The traditional festival of Samhain marks the start of the 'dark half' of the year, as the days grow shorter and the nights lengthen. At Butser, as well as celebrating Samhain with music and stories in the roundhouse, we celebrate half term, when we take a breath of cool air before the run up to Christmas and the Winter Solstice, when we begin to look forward to spring again.
This October half term, we're inviting families to come and discover how people lived in Britain 1600 years ago at the Butser Roman villa. Families will have the chance to try some mosaic-making, drawing Roman pottery and experience the underfloor Roman hypocaust heating in operation. You can also try your hand at latrunculi, a Roman board game which is quite fascinating!
The Roman villa has recently reopened after a major restoration project over the summer. The newly whitewashed interiors have made the rooms brighter and the floors have been re-laid with opus signinum (Roman concrete) inlaid, in the Roman tradition, with broken pottery. These are real fragments of Romano-British pottery, giving a fantastic new touchstone to the past for Roman-themed visits.
Butser Ancient Farm can be reached from the A3. There are roadworks in operation over half-term but the road to Butser Ancient Farm from the A3 is still open.