HALNAKER — As luck would have it there is another Roman villa not far from Chichester at Bignor, and that is where I went for my morning’s sightseeing. Again, there is not much left of the villa itself except for its unearthed mosaics. There are some interesting comparisons between Fishbourne and Bignor.

While Fishbourne was discovered in the 1960s, the villa at Bignor was discovered in 1811 and opened for public viewing not long after. While I have no doubt the buildings protecting the mosaics at Bignor have been renovated over the years, they are not as modern and brightly lit as the building that covers the Fishbourne mosaics. Some of the mosaics at Bignor have been uplifted and relaid level whereas others and those at Fishbourne have been left in the state they were found (i.e. with uneveness due to ground subsidence).
In the museum, the floor on which you walk is one of the Roman mosaics, the central motif of which was lost when debris from a collapsed roof punched a hole through the floor. A model of the villa stands on a large table above the missing portion and visitor’s walk on the room’s original mosaic border.

Guess who arrived shortly after I did? A bus-load of school children. This time I was able to sort of follow them as they were given a guided tour of the site. The guide mentioned then that some of the mosaics had been uplifted and relaid but that some had been taken to New Zealand. I wonder where those are now?

In the afternoon I visited Petworth House. It houses a wonderful collection of paintings and sculpture, including about 24 paintings by Turner (he used to have a studio in an upper room) and others by Reynolds, Van Dyke, Lely and others. The pride of the collection is a 2,500 year old head of Aphrodite by Praxiteles. Unfortunately no photography was allowed inside the house.
The grounds were designed by Capability Brown and the vista from the house looks almost the same as it did when depicted by Turner in one of his paintings.