The Roman wall
Eight metres of second-century brick with two great arches, among the largest civil Roman remains left standing in Britain.
Eight metres of Roman brick and local stone have stood in the middle of Leicester for roughly nineteen centuries, and they survived largely because they doubled as a wall of the neighbouring St Nicholas church rather than being treasured as a monument. This is the Jewry Wall: the west wall of the exercise hall of the public baths of Roman Ratae, built around AD 125–130, 23 metres long and two and a half thick, with two big arches through which bathers passed from the exercise hall into the baths. It is among the largest pieces of civil Roman building still standing in Britain, comparable only to the 'Old Work' at Wroxeter near Shrewsbury. In front of it lie the excavated bath-house foundations: hot and cold rooms, drains and plunge pools, mostly knee-high, and honestly hard to read without either imagination or the museum across the way. That museum is the real news. The 1960s building closed in 2017 and reopened in July 2025 after a rebuild costing close to £17 million, transformed from a quiet gallery into an immersive museum of Roman Leicester. A ten-minute film runs every quarter hour to start your visit, then come mosaics, jewellery and everyday objects, plus interactive reconstructions of the baths, the market and Roman cooking, which hold children far longer than the ruins do. For families the pricing is unusually kind: an adult pays £12.50 and up to three children aged 5 to 15 come in free with them, under-fives are free too, and every ticket works as a twelve-month pass. The building is fully accessible, with lifts between its floors, a buggy store, lockers and a café, though the outdoor ruins are uneven and not pushchair-friendly in every corner. A full visit takes about two hours, entry is by fifteen-minute timed slot, advance booking is recommended in the summer holidays and British half-terms, and last entry is ninety minutes before closing. To be plain: the wall itself can be seen from the street and the churchyard without a ticket, so if you are passing without children and short of time, five minutes in front of it is enough before the five-minute walk east to the cathedral and the King Richard III Visitor Centre, still Leicester's headline attraction. The joint annual ticket for both sites, £23 per adult, makes doing the pair in one day cheaper than two separate tickets. The museum is a 15 to 20 minute walk from the railway station; it has no car park of its own, and the nearest big one is the Highcross shopping centre a few minutes away.
Eight metres of second-century brick with two great arches, among the largest civil Roman remains left standing in Britain.
An opening film every quarter hour, then mosaics, jewellery and interactive scenes of the baths, market and Roman kitchen after a rebuild of nearly £17 million.
Knee-high hot rooms, cold rooms and drains in front of the wall, far easier to read after the museum than before it.
St Nicholas Circle, Leicester LE1 4LB
If you have no children and one hour in Leicester, the street view is enough: the wall is the real monument and it costs nothing. With children the museum is the point: they enter free, the interactive scenes hold them for two hours, and the building is step-free with lifts, a café and a buggy store.
If you can only do one, pick the Richard III centre; its story is stronger and better known. But the joint annual ticket at £23 per adult makes both cheaper than two separate tickets, and they are five minutes apart on foot, so doing the pair in one day is the sensible choice.