Roman Stones

The Webster Roman Stones Gallery was opened by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales in June 1992. The gallery is named after Graham Webster, curator of the Museum from 1948 to 1957. The tombstones on display tell you something about the lives of the soldiers, slaves, women and children who lived in Chester during the Roman Empire.

The gallery takes you on a walk through a Roman cemetery. Four altars to Roman gods include one to Nemesis, the goddess of fate or destiny. Thirty five tombstones are on display. One of the finest pieces of Roman sculpture in the Museum shows a fragment of a scene with a wounded barbarian lying defiantly under the legs of his opponent's horse. His spear is broken but he still clings onto his shield. The complete stone commemorated a Roman cavalryman whose name and likeness are now lost.

A feature of the gallery is the reconstruction of an optio's quarters complete with the figure of an optio. He was second in command to the centurion and was responsible for book keeping and listing the pay, sickness and personal details of each soldier.

The Grosvenor Museum houses the largest collection of Roman tombstones from a single site in Britain. With a few exceptions, all the stones in the gallery had been reused at some time to repair the City Walls.

The first few were found in 1883. More were found in 1887 buried inside the lower part of the City Walls near the King Charles Tower. Between 1883 and 1892 over 150 tombstones were found in the north wall. This is still the most spectacular archaeological find made in Chester.

The walls were probably repaired later in the Roman period between AD 300 and 400. Why the tombstones were used is a mystery. However, they were well preserved inside the wall and survived unharmed for 1500 years.

Minerva Shrine

The Grosvenor Museum has a cast of the Minerva shrine on display,  taken from the Roman shrine in Edgar's Field park in Handbridge, Chester. This is the only in-situ Roman shrine in this country.

The quantity of stones required for building the Roman fortress of Deva was enormous, with most of the stone being taken from outcrops of Cheshire sandstone on the south side of the River Dee. This includes the Edgar's Field area where you can still see vertical rock faces where the quarrying stopped. It seems that the legionaries who were working in the quarries carved a shrine into one of these rock faces as Minerva, their protector both as soldiers and craftsmen.

Although the carving has weathered badly you can, with imagination, make out that the figure appears to be carrying a spear in her right hand and that an owl looks over her left shoulder. These objects are symbols of the goddess Minerva, hence the attribution of the shrine. To gain Minerva's help an offering would be made. At this shrine these offering may have been placed on the top of the carved altar that was carved at the base of the left pillar.

In medieval times the figure was thought to represent the Virgin Mary and this may have saved it from destruction by vandals or quarrying. The stone surround was added relatively recently to protect the carving.

Take a look at our gallery worksheets for children, designed for KS: 1 - 2 pupils studying the Romans.  These support visits to the Grosvenor Museum, classroom work, and provide an introduction to Chester's foundation almost two-thousand years ago.  The Education Service based in the Museum offers a variety of services supporting the National Curriculum in Primary and Secondary Schools, as well as out of school activities: telephone 01244 402017. Also visit  Chester for Teachers

Worksheets to download

• Children's Webster Gallery Worksheet PDF 1.32Mb   
• Children's Webster Gallery French Worksheet PDF 510Kb
• Children's Webster Gallery Italian Worksheet PDF 492Kb
• Children's Webster Gallery German Worksheet PDF  1.3MB
• Children's Exploring Roman Chester - The Amphitheatre Worksheet PDF 234Kb