Empire building

The Corinium museum, Cirencester

It's been two years since Cirencester's museum closed for a major refurbishment. The closure of the Northleach Countryside Museum as well meant that Cotswold residents had no district council museum until the Corinium Museum re-opened in September.

The Cotswolds has a rich archaeology and with gallery space increased by half I was keen to see how new life had been brought to some of the museum's 1 million objects. Cirencester was the second most important Roman city in Britain and there is an inevitable emphasis on the Romano-British material gathered through local excavation. The museum holds one of the best collections in the country, including impressive mosaics and a Bacchic column capital.

A bright new entrance leads past the shop and the reception desk, which is set inside an equally light central atrium, providing space for visitors waiting to pay. Beyond this is an open area with mosaics on the wall and floor, separated by a low wall and glass panel with engraved lettering, although it is difficult to read the text.

Inexplicably, instead of being allowed to spill into the inviting area before us, we were directed to a passage leading to the galleries. Before you get there, a facsimile pillar of stratified archaeology helps to explain the process of dating excavated material and colour codes each period.

In the prehistoric gallery, material from Palaeolithic to Bronze Age is accompanied by six or more colour-coded text and image panels. The ratio of objects to panels in this section seems to be about ten to one, but there is a lot of text and the relationship between interpretation panels and display cases is not clear.

On to the Iron Age and early Roman gallery, where I had already forgotten which colours related to which period. The objects are mostly beautifully displayed and well lit, though a case of coins suffers from oblique lighting, and it was often hard to see the object numbers against the case lining.

After going through the Roman fort gallery, ignoring the chance to try a replica cavalry shield, helmet or mail-shirt, we were back in the atrium. The focal point is the Hare Mosaic, providing the museum's logo, a few simple but effective mosaic interactives, but little interpretation. The space is intended to be used for drop-in activities and events.

The main Roman galleries are on two levels, trebling the number of objects on display. But with all the interpretation panels it felt more like a heritage centre at times. The need to redevelop the museum while leaving the existing floor mosaics in situ must have been a challenge, exacerbated by the constraints of the town-centre site.

This causes some pinch points and several places were unwelcoming to a wheelchair or pushchair. It's a shame that finance or building design didn't allow for the inclusion of sun pipes to alleviate the use of artificial lighting in some areas.

A lot of effort has been made to make the displays family friendly, with the cartoon dog Dannicus highlighting points of interest to younger visitors. Children and their grandparents were enjoying hands-on experiences, and I couldn't resist demonstrating the Roman door lock to one family in the absence of any obvious explanation.

Stairs and a lift, neither signposted, lead to a mezzanine from which the floor mosaics are better appreciated. More cabinets and panels are relieved by some imaginative games and hands-on installations.

After so much Roman material I was relieved to reach the Anglo-Saxon gallery where, for the first time, items from the Butlers Field cemetery site are displayed. A forensic reconstruction of one of the bodies is captivating; the high level screen allows others to watch as visitors work through the layers of facial reconstruction.

It felt a bit pedestrian, in spite of the interactives and reconstructions, and I wanted to see a better relationship between text and objects. I liked the colour coding of archaeological and historic periods, but really needed a cipher en route; at least the cases could carry the same code as the panels.

Some orientation would be helpful, as it was difficult to judge how long to spend in the early galleries without knowing the layout of the museum, and signage and seating could be improved.

More freedom of movement would also be good, rather than being forced through a strict chronology - it would be interesting to see Roman and Civil War period coins alongside each other, or to compare prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon burials. And if we must be bound by archaeology's strict rules, why not follow excavation practice and start with the present, working backwards?

Steph Gillett is a freelance museum and heritage consultant