Cirencester Amphitheatre

Cirencester Amphitheatre was a Roman amphitheatre in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England. Its scheduled remains include an arena measuring approximately 150 feet (46 m) by 135 feet (41 m), surrounded by earthwork banks that rise 25 feet from the arena floor. Archaeological work has revealed the outline of the building, along with Roman coins and pottery.

The site could seat around 8,000 people on tiered wooden seats set upon stone terraces, though a timber-only structure may have existed earlier. It was built towards the beginning of the 2nd century, with a major rebuild around the middle of that century and a new gateway and side chambers towards its end. It was the second largest amphitheatre in Roman Britain, reflecting the importance of Corinium Dobunnorum, the second largest town in Britannia after Londinium (London).

The amphitheatre was later fortified during the 5th century, when the Western Roman Empire was under attack. Wooden structures were erected within the arena, the north-east entrance was partly blocked, and the gates were narrowed. Around 350–60 there is evidence that chambers and walls were demolished. The earthworks had long been called the 'Bull Ring', a name associated since at least 1780 with bull-baiting, although this explanation has often been considered unlikely.

Long barrows are among the oldest monuments of Britain, built in the Early Neolithic in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE. They typically consist of a long earthen mound flanked by ditches, sometimes with a timber or stone chamber at one end, and their purpose remains debated. In the Cotswold-Severn group of western England and Wales, around 200 known examples have stone chambers.

It has taken a long time for the real purpose of the earthworks to be identified, as the mounds were not clearly Roman, and the location amongst other quarried areas confused the situation for antiquarians. The site has been referred to as the 'Bull Ring', and a reason often given for this is the idea that the sport of bull-baiting used to take place there. The name, and the association with bull-baiting goes back to at least 1780 (noted by Samuel Rudder), but just as often thought unlikely, e.g. by Rev John Skinner who thought it derived from bul, a term he suggested meant an agger or bank to defend a ford. With or without the possibility of bull baiting, it was not until 1800 that its identity as a Roman amphitheatre was suggested, when Rudder made a more detailed study of the site. In 1824 Skinner made the first archaeological investigation, but found little evidence of stone seating or high quality workmanship. He did however identify the nearby Roman quarry and 'Romanized British Cemetery', for which subsequent excavation has given ample evidence.

Following a number of other small-scale investigations in the later 19th century, there was little that was definitively known, with recurring doubts as to whether the site was indeed an amphitheatre. Excavation was much talked about, but with no action, apart from an impromptu tunnel dug by youths during World War I, which they later said had found a well-built wall within a mound. It was only with the rise of the Cirencester Excavation Committee that any organised archaeology became possible. Under the leadership of J. S Wacher, followed by Alan McWhirr, a series of 1960s digs revealed a construction dating to the early 2nd century AD, a major rebuild towards the middle of the century and a new gateway and some side chambers (for gladiators or wild beasts, potentially) towards the end of that century. Some 200 years later, around 350–60 there is evidence of demolition of the chambers and walls and by the mid-400s the gates were being narrowed, possibly suggesting a more defensive function.