Exploring a Roman villa and a sailing harbour

Yesterday Karen and Ian took us on a scenic jaunt to see a few historic sights in the area. We drove on lots of back roads and roundabouts through hedgerows and little villages, past the downs where sheep graze. It's just beautiful country, although it took a while before I could relax with the driving on the left side of the road. I enjoyed looking out the side window but every time I looked ahead out the windshield I'd get startled again seeing cars on the wrong side of the road. Thankfully we're not planning to drive while we're here.

Our first stop was in Fishbourne, where we explored the ruins of a Roman villa, discovered in the 1960s when they started digging up a field for a housing development. They discovered large areas of mosaics dating from the 1st and 2nd century AD. The museum has some 17 rooms worth of mosaic floors under cover and they are apparently the oldest ones found north of the Alps.  They call it a palace because it was also an administrative centre with many ornate rooms. It existed for 200 years before being burned down, possibly by Saxon raiders, and then looted and demolished.

Some of the mosaics were laid down over earlier versions, showing that there had been redecorating done over time. If you look closely here you'll see a second layer of black and white mosaic laid over one with some red in the design.

The area of the mosaics was only a small portion of the ruins. Most of the floors had been damaged by plowing of fields in the intervening years and were unsalvageable. The rooms were marked out with stepping stones and a large area was planted with a formal garden where the courtyard of the palace was.

Here you can see the hedges and the grassy area with some of the more recent houses behind it.

Our next stop was a quay in part of Chichester's harbour. This is on the south coast and it seems a lot of people here enjoy sailing in both dinghies and sailboats. It was a Sunday so families were everywhere, although by the time we got there the tide had gone way out and people were having after-sailing refreshments at a cafe on the dock.

You can see just how far the tide has gone out from these photos.

All the houses along the shore are behind big stone walls to protect them when the tide comes in.

This road where cars were parking has a sign warning that it floods at high tide.

Like all the villages we've seen this one has lovely old houses of brick or stone or occasionally stucco. I am entranced by the buildings here. They're so old and gorgeously detailed with slate or clay roof tiles.

This one has an ornate thatched roof. It's all so very different from the houses in Victoria.