Leicester

After I left the castle, my first stop was Leicester. Several months ago the news broke that the remains of the notorious King Richard III had been found underneath a parking lot here, and it's still major news here, with references to the discovery seemingly everywhere!

A new interpretive centre is going to be built at the excavation site

The excavation where they found King Richard III

Richard III dig site

Richard III dig site

The city's Guildhall museum has a wonderful exhibit about the life, death, and times of Richard III. There were displays about the history of the city as well as the Wars of the Roses, the excavation process, and an overview of the forensics/DNA testing done to prove that it's really him.

Interactive touchscreen that explains the different injuries and other physical
information revealed by Richard's skeleton

Also in the Guildhall, they have a permanent exhibit of mock jail cells,
complete with fake prisoners revealed when the cell lights up at
the touch of a button. Slightly creepy!

I also visited Leicester Cathedral, next door to the Guildhall museum, but it was under extensive construction; they're redoing the high altar area and also working on a prominent burial place/shrine for King Richard III.

Memorial tablet in the floor of Leicester Cathedral (inlaid
long before his remains were found)

The cathedral is also very proud of a recent royal visit last year, when the Queen, Prince Philip, and Duchess Kate visited. These are the chairs they used (below) and they had a blank book sitting out for people to write congratulations to Kate and William on the birth of Prince George.

I spent a lot of time at the comprehensive Jewry Wall Museum, which is the city museum of Leicester. It's at the site of a Roman Baths complex called Jewry Wall. You can see in this photo one of the information panels on the site, but what you can't see is that the neighbouring building was under construction, blocking off all access to the site (thankfully the museum was still open). So, I have no idea why it's called Jewry Wall, because I couldn't see any of those info panels!

I loved this- a "market research questionnaire" interviewing
pretend citizens from various stages in the city's history,
culminating with a real example from 2013.

I had an ulterior motive for visiting Leicester: I'm interested in attending grad school here, so I came to see the city and campus and meet with the director of student learning in the museum studies department.

War memorial on campus

After the university (on Day 2) it was back into the older part of the city for another visit to the Jewry Wall Museum:

These figures were all made for the Festival of Britain in 1951. I thought it
was interesting that they're still displayed, but with historical inaccuracies,
that we now know because of further research since 1951, pointed out in the captions!

"Roman kitchen" discovery area for school visits

I like how you can see that these 3 displays are from three different eras in the
museum's development, based on their layout/design!

Reconstruction of a Roman Christian burial

The real skeleton of the "Glen Parva lady"

The green stains on the bones are indicative of bronze objects that were placed on her
body/attached to her clothes at burial.

Reconstruction of the Glen Parva Lady's face- notice how different
it is from the idealized model and picture in the first photo above!

Unceremonious display of "Leicester's first citizen", the oldest human burial
found in the city (dating to the Iron Age).

My attic room at my B&B

My B&B right near the university