Chesters Museum

The Chesters Museum houses Clayton’s collection of Roman artefacts. The museum was completed 1895 by his nephew following his death in 1890 and it has recently been restored to a new condition and it is owned by the Clayton family trust but curated by English Heritage.

John Clayton was born in 1792; his father bought the Chesters Estate in 1796, including Hadrian’s Wall ruins and the Chesters Fort. Clayton followed his father into the law and eventually followed him as Town Clerk of Newcastle. He was passionate about the Roman ruins. In 1834 he started purchasing the land on which the ruins were situated. This included Housesteads, Vindolanda and Carvoran forts, and in addition 20 miles of the Wall between the forts. It is fair to say that he saved the central section of the Wall, which would have become a quarry for building materials in the middle of the nineteenth century.

He undertook a significant amount of archaeology and rebuilt large sections of the Wall from the stone available close by. On the other hand, he removed 2 Roman granaries at Chesters as they were an addition to the original fort. What artefacts he found are mainly in this museum.

Following John Clayton’s death in 1890, his nephew Nathaniel George Clayton completed the construction of the Museum to house the collection. The museum, which is owned by the trustees, was opened in 1896. It is now in the care of English Heritage.

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Here is a list of the stone artefacts

Coventina’s Well

Coventina was a local water goddess, Celtic in origin. The Well is located in a valley just west of the western wall of Carrawburgh Roman Fort.

It consisted of a well 2.45 m (8 ft) square and at least 2.13 m (7 ft deep) surrounded by an enclosure approximately 12.20 m(40 ft) square. Investigation at the time by John Clayton revealed that the structure contained altars, many coins (13,487 were recorded, but more were found), incense burners and some very peculiar pieces, including part of a human skull and a Neolithic axe, made several thousand years before the Romans arrived in Britain. The range of material and the place where it was found suggests that most, perhaps all, of these objects were ritual offerings deposited during the Roman period and can be seen here.

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The site was discovered by mining engineers in 1876, and excavated by Clayton and Collingwood Bruce ( Handbook author).

It is thought that the alters were in the well enclosure originally, but were put into the well as a result of an edict from Rome against Pagan worship.

The Carvoran Mobius

Cast in bronze in two pieces, the inscription on the outside records that it was commissioned in the reign of the emperor Domitian in AD 90-91 and reads:

“In the fifteenth consulship of the Emperor Domitian Caesar; tested to the capacity of 171/2 sextarii: weight 38 pounds”

It is thought that the measure represented a week’s grain rations for the legionary. Bronze from the Roman Era is quite rare. There are two other examples is the museum worthy of note.