Alfred Powell Bowl

It would have been around the late 1920s that the bowl here was painted by Alfred Powell, it depicts four scenes of Cirencester: Cirencester Park showing a woodland scene. The Paen shows the surviving portion of arcade of hall of Hospital of St John, founded by Henry II in 1133. However the Paen actually refers to a tunnel like passage which went through this structure but was removed in 1890.  Cirencester Abbey panel depicts the old gateway on Grove lane, which is the last remaining relic of the ancient Abbey of Cirencester Built in 1180, on the south bank of the River Churn, the single-storey gatehouse with its attic, was the abbey's main entrance. The porch panel depicts the three storey south porch which was built by the Abbey in 1490, who used the ground floor. The guilds used the first and second floors. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Reformation, the porch served as the town hall. It was originally separate from the church and only joined to it by a corridor with fan vaulted ceiling in the eighteenth century.