Did you know that Rome's second City in Britain is here in Cirencester - ancient Corinium. 

It was founded in the first century AD and the Cotswold hills that surround it are full of Roman remains - villas, towns, temples, bathhouses, even Roman roads. And what I want to do is to share with you this incredible heritage, to actually touch it, to get hands on, to visit it and to find out what the Romans really did for us.

 Hello, I'm Mark. I'm the Professor of Archaeology here at the RAU, but also the course leader for the Roman Britain Summer School. 

This is our Cultural Heritage Institute where we'll be based for much of the Summer School. It's going to be a massive privilege to have people come here to Cirencester and learn about Roman Britain. It's a passion that I've had all my life to make people and to explain this really critical part of Roman history here in Britain. And the facilities and opportunities that we've got here are second to none. 

It will be so exciting to share our knowledge and to actually communicate and understand why the Romans left such a massive imprint on our landscape and our culture. 

During the Summer School, we'll try and do four things. The first is actually to handle Roman artefacts like this. This is burnished ware from Dorset, for example, 1st or 2nd century AD. This is Severn Valley ware. So, you'll get a really good understanding of Roman artefacts from the period. In the evenings, we'll have world-class lecturers coming in and telling us all about Roman Britain, the archaeology of Roman Britain.

 And then we'll be going on field trips around the Cotswolds and into South Wales and down to Roman Bath and to visit the key archaeological sites, the key Roman sites from this period. And then finally, for the last week, this is the best bit, we've got an amazing site just down the road from here, which has already revealed treasure, lots of Iron Age, very, very late Iron Age coins. The site probably belongs to the very early part of the Roman period and we've got permission from the farmer to continue the excavations there and hopefully to discover more of what might well be an Iron Age and Roman temple complex. 

Our Summer School on Roman Britain is open to anyone, anyone who has a passion for the past, for Roman and ancient history, from college students to retirees. All you need is to have an appetite to learn, to come here to the Cotswolds and actually experience the remains that we have all around us.