£130,000 refurbishment at Hadrian's Wall museum

Frances McIntosh, Curator of Roman Collections and Andrew Roberts, Properties Historian at English Heritage prepare some of the objects Credit: North News

The Clayton Museum at the site of Chesters Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall, has reopened following a £130k refurbishment.

The refreshed museum, displaying hundreds of antiquities from Roman times, will bring to life the story of John Clayton, the man largely responsible for saving significant portions of Hadrian’s Wall in the 19th century.

Inside the museum, which was built in his honour by his nephew, hundreds of objects personally collected by teams working under Clayton, are exhibited.

Now after the refurbishment, they’re ordered in serried rows to better tell the story of how the collection was formed.

Other improvements include:

  • The stonework finds from the Wall have had some much needed TLC

  • This involved repairing the mortar and securing some of the stones to their bases

  • Historic cases have been altered to better protect the finds displayed in them with display conditions being just right for objects of such significance

  • New interpretation within the grounds of Chesters Roman Fort takes visitors to the locations where Clayton uncovered the Roman remains, including the best preserved military bath-house in Britain

  • Digital reconstructions of the site allow visitors to understand how the Roman cavalry soldiers and their horses lived together in this seven-acre fort

Who is John Clayton?

  • Clayton had a huge impact on the city of Newcastle with Clayton Street being named after him.

  • As well as being an influential lawyer, he was a large landowner.

  • The sections of wall that he purchased came under his protection and he saved them from stone robbing and quarrying and then excavated at many of them.

  • It is largely down to his pioneering conservation work that Hadrian’s Wall, which is 73 miles long, is now the stunning World Heritage Site that it is today.

  • Over the past 6 months English Heritage, together with the Trustees of the Clayton Collection have worked closely to better tell the story of John Clayton which is now presented in this newly interpreted Northumberland museum.

Leesa Vere-Stevens, Collections Conservator and Frances McIntosh, Curator of Roman Collections at English Heritage prepare for the opening of the Clayton Museum Credit: North News