries until Old Italian developed. The Church at the least would probably have recalled such "heathen barbarians" right? I would think it almost irrelevant that the Brigantes played no role in the Italian peninsula itself, and that they had "disappeared" (probably more like intermarried into other tribes to the point of no longer being their own tribe) 1000 years before Old Italian came about. Am I just over thinking this? Is my thinking on this fundamentally flawed, and if so, how? It seems like too much of a coincidence that the descendents of Rome, speaking a language derived from Latin, would have a word "brigantes" spelled the same way as the name of the tribe, and the attitude the Roman soldiers had towards the "Brigantes" probably wouldn't have been too far off from that of the typical Italians attitude toward a "brigante" at the time Old Italian was spoken. Always looking to learn, and just putting forth ideas that came to my mind watching your video and doing some Googling and not quite being happy with the results I found (Google results not always being entirely accurate, of course; I figure I would ask someone who probably/hopefully knows a lot more, even if Romance languages aren't necessarily your field of study). Loving the videos on your channel so far! Keep up the great work, and I hope Mariza continues with you on these Travel Guide videos.

[@TheGeekyHippie]

I've also found that the various dictionary sites often leave stuff out as well. Off hand I don't recall what it was, but a year or so ago a mate and I were looking something up and found something wrong on several of them, that we verified was wrong with an old printed dictionary of his.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@TheGeekyHippie It appears the words are unrelated, though I would have guessed they were. www.etymonline.com/word/brigand

[@WorldofAntiquity]

It would seem, however, that both could have come from Celtic or Germanic, so you never know.

[@truthseeker7433]

Good you saw Roman Britain before the continent Italy, France Spain turkey etc else you would have been totally underwhelmed by our few crumbs.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Haha well, what it lacks in spectacle, it makes up for in charm!

[@3006rdo]

I have relatives from there. Francis Benjamin levy 1712 1782 Anna Robertson 1752 catthorpe Leicestershire England.

[@ratheonhudson3311]

They didn't have Spellchecker back in those times so the Jewry-wall is what you get when you haven't invented autocorrect. Hah. "Be harmonious" sounds like "Be Excellent to one another"

[@chrisball3778]

Leicester did have a Jewish population in medieval times, so its understandable that there's some confusion about the origin of the 'Jewry Wall' name. Leicester's Jews were unfortunately expelled from the city by Simon de Montfort in 1231. De Montfort is largely remembered as a proto-democratic figure who led a rebellion against King Henry III to reassert Magna Carta, but he was also a viciously anti-Semitic religious bigot.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Interesting!

[@ianhutchinson2734]

I had to laugh. You have gone to England, to see Roman Ruins, and ate at a Japanese Restaurant.LOL.

[@marcusisgod2592]

Not granite tiles their roman brick

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Yeah, you're right. I misspoke.

[@clivebaxter6354]

AD not CE

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Both are commonly used.

[@clivebaxter6354]

@@WorldofAntiquity One by the woke brigade

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@clivebaxter6354 Scholars are now the "woke brigade"? Weird idea.

[@clivebaxter6354]

@@WorldofAntiquity You have not seen the state of teaching and University decisions recently then, nothing but woke.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@clivebaxter6354 I teach at a university.