A dream becomes reality - visiting the mosaics at Fishbourne Roman Palace in England - Part Two

My purpose in visiting Fishbourne Roman Palace was, of course, to see the mosaics. It is one thing to view mosaics in a museum hanging vertically on a wall, completely out of context (like at the British Museum, for example). But seeing the mosaics in situ, the way they were originally laid out, is a whole other experience.

Mosaic with 3D effect.
At right is where a wall was constructed to divide the room into two.

Obviously, unless somebody perfects time travel (and I wish that somebody would hurry up) we will never be able to view these ancient mosaics the way they were intended to be seen, with all the trappings.

Solomon's Knot surrounded by dolphins and wine vases from early 3rd C.

For starters, except for the foundations, all the walls are missing at Fishbourne (as they are at most sites where ancient mosaics are found) which means we don’t see the frescoes that would have surrounded each room. Not to mention the furniture, sculptures and textiles. And the decorated columns.

In the case of Fishbourne, the building disappeared piece by piece and mysteriously showed up as parts of newer construction in the town. Conservation was not a big issue in previous eras, but reuse of materials certainly was. Also, there was a disastrous fire sometime between 270 to 280. And over the centuries, the rooms in the building changed their usage until the whole thing was forgotten and buried under several feet of dirt and grass.

Excavation of the Palace in the 1960s.
It was discovered when a water-main trench was being dug.

What visitors can see today is the north wing which is sheltered by a covered building. (The west wing contains five mosaics which were reburied for their protection.) There is a walkway running the length of the building between the mosaic areas. This is the closest we can get to viewing the mosaics without actually walking on them which, of course, the inhabitants of the Palace would have done.

Mosaic conforming to contours as floor warped beneath it.
It cannot be straightened out as the mosaic pieces have stretched.

In a couple of places it was discovered that a newer mosaic had been installed over an older one, rather than removing it before laying the later one over it. In other areas, the mosaics were laid over post holes from the original wood building so they have sunk into the floor. About a thousand years ago, give or take a few, farmers plowing the land unearthed some of the mosaics and building foundations. But it meant nothing to them, and they went on about their business.
Despite the damage from disasters, ploughshares (or plowshares depending on your version of the English language) and robbers, the mosaics have remained in good enough shape to give us a reasonable idea of what they looked like when they were enjoyed by visitors to the Palace.

The Palace is well signed both indoors and out. So with the help of the illustrated guidebook I mentioned in Part One, and reading the informational plaques, the visitor is treated to a pretty thorough understanding of the life and times of the mosaics and the building.

Looking at the covered North Wing from the gardens.
The southern half of the gardens and the rest of the palace remain buried
under the town of Fishbourne.

Concrete demarkations in grass show where walls
would have been in East Wing of the Palace.

The gardens have been reconstructed according to what is known about Roman horticulture, completing the picture of what this magnificent building must have been like almost two thousand years ago.

Now I am back in LA, I wish I could just jump on the train and spend another day at Fishbourne. 

Click here to read Part One of this blog post. Later on, when I have more time, I'll be posting a photo album of Fishbourne.

(All photos copyright roslyn m wilkins) 

A dream becomes reality - visiting the mosaics at Fishbourne Roman Palace in England - Part One

From the train window on the way to Fishbourne. Possibly Arundel Castle?

The train pulled into the station. Fishbourne, West Sussex, England. It was unreal. No, it was real. I was finally going to see FishbourneRoman Palace after years of imagining what it would be like. Weather-wise it could not have been a better day. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. Not too hot and not too cold. Perfect.

Was this the weather the Romans had encountered when they first arrived here in AD 43, or was it cold and rainy and they wished they had stayed home?

From the train window on the way to Fishbourne. Fields of rapeseed.

I was born in England but have lived all my adult life in Los Angeles. The first Spanish settlers arrived in LA in 1769. That is my history now. AD 43 is hard to grasp, yet I have a definite attachment to that era—in fact, anything to do with the Roman Empire. If only the Roman army had gotten as far as southern California—oh well, no point in dreaming…

I have no idea what I was expecting. Should Fishbourne Roman Palace be some towering structure on a 1500-foot hill overlooking all of Sussex? That would not have surprised me, but it was not the case.

Walking down the steps from the train station I found myself in a residential area. There was a small sign pointing down the street.
I passed typical English brick houses, then a schoolyard with uniformed children playing. More houses. Was I going in the wrong direction? Then another sign. Visitors to the school should park in the Roman Palace parking lot. Okay. I was on the right road.

I found the parking lot. Oh joy. There were some buildings. But they didn’t look like a palace.
I entered the glass doors. On my right was the gift shop (always my favorite section of any place I visit) and on the left was the museum with artifacts and historical information. In front of me were the mosaic floors. I immediately knew I was in heaven.

This was the moment I had been dreaming of for… how many years… I really don’t know… a long, long time.

I took my first class in the archaeology certificate program at UCLA in 2004. I was immediately hooked. The following year I was asked to identify my area of primary interest. In order to answer the question I thought about a school excursion when I was very young to a site where mosaics were being excavated. I have no idea where that could have been. Certainly not Fishbourne, as that was not open to the public until 1968.

Without really thinking, my answer was Roman mosaics. I don’t even know where that came from as I had not thought about that school expedition for decades. But it seemed right. Somehow, out of the deepest corner of my memory this had surfaced. And from that moment on Roman mosaics became my obsession and interest.

On trips to Italy and Greece since then I had seen ancient mosaics in situ and they were wonderful. But to see them in my home country, real Roman mosaics, was beyond words. So I won’t attempt to explain the feeling here.

Fishbourne is the largest and earliest Roman Villa in England. After the initial conquest there were wooden buildings in the area. To make a longer story shorter, the Palace was built over those foundations between AD 75 and 80, probably for the British King of that area, Togidubnus, who was loyal to Rome.

Fishbourne Roman Villa. Walkway overlooking mosaics on both sides.

Unfortunately for us, the town of Fishbourne—complete with modern houses, shops, and the A259 highway—is built over half of the Villa. From time to time artifacts are dug up from the homeowners’ gardens so the extent of the Palace is known.

Fishbourne Roman Palace. Another shot of the walkway.

But fortunately for us, the part that is visible contains the most amazing mosaic floors. Although mosaic floors are associated with Roman houses, only the richest people could afford them, and then only in a few rooms. So to see this many mosaic floors all in one place is quite unusual.

Before looking at the mosaics, I purchased the booklet Fishbourne Roman Palace, An Illustrated Family Guide by David Rudkin. This really enhanced my visit as it is written from the point of view of Togidubnus, as if he was giving visitors from the future a tour of his home.

I will end part one here. To read Part Two of this blog post, click here.

(Photos copyright roslyn m wilkins)