Tribute to Roman Emperor inspired by discovery in city

THE story of how the bronze statue of Roman Emperor Nerva on horseback came to be a landmark of Gloucester's Southgate Street harks back to the late 1960s.

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In September 1967 the city’s historic Bell Hotel, a 16 century former coaching inn, was demolished to make way for what was to become Eastgate shopping centre.

While excavations were underway, archaeologists discovered the plinth of an equestrian statue dating from Roman times. It was standing in what had been, almost 2,000 years before, the Forum.

Inspired by this discovery, Gloucester Civic Trust decided that as a millennium project, it would recreate a semblance of the earlier statue and install it close to the original spot. It seemed appropriate that the figure on horseback should be Marcus Cocceius Nerva, the Roman emperor who 1900 years before had designated Glevum a colonia, making it a city in the empire of high status.

Funding was found thanks to local private contributions and a grant from the Summerfield Trust. The city council chipped in too, which provided the wherewithal for sculptor Anthony Stones to be commissioned and his work to be cast at the Pangolin Editions’ factory in Chalford.

Prior to the installation of the hollow plinth on which the statue was to be positioned this week in 2002, a gas filled time capsule was put in place beneath.