A unique museum in a breath-taking location and home to one the finest collections of religious Roman artefacts in the UK.
The Senhouse Roman Museum sits high up on the cliffs overlooking Maryport Harbour and the Scottish coastline, and is next to the site of a Roman fort built at the centre of Hadrian's coastal defences on the Solway.
This unique and award winning museum houses a collection of outstanding Roman objects from the adjacent fort and is one of the most important collections of Roman altars and sculptures in the UK. One of the main collections is a series of 22 altars dedicated by the Roman commanders of the fort to Jupiter, the powerful of the Roman Gods. There are also various mysterious religious sculptures. The collection was first started by John Senhouse in the 16th century; it was passed through various family members until it was set up as a charitable trust in 1970 to preserve the collection.
Senhouse Roman Museum is housed in a building built by the Navy in 1885 and was originally a Naval Artillery Reserve Drill Hall where men were trained in Navy gunnery. It cut military ties in 1966 and the building was saved by local people.
There is also a reconstructed water tower at the museum which boasts panoramic views across the fort and civilian settlement to the Lake District and beyond across the Solway Firth to Scotland and the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man.
