Churn, and is in connection with a branch of the Thames and Severn Canal, has four principal streets, and contains a free grammar-school, alms-houses, a savings bank, a museum, a public library, breweries, and a carpet factory. The church is a fine structure of the 15th century, with an embattled tower 134 feet high, a fine decorated porch, and several lateral chapels. The Royal Agricultural College, which adjoins Oakley Park, the seat of Lord Bathurst, is about a mile and a half from the town. Itis a handsome edifice, with a frontage of 190 feet, facing North Wiltshire. Its buildings include a chapel, a dining hall, a library,, a lecture theatre, laboratories, class-rooms, private studies and dormitories for the students, apartments for resident professors, and servants’ offices; also a museum containing a collection of anatomical and pathological preparations, and mineralogical, botanical, and geological specimens. The college farm comprises 500 acres, 450 of which are arable; and on it are the well-appointed farm-buildings and the veterinary hospital. Besides agriculture, the course of instruction at the college includes chemistry, natural and mechanical philosophy, natural history, mensuration, surveying, and drawing, and other subjects of practical importance to the farmer, proficiency in which is tested by means of sessional examinations. There is some manufacture of carpets, woollen cloths, and curriers’ knives, but the industries of Cirencester are chiefly agricultural. It has now a chamber for the promotion of agriculture, and the market is accounted one of the best for live-stock in the west of England. In 1871 the population of the borough,, which, including the parish of Stratton, has an area of 5985 acres, amounted to 7681; that of the parish was 7079.

Cirencester occupies the site of Corinum, Corinium, or Duro-cornovium, the capital of the Dobuni, and an important military station of the Romans, situated at the junction of the Fosse-way with the Ermin and Icknield streets. In 577 it was taken by Ceawlin, king of Wessex, and in 878 by the Danes; and it was the seat of a council held by Canute about the year 1020. An abbey for Black Canons, relics of which still exist, was founded here by Henry I. in 1117. The town was garrisoned for the Parliament at the commencement of the Civil War, and was taken by Rupert in 1642; but in 1643 it was finally surrendered to Cromwell's forces. Numerous Roman antiquities have from time to time been discovered at Cirencester, and remains of the ancient walls, two miles in circuit, and of a Roman ampitheatre are still to be seen there. (See All the Year Round, No. 494, Oct. 10, 1868.