Welcome To The Porch Museum Godmanchester
The Museum is housed in the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, a Grade II listed building situated in the heart of the historic town of Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire. We are an independent museum and a part of the Friends of the Queen Elizabeth School a registered charity. The museum is run by a small team of enthusiastic volunteers who work together to record the town’s history and its people. We receive no government funding and rely on funds from various organisations, donations and the generosity of our visitors to fund our projects.
One of the Porch Museum aims is to produce and show short films devoted to the history of the town. We want to capture, through the memories of some of the oldest members of our community, as clear a perception as we can get of the way life was in this lovely town during the first half of the 20th century.
Godmanchester is an unusual town because many of the old families who have lived here for hundreds of years and whose ancestors are buried in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin, are still here. Markham, Arnold, Thompson and Mortlock are just a few of the many old names still represented here. In many cases we are recording not only memories of old Godmanchester from the vibrant and amusing senior members of these families, but through them the memories and experiences of their grandparents and great grandparents.
This way there’s every hope that we can bring to the community through snatches of remembered anecdote, at least an echo of how it was to live in Victorian Godmanchester.
Whats on in 2012
Wonderful Roman treasures photographed from the private collections of Godmanchester people, and films about Roman Godmanchester will be shown for the first time by the Porch Museum next year, celebrating the town’s history as part of its programme for the 800th anniversary of Godmanchester’s Charter . Roman Godmanchester was a thriving military and market town. Now you can see, for the first time a wealth of Roman artefacts left for us by soldiers and civilians two thousand years ago.
There will be rare enamelled jewellery, luxury Samian ware imported from France and Germany and dishes, pitchers and drinking cups, some manufactured in Godmanchester’s own kilns. Particularly lovely are the Venus figurines and a horse which symbolises the horse god Epona, placed in a little girl’s burial to protect her on the journey to the after life. Godmanchester gardeners will be charmed by the little bronze horse’s head probably used to decorate Roman hanging baskets.
Five distinguished archaeologists are donating their precious time to verifying the objects for a catalogue, and through the artefacts, will explaining on film about Roman Godmanchester’s daily life.
Roman Glass in Godmanchester
This glass window pane was found in the bath house excavations by Michael Green,
Roman Glass 1959 and is one of many pieces of window glass found all over Godmanchester. The bath house which is on Pinfold Lane dates from the early second century and excavations show that it was constructed to a sophisticated level of service for the local inhabitants and indeed for the many travellers passing through the town.
It's worth remembering that a Roman bath house was more than a place to bathe in, but somewhere to socialise. You would expect there to be local traders selling food within its walls, certainly trays of bead rolls and cakes or biscuits sweetened with honey and perhaps even savouries - Roman soldiers were particularly fond of sausages and meat pies as indeed were the rest of the population. Very likely scented oils were also commercially available to bathers using the natural perfumes from plants grown locally such as lavender, roses and rosemary and some expensive perfumes imported and brought by mule train up Ermine Street, the main trading route between London and Hadrian's Wall.