The palace was discovered in the 1960s when a digger excavating a trench for a pipe unearthed what looked like partial remains. Further excavation by volunteers uncovered an enormous palace with some fantastic mosaics. It's believed that the palace was built for a local king called Togidubinus who ruled on behalf of the Roman invaders. Only one of the four wings and the central garden still exist. Two other wings were badly ploughed in the medieval period and a fourth is under a road and housing estate.
Maddy, Lily and Thomas coloured in, dressed as Romans and built towers with blocks in between looking at the exhibits.
The exhibits included graves which had been cut into the ruins by later locals.
The mosaics were lovely. Several of the exhibits were listed as having been found beneath other mosaics in recent decades when the upper layers were removed for cleaning.
They had a surprising amount of information about the gardens, as the beds were laid out with hard borders which are still visible.
Helen mislaid her camera and had everyone hunting for it for quite some time before finding it in a pocket in one of her deeper layers of clothing. Doh.
Back in Lancing the monopoly game recommenced, occasionally interspersed with bouts of interpretive dance when concentrating on the game got too much. Like all games of monopoly everywhere, everyone got bored before reaching the end. Thomas had the most cash at the end, Lily had the most assets and Maddy was poor in everything (despite having Mayfair and Park Lane).
The evening ended with magic tricks, Australian presents and the last of the brownies. Helen and Robert now face the task of packing our gear down to a level which is transportable on the tube...
No comments:
Post a Comment