A fragment of a 2nd-century Roman mosaic depicting marine creatures has returned to the Corinium Museum, providing new material evidence for a long-lost floor discovered in Cirencester, UK, in 1783.
A 2nd-Century Mosaic Depicting Marine Life
The mosaic was originally uncovered on Dyer Street and recorded in detailed drawings by antiquarians Samuel Lysons and Richard Smirke. The decoration depicted a procession of real and mythical sea creatures, including fish, an eel, bivalves, a crab and a shrimp, together with swimming cupids, a sea-horse and a sea-leopard. The central composition may have shown Neptune in his chariot accompanied by a Nereid riding a sea creature.
The mosaic was reburied during the 19th century and was partly exposed again in the 1980s beneath the foundations of Gloucester House. Construction activity had damaged the pavement, but one corner fragment was recovered and preserved by Stephen Clews, then Assistant Curator of the Corinium Museum, and conservator Marilee Parrott. It was subsequently conserved by Nerina de Silva as part of her BSc thesis before entering the private care of the Lamplough family, owners of Gloucester House.
From Private Collection Back to the Museum
In 2026, Piers Lamplough contacted the museum to ask whether its staff would like to see the fragment. After 45 years, it returned to the museum and has now been offered on a five-year loan, with plans for public display by the end of the year.
The fragment is particularly significant because the museum already displays the Seasons and Hunting Dogs mosaics, believed to have come from the same Roman town house that commissioned the sea-life pavement. Dr Pat Witts of the Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics described the lost pavement as one of the best documented and most classical in style among Romano-British mosaics.
The surviving section offers an opportunity to examine at close range the colours and materials used in the original Roman pavement and strengthens the archaeological record for the wealthy domestic architecture of Roman Corinium, one of the most important Roman towns in Britain.
Source: Cotswold District Council Press Release
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