Things To See and Do

There’s so much to see and do on a day out at Wroxeter Roman City. Below, you’ll find our recommended highlights, including the bath house, the reconstructed Roman villa, the museum and tips for families visiting Wroxeter.

A woman, man and boy walk through the remains of Wroxeter's roman bath house. They are walking through piles of rectangular stones and in the background there is a ruined brick wall and a modern building.

Explore the public bath-house

Take the excellent Audio Tour of Wroxeter and immerse yourself in the site. Explore the bath house where Wroxeter’s townsfolk met to wash, exercise and socialise. Built to inspire awe, Wroxeter's bath house was enormous, and hugely impressive in its design.

The basilica was a vast open hall, providing space to exercise and relax before going into the baths. Today, you can see the footprint of the basilica with disks marking where its columns once stood.

The Old Works at Wroxeter. Grass and spring flowers in the foreground with a large brick roman wall, a rectangular opening in the middle.

Admire the Old Work

Standing proud over Wroxeter's ruins is the iconic Old Work.

This surviving 7m-high basilica wall is the largest piece of free-standing Roman wall in the country. Can you see the double bands of orange-red tiles separated by neatly laid bands of stonework on one side? On the other, notice that the stonework is plainer. And look out for the regular rows of holes which would have housed scaffold during the wall’s construction.

Can you spot some of the original mosaic floor to the left of the doorway?

The Reconstructed Roman Townhouse at Wroxeter. A large yellow building with a porch held up with pillars.

Visit The Roman Town House

Built using only the tools and materials available to the Romans, the reconstructed town house was created in 2010 as part of a project with Channel 4.

It is based on the design of a town house which once stood on the site at Wroxeter, and comprises a dining room, bath-suite and replica Roman furniture. The building process helped shed new light on how incredible feats of ancient engineering were achieved. This remarkable replica stands as testament to the energy and ingenuity that defined the Roman era.

Walking through the house, you can get a sense of domestic Roman life. The walls of one room have been left in a variety of stages of completion, so you can see what lies beneath the rendering and fresco finishes.

Tour the market hall and forum

The Market Hall was an important part of the baths complex where bathers would get food for their evening meal and the shop rents would have paid for the running of the baths.

You can see the remains of forum’s colonnade, across the road from the Market Hall and close to the Roman Town House. The forum functioned as a combined market, town and county hall and magistrate's court. While little of the original building survives, you can imagine the imposing facade of this once-great structure.

A man, woman and boy look into a display case filled with roman artefacts

Enjoy the museum

Visit the refurbished museum to discover many personal items that shine a light on the lives of people who lived at Wroxeter. There’s Roman jewellery, amulets, specialist tools and religious artefacts.

Many trades flourished here at Wroxeter, including tanneries, leather works and bone workers. You can see the sophisticated craftwork taking place at the site: beautiful hair pins and the remarkable remains of pottery and glassware.

Discover a new handling collection featuring objects that would have been used for writing, and a reconstructed strigil, used in bath houses at the time to cleanse the body.

A boy rolls a giant dice towards the camera. A man and woman clap in the background. A giant snakes and ladders board is on the ground and the reconstructed roman townhouse is in the background.

Giant Roman themed games

During your visit try out our giant Roman themed games. Play snakes and ladders and a hoopla style game; fun for all the family! Explore the site and then make some memories as a family with our unique games.