The Verulamium Museum has several exceptional mosaics, including the "Scallop Shell." There also are examples of painted wall plaster, the best pieces of which are in the British Museum, and fragments from the inscription dedicating the basilica in AD 79 that preserve part of Agricola's name.
St. Albans derives its name, of course, from Alban, Britain's first Christian martyr, who, donning the clothes of a priest sheltered in his house, was beheaded in his stead, probably in AD 209 when Septimus Severus was in Britain. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre in Gaul, visiting there in AD 429 to quell the Pelagian heresy, is said to have prayed at the shrine of St. Alban.