St Albans Museums is a collection of museums and historic buildings in the city of

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

that is run by

St Albans City and District The City and District of St Albans () is a local authority district in Hertfordshire in the East of England region. The main urban settlements are St Albans and Harpenden. The council offices are in St Albans. History St Albans City and Dist ...

Council. It oversees St Albans Museum + Gallery and the Verulamium Museum, and also the

Hypocaust A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm th ...

Verulamium Verulamium was a town in Roman Britain. It was sited southwest of the modern city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, England. A large portion of the Roman city remains unexcavated, being now park and agricultural land, though much has been built upon ...

, St Albans' medieval Clock Tower, and the ruins of

Sopwell Priory Sopwell Priory (also known as Sopwell Nunnery) was a Benedictine nunnery founded around 1140 on the site of an ancient hermitage in Sopwell, Hertfordshire, England. After the Dissolution, the priory was torn down and a Tudor manor house construct ...

St Albans Museum + Gallery

St Albans Museum + Gallery presents the history and art of St Albans. There are various galleries to explore and the exhibitions change often. It has hosted national touring exhibitions as well as locally curated exhibitions. The museum sometimes includes art exhibitions that are curated by the

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...

with which the museums have a partnership. The museum was founded as the Hertfordshire County Museum in 1898. Its Hatfield Road venue was closed to the public in September 2015 as part of project to regenerate the Old Town Hall as a Museum and Gallery hosting changing exhibits and exhibitions. The museums exhibits were only a fraction of the total museums collections in storage. New and never seen before exhibits are making an appearance. The new award-winning Museum+ Gallery opened in 2018 in the

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

old

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

in the city centre. =Verulamium Museum= Verulamium Museum is situated in what was once the

forum Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to: Common uses * Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States *Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city **Roman Forum, most famous example *Internet ...

of the walled city of

,Verulamium: Boundary of settlement walls
''Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places''. Retrieved 26 November 2020. next to

Verulamium Park Verulamium Park is a park in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Set in over of parkland, Verulamium Park was purchased from the Earl of Verulam in 1929 by the then City Corporation. Today the park is owned and operated by St Albans City and District C ...

. The museum contains information about the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

and

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

periods of St Albans' history. The later history of the settlement is presented at the St Albans Museum + Gallery. The Verulamium Museum was established following the excavations carried out by

Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...

and his wife,

Tessa Wheeler Tessa Wheeler ( Verney; 27 March 1893 – 15 April 1936) was an archaeologist who made a significant contribution to excavation techniques and contributed to the setting up of major British archaeological institutions after the Second World War ...

, both of them renowned archaeologists, during the 1930s. It was extended in 1996–97. During the building work, an excavation of the site took place.

Gallery

File:Verulamium Museum, St Albans (16194959107).jpg, Verulamium Museum File:The_Museum_of_St_Albans_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1260551.jpg, The old Hatfield Road building, which previously housed the St Albans Museum's main collection. It has now been turned into housing. File:The reconstructed Basilica inscription, dated to 79 or 81 AD, Verulamium Museum, St Albans (16192740628).jpg, The reconstructed Verulamium Forum inscription is preserved in Verulamium Museum.

References

External links

Official website
1898 establishments in England Archaeological museums in England Art museums and galleries in Hertfordshire City museums in the United Kingdom History museums in Hertfordshire History of St Albans Local museums in Hertfordshire Museums established in 1898 Museums in St Albans Museums of ancient Rome in the United Kingdom Roman St Albans University of Hertfordshire {{UK-museum-stub

St Albans Museum + Gallery

Gallery

See also

References

External links