Cirencester a History and Guide

Today, Cirencester is a small market town. Once it was the second largest city in Roman Britain. At other periods it was the site of a great Abbey and the centre of the Cotswold wool trade. Men fought and died in its streets during the Civil War. This is the illustrated story of Cirencester and its inhabitants from Roman times to the present day. The living conditions of the ordinary people and the local organisations which controlled their daily lives are set in the context of national events which governed their hopes and fears, and there are many references to colourful and infl uential personalities. A guide to the surviving objects, monuments and buildings from each period is given at the end of the book.

Jean Welsford was a highly respected local historian and was once a warden of Cirencester's Teachers Centre. When Daniel George Bingham opened The Bingham Library in 1905 he intended it to be used by everyone in Cirencester and he welcomed donations of material relating to the local area. During the 1980s Jean organised and catalogued the collection and it is now housed in the Gloucestershire Archives. Before her untimely death, Jean was also Local Studies consultant, a project funded by the Trustees of the Library.