A very pleasant and interesting afternoon

I’ve always been interested in history, I listen to programmes on the radio such as ‘In Our Time’ with Melvyn Bragg and ‘Stand up for the Classics’ with Natalie Haynes, watch series on TV and of course, have a monthly archaeology magazine and read all sorts of books on historical subjects, people and places! A place which features in many television programmes is Butser Farm. It describes itself as:

The closest thing to time travel… Travel back through 10,000 years of human history, and discover every day life in the ancient past! Butser Ancient Farm is an open-air experimental archaeology museum and active research centre, learning about the past by recreating it. Our experiments are world-renowned, and our buildings include a Roman villa, Celtic village, Stone Age farm, and Saxon halls — all reconstructed from real UK archaeology, and open to be explored!

We were staying in Portsmouth for a few days and as it was a brilliant, blue-skyed morning we decided to head over to Butser and explore! The traffic was light and we were there in no time. We pulled into the carpark and there were half a dozen coaches and as we got out of the car we heard the sound of excited children’s voices. I was pleased that so many young people were being given the wonderful opportunity to find out more about history, but I was simultaneously hoping there wouldn’t be too much screeching, screaming and charging about.

We went through the gates and approached the building where no doubt we would get our tickets and I noticed an interesting shop with several shelves of books. There was also a small café, perfect for when we had finished our exploring.  A young woman with a lanyard approached and we asked where we should go and she looked perplexed. I told her how excited I was and how my particular interest was in pre-Roman Britain and the Dark Ages.  I thought I must be babbling but in fact it seemed she did understand me, but we had failed to understand her.

It seems that Butser isn’t open to the public during the week – only to schools, and ordinary visits are available just at weekends. I was somewhat disappointed and mentioned that it wasn’t made very clear on the website – but admitted that I’d not properly looked and had just assumed when it gave the opening times they would be for everyone!

Oh well, we did have a nice coffee, I did glance at the books, and then we got back in the car, set off again and dropped down to Hayling Island which was open and where we bought an ice cream. We then went on to Havant where we had a very pleasant and interesting afternoon.

My featured image is of the interior of St Faith’s Church in Havant, a beautiful little church dating from the thirteenth century.