Jewry Wall Museum, Leicester

The Jewry Wall is believed to be the remaining wall of the public baths of Roman Leicester along with foundations of the baths, which are laid out in front of the wall. The wall is nearly 2,000 years old and is a rare example of Roman walling. It is the second largest piece of surviving civil Roman building in Britain. The Jewry Wall would have been the wall separating the gymnasium from the cold room.

The remains of the baths were excavated in the 1930s by Dame Kathleen Kenyon and date from approximately 160 A.D. The wall and baths are adjoined by the Jewry Wall Museum, which contains excellent local examples of Roman mosaics and wall plaster. The name of the wall is unlikely to relate to Leicester's Jewish community, which was never large, and which was expelled from the town by Simon de Montfort in 1231.

The Jewry Wall Museum was built in the 1960s, facing the Jewry Wall ruins in a building shared with Vaughan College. It housed artefacts from Iron Age, Roman, and medieval Leicester. With the ending of Vaughan College's use of the building in 2013, the whole site was acquired by the city council, and expansion and improvement plans were put in place.

The building, completed in 1962, is Grade II listed and until 2013 the museum was located below Vaughan College, part of Leicester University's Institute for Lifelong-Learning. Construction began in 1960 and finished two years later; the building was designed by Trevor Dannatt. The museum is run by Leicester City Council and is free to enter.