CHILDREN from schools across Middlewich came out in force last week to celebrate the town's Roman heritage.

The schools were approached by representatives of the Roman Middlewich Project and invited to create displays and costumes relating to the Roman Empire and life in the Roman era to be presented in an educational marquee during the Roman Middlewich Festival.

Those children who had created their own costumes were also encouraged to take part in the pre-festival procession which began at the Victoria Building, Civic Way and wound its way through the town finishing at the festival site on Harbutt's Field.

Pupils at Middlewich High School studied Roman history for weeks prior to the festival and created a number of Roman relief sculptures and block relief paintings as well as a papier mache scale model of Harbutt's Field, complete with the original Roman fort.

The school had also designed and built an early Roman odometer, a huge wheel like machine, which was used to measure the distance between two points.

Middlewich Primary School pupils spent half a term looking at the way the Romans lived and how they designed and built their villages and towns as well as studying mosaic work.

To show exactly what they had learned the pupils designed and constructed their own Roman settlement, including a coliseum, soldiers barracks and games arena from cardboard and paper, they also created a huge mosaic of the school's emblem.

St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School also contributed to both the marquee and the procession by producing authentic period costumes and a display detailing Roman arts and crafts and a series of papier mache busts.