Plans unveiled for new-look city museum

PLANS have been lodged for the £7 million transformation of Leicester’s Jewry Wall museum into a major attraction based on the city’s Roman heritage.

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby announced the proposals to overhaul the 1960s-built museum, which stands next to the eponymous ancient Roman remains of St Nicholas Circle.

Completed designs have been submitted to planners at Leicester City Council for approval.

The museum will be merged with the space left vacant when the University of Leicester quit the old Vaughan College and which was subsequently chased by the city council.

The current, free-to-enter museum is visited by about 27,000 people annually, but the mayor hopes the new visitor centre will bring in 80,000 to 100,000 paying visitors.

The museum’s focus would be the Jewry Wall itself, one of the UK’s biggest remaining civilian Roman structures, along with the remains of a Roman bathhouse.

The latest designs, revealed yesterday, show how the visitor centre could look and how it could tell the story of life in Ratae, the Roman name for Leicester. pur-

There are proposals for outdoor projections on to the Jewry Wall, showing moving images of Roman Leicester, and a new entrance foyer.

Once inside, visitors will also be able to wander through a recreation of Leicester’s Vine Street Villas, which occupied part of the Roman city near the site of the Highcross car park.

There will also be interactive displays on the Roman invasion and occupation of Leicester, which saw traders from across the Mediterranean and North Africa settle in the city.

Sir Peter hopes the attraction will be open within “a couple of years”.

However, the progress of the development will be subject to the funding being put in place.

The proposals also include continuing to use the grounds for free Friends of Jewry Wall special events and are set to improve pedestrian access to the ruins with a new staircase and lift.

No visitor parking is proposed and drivers will be directed to the nearby NCP car park.

Planning documents show there are presently four staff at the museum but that will more than double to 10, when the new attraction opens.