The Cost of Living in Roman and Modern Britain

This display looks at goods, services and activities from everyday life and shows how their prices have fluctuated from Roman times to the present day. Throughout the exhibition the price in coins of the period is displayed alongside the objects in question to demonstrate how much money would be needed to purchase items and what the value relative to the daily wage would have been. Much of the information for the display is derived from the Vindolanda tablets, a series of documents including letters, shopping lists and administration notes, which were discovered at Vindolanda fort, just south of Hadrian's Wall.