Underground guided tour of the Eastgate Viewing Chamber led by the museum's Medieval Mercenary, Sir Miles.
The Museum of Gloucester is taking people underground on Saturday 28 November for a tour of the Eastgate Viewing Chamber, led by the museum's medieval mercenary, Sir Miles. It's one of those bits of the city that usually stays out of sight, and this is a chance to actually get down there and see it.
The chamber is an underground exhibition room where parts of the city's old defences are still standing: Roman and medieval gate-towers and a moat, all preserved in situ. Sir Miles leads the way, unpicking the history, the myths and the superstitions that have built up around the place over the centuries. It's a guided walk, so you're not just left to wander through on your own; you've got someone to point out what you're actually looking at.
If you've spent any time in the museum, you'll know the Eastgate chamber is just one part of what's on site. The museum itself is in a fine Victorian building on Brunswick Road, and it tells the story of Gloucester's origins as a Roman settlement and its development through the Dark Ages and the medieval period. There's a collection of over 750,000 objects, with art by Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, John Atkinson Grimshaw and Thomas Dibdin. On the ground floor, you'll find a Roman kitchen playhouse, a medieval street and part of the original Roman wall. The archaeology collection holds the Birdlip Mirror, Roman tombstones and the Gloucester Tables Set, the oldest complete backgammon set in the world. The tour takes you below that, into the chamber where the gate-towers and moat are kept.
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Tickets are £7.50 for adults, and the tour runs on Saturday 28 November at the Museum of Gloucester, Brunswick Road, GL1 1HP.
