Thursday, July 12, 2012

What have the Romans ever done for us?

While popping into the library, I discovered that, directly opposite, Chichester's new museum about itself, The Novium, is now open. In fact it opened just last weekend. It replaces a tiddly little place which attracted very few visitors over the course of 50 years. I think I went there just the once and have vague memories of flints and amulets in dusty display cases and a few faded photographs of mosaics. The new, impressively designed museum has been built on top of what used to be Roman baths (Novium is from Noviomagus Reginorum, the Roman name for Chichester). I hope it doesn't overdo the Roman stuff, as there's plenty of that in the much bigger, more established Fishbourne Roman Palace a mile or so down the road. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to check whether that was the case.
In the evening we met up with Iain & Shona and Sonny & Biba (Barney was on a school trip) at Pizza Express. Iain works for publishers Wiley whose UK HQ has, somewhat unfeasibly, been in Chichester for the past 40 years, but they live in Brighton. Good of Shona to drive all the way over and v nice to see them.

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