HALNAKER — Today I went to see something that’s been on my list of places to see for a long time: Fishbourne Palace. It is thought that this Roman palace began life as a supply depot for Claudius’ invasion of Britain before being enlarged to become probably the largest Roman palace in Britain. The museum showed how the palace was discovered, and how the it would have looked through the various stages of its development. There is not much of the palace visible—much has been reburied to preserve it—but the crown jewels of the site are the many mosaics that were unearthed and are now on display under cover.

Of course the museum experience wouldn’t be the real thing without hordes of school children and several noisy classes turned up on cue.

After leaving the Roman palace I went two miles further down the road to the village of Borsham—a pretty village with one of its claims to fame being that it was here that King Canute got his feet wet. The parish church is also depicted in the Bayeaux tapestry.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering about the centre of Chichester and visiting Chichester Cathedral. I reckon I’m now about half way through the cathedrals on this trip with just Canterbury, Norwich, and Lincoln to go. I think that Chichester has the best stained glass windows of the three so far, including one designed by Marc Chagall.

3 Responses to “September 29th, 2009”