E and I share January Birthdays – which, if I am honest is not the best time to celebrate Birthdays as it feels like feast and famine! However the way to bring the celebrations forward into a whole year was to present E with a huge pile of leaflets and a challenge to discover more about our local area – we began with Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex. It is an interesting place to visit especially on a clear bright sunny January day!
Fishbourne Palace’s discovery is thanks to a workman cutting into a field as part of a new building project – he noticed ancient looking building rubble. Thankfully, a wealthy history enthusiast bought the land and developed the site to create the museum we see today. What a tremendous legacy and gift.
What amazes me is the sheer advancement in technology and house building at a time when the local population were living in huts. It took two thousand years for us to get back to central heating, hot running water and good drainage! It astounds me that with all the wonderful technology why would the locals simply turn their backs and go back to living in wooden huts with open fires?
There is little surviving evidence of who actually lived at the Palace but it must have been someone of importance because the Palace was huge! covering an area of 5.6 acres. Historians suggest it may be Tiberius Claudius Togidubnuts who was influential in the area in the first century AD. As you enter the museum there is a wonderful model replica of what the palace may have looked like.
The Palace was thought to have as many as 100 rooms all of which had beautiful mosaic tiled floors. The exhibits are wonderful to see, with the patterns and designs.
While the colours are beautiful I can’t help but wonder how bright they would have been 2000 years ago!
We looked round the beautiful Roman Gardens in the glorious sunshine, it was so interesting to see how the Romans made good use of herbs for cooking, health and beauty.
We enjoyed a lovely cuppa and some delightful lemon poppy seed cake in the cafe afterwards. Although the sun was out, it was still a chilly January Day. Fishbourne is a wonderful place to visit – I am hoping to return in May for their Roman Dyeing course. You can find information about the museum herehttps://sussexpast.co.uk/event/colours-of-the-romans
Extra ordinary shrub at Fishbourne 
Shrub – fringing Fishbourne 
little teasle plant at Fishbourne
On the way to the cafe we passed the most beautiful shrub – which looked as if it had been festooned with tassels! Next to it was a little teasle plant – which looked interesting – I took one of the seedbeds home.
It wasn’t until later when I was editing the photos that I noticed a coloured orb among the bush. It did not appear on any of the other photos, but maybe it was a strange trick of the light… perhaps you might know what it is?
Fred the Needle 
Thank you for sharing your birthday outing Fred + Husband-of-Fred. I love the floor patterns and the Romans were amazingly sophisticated when it came to technology – although the Greeks may say some of it was their idea in the first place! Beautiful tassle plants, you’ll have to let us know if your seedhead blooms. As for the rainbow orb, maybe it’s a beautiful spirit? xox
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Lovely to hear from you, that is a great way of looking at it Faith, a nymph captured on camera!
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Hello Fred 🙂 Just saw your comment. I wasn’t notified and don’t blog that often. Hope you’re having a lovely weekend xo
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