Fishbourne Roman Palace

Tucked away amid suburbia on the fringes of Chichester, Fishbourne Roman Palace is the largest Roman building yet found north of the Alps. Built in the first century AD, probably for a British chieftain who was friendly with the invading Romans, it lay forgotten beneath soil until rediscovery during building works. Tantalisingly much of it is still covered with housing, but what has been uncovered is quite something. A scale model by the entrance gives you an idea of its stupendous scale, while the museum display shows off some choice finds. Beyond, and under cover, the most extensive in situ mosaics in Britain are evidence of the layout of the rooms. The figure of a boy, possibly Cupid, on a dolphin, is the best preserved and most celebrated, but elsewhere are geometric black and white creations, a wonkily amateurish Medusa and the so-called Shell Mosaic that continues to baffle everyone as to what it represents – variously a pair of scallop shells, a peacock or the sun’s rays. Archaeologists found variations in soil colouring that indicated the exact layout of the garden’s hedges, which has been painstakingly replicated with the types of plant that would have been grown there in Roman times.