Jewry Wall

The Jewry Wall with St Nicholas' Church behind

The foundations of the Roman baths, with the Jewry Wall extreme right

The Jewry Wall in Leicester, is the substantial ruined wall of a public building of Ratae Corieltauvorum (Roman Leicester).

Description of the wall

The wall, an impressive example of standing Roman masonry, is dated to approximately AD 125–30, and so is nearly 2,000 years old. It measures 75 feet long, 26 feet high and 8 feet thick. It is among the largest pieces of surviving civil Roman architecture in Britain, and is comparable to the "Old Work" at Wroxeter. The structure comprises alternate bands of Roman brick and coursed masonry, of local granite, limestone and sandstone. In the centre of the wall are two large arched openings about 10 ft wide and 13 ft high; and there are further arched alcoves on the eastern side.

The wall lies immediately to the west of St Nicholas' Church, which includes in its late Anglo-Saxon and early mediæval fabric much re-used Roman brick and masonry.

The remains of the Roman town's public baths, lying immediately west of the wall, were excavated in four seasons from 1936 to 1939 by Kathleen Kenyon. The wall and some of the foundations of the baths are now laid out to public view. They are adjoined by a building housing the Jewry Wall Museum and Vaughan College, which stands on the remainder of the baths site (including the site of the three furnaces). The museum contains excellent examples of Roman mosaics and frescoes from sites elsewhere in Leicester.

The wall was taken into state care in 1920, and is now the responsibility of English Heritage. The wall itself is a Grade I listed building; while its wider site, including the adjacent remains of the baths and of St Nicholas' Church, forms a scheduled monument.

The identity of the building

The wall appears to have formed the western (long) side of a large rectangular basilica-like structure. However, the precise character and function of this building has been a matter of much debate. 18th- and early 19th-century antiquaries tended to identify it as a Roman (or British) temple, sometimes said to have been dedicated to the god Janus. The ruin was also occasionally identified as "part of a bath". For much of the 19th century it was widely believed to have been a town gate, despite the fact that this was suggested by neither its structure nor its location: nevertheless, this interpretation still appeared as a statement of fact in the generally authoritative Victoria County History as late as 1907. The prevailing view in the early 20th century was that the ruin was part of the town basilica.

When she began her excavations in the late 1930s, Kathleen Kenyon initially thought that the overall site was that of the town forum (of which the basilica would have formed a part). Although she modified her views when she uncovered the remains of the baths, she continued to believe that the area had originally been laid out as the forum, with the Jewry Wall the west wall of the basilica; but argued that in a second phase of building, only about 20 years later, the site had been converted to become the public baths. This interpretation later had to be abandoned when, in a series of excavations undertaken between 1961 and 1972, the true remains of the forum were firmly identified a block further east (Insula XXII). The Jewry Wall was then identified as the wall of the palaestra (gymnasium) of the baths complex, and this continues to be the explanation which is most commonly accepted, which is given in the official scheduled monument descriptions, and which appears in the interpretive material on site.

There are still a number of unanswered questions, however, and the issue remains open.

The name of the wall

The name of the wall (first recorded in c.1665) is unlikely to relate to Leicester's mediæval Jewish community, which was never large and which was expelled from the town by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester in 1231. One theory, which has achieved widespread currency, is that the name bears some relation to the 24 jurats of early mediæval Leicester, the senior members of the Corporation of Leicester, who were said to have met in the town churchyard – possibly that of St. Nicholas. However, it seems more likely that the name in fact derives from a broader folk-belief attributing mysterious ruins of unknown origin to Jews. Such attributions are found at a number of other sites elsewhere in England and in other parts of Europe.

Jewry Wall Museum

The Jewry Wall Museum faces the Jewry Wall ruins, and houses artefacts from iron age, Roman, and mediæval Leicester. The building is Grade II listed and located below Vaughan College, home to Leicester University's Institute for Lifelong-Learning. The museum is run by Leicester City Council and is free to enter.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Jewry Wall)

• Location map: 52°38’6"N, 1°8’29"W
• Streetmap: SK58100451
• Jewry Wall – English Heritage
• National Heritage List 1074773: List Entry Summary: Jewry Wall
• National Heritage List 1013312: Jewry Wall: remains of a Roman bath house, palaestra and Anglo-Saxon church

References

• Anon. (n.d.), The Jewry Wall and Bath Complex, Leicester City Council : pdf available at "Jewry Wall: Description of the Monuments". Leicester City Council. http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/ep/planning/conservation/scheduledmonuments/scheduledmonumentslist/jewrywall/. Retrieved 18 May 2013. 
• Harris, Oliver (2008). "Jews, jurats and the Jewry Wall: a name in context". Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 82: 113–33. 
• Hebditch, Max; Mellor, Jean (1972). "The Forum and Basilica of Roman Leicester". Britannia 4: 1–83. doi:10.2307/525857. 
• Kenyon, Kathleen M. (1948). Excavations at the Jewry Wall Site, Leicester. Society of Antiquaries of London Research Report. 15. Oxford. 
• Mitchell, Steve (2009). "Correspondence". Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 83: 335.