This morning we arrived on the farm to a flurry of excitement as the first baby lambs of 2018 made their entrance to the world at the weekend. Two more were born this morning taking our total so far to 4.
After the 'Beast from the East' brought plunging temperatures, snow and ice last week we're glad our Manx Loaghtan waited for the thaw before delivering the new arrivals. All mothers and lambs are healthy and well and after the recent cold snap we're delighted to be witnessing this real sign of Spring. 
February Half-Term
We have plenty of activities for the whole family over half-term (Feb 12-16) - and now is the perfect time to watch spring come to life on our ancient farm!There is a new exploration trail aimed at younger visitors, all about the Signs of Spring and the beautiful nature of the South Downs landscape. We'll also have a range of different activities and demonstrations to get involved with:Monday - Learn to make bird feeders to take home, and give your garden birds a burst of energy while they're making their nests.Wednesday - Our blacksmith Wes will be demonstrating knife-making, Hilary will be teaching visitors how to make felt, and Helen will be weaving in the roundhouse.Thursday - A Stone Age-themed extravaganza with flintknapping and deer skinning!Friday - Our Roman cook Janet will be sharing delicious food to taste, bake bread in our bread oven with Simon, and cook bread and stew over the Saxon fire with Elizabeth.We will also be running a rolling series of 10 minute talks on site, each morning and afternoon. The themes will change so have a look on the information board just outside the shop or ask at the reception desk for details. Each talk will give an insight into some aspect of our past.The wickerman has also started for our Beltain Festival 2018 - there aren't many chances to see a 35ft effigy being built in the sunshine! The goats are in kid and the ewes in lamb so, no promises but anything could happen there.... Everything is looking green and pleasant, so why not come and visit over half-term?
Half Term at Butser
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.
The Bog Blog: Part IV
Much to everyone’s delight, the seat has now been sanded! The aesthetic result has been remarkable and, as each new piece is finished the more 'convenient' the convenience is looking... The footboard has been reinforced and the back of the seat tidied up, whilst the adjoining villa wall, artfully finished by the master masons, has been spurring the slaves on.
We even managed to get the Master Masons to try the new and improved seats and they were impressed with the results: no splinters!Inevitably, the Slaves were getting bored and started playing games on the toilet seat as well, preferring the Roman game Latrunculi to work. When asked to explain the rules, they suggested it is like a combination of checkers and chess. They made gaming counters from redundant ceramic building material from nearby Fishbourne Palace. Half the counters were covered in charcoal to distinguish between the two players.That’s everything so far!From, the loveable slaves at Butser Ancient FarmCatch up with the rest of the Bog Blog here:The Bog Blog: Part IIIThe Bog Blog: Part IIThe Bog Blog: Part I
The Bog Blog: Part III
The construction of the great Roman Bog is taking its toll on the slaves. This September a fresh pair were newly acquired and set to work, taking over where the previous slaves left off.
(‘Wham bam thank you mam half a toilet constructed when we take over’, remarked one slave.)Their first task was to mix up a gauge of lime mortar and apply this to the inside of the latrine, partly to tart up the bits that no one sees (!), but more importantly to ensure a smooth exit…The side walls were built up to support the substantial oak seat and an attempt was made to secure the foot rest but a slave stepped on it and it came off again. More work needed! More successful was the installation of the flushing system:
A number of unofficial tests have been carried out in recent days by the slaves and persons unknown. The flushing system was put through its paces with a slosh of water and ‘woo!’, it worked brilliantly. More circumspect was, well, see for yourself:
The oak has now been measured and cut to the appropriate size and work has commenced on cutting out holes for the toilet seat: two 9” diameter thrones and a 6” baby seat.
The slaves have promised they will not forget to sand down any splinters.
Mullein for Moths
This morning we were happy to escape the office and work outside on a project with Fiona Haynes, Conservation Officer from Butterfly Conservation. Butser is in the South Downs National Park, and due to the surrounding farms restricting their use of pesticides, we have lots of cool species that make their home here. One of these is the rare striped lychnis moth (Shargacucullia lychnitis) which only feeds on the flowers of dark mullein (Verbascum nigrum).
After discovering a few striped lychnis caterpillars in the summer, Fiona asked if we wouldn’t mind distributing the mullein plants further to make the farm into a local stronghold for the moth. A nationally scarce species, they are on the UK BAP (Biodiversity Action Plan) priority list with declining populations, mainly due to loss of habitat. They can only be found in West Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, where dark mullein grows on disturbed, low-nutrient ground.
We first collected seeds from the mullein flowers that already grow here. Some were still in flower, but the majority could be shaken into a bag to release their tiny children. Most were growing in our pig paddock, where the pigs spend all summer uprooting the ground, spreading seeds and trampling them into the soil to germinate. For this reason, pigs are sometimes used for woodland management, where they remove larger competitive plants and help make room for wildflowers.
Once the seeds were collected, we found new spaces to plant them around the site. As we’re open to the public and schoolchildren, we do usually strim long patches of grass to keep the place safe and tidy. To combat this, we marked on a map where we’ve planted to ensure we leave these areas longer before cutting back, allowing them time to drop their seeds and regenerate. We used mattocks and trowels to clear little patches in the ground, drizzled the seeds over and stamped them in with our boots.
Hopefully, this will bring a little boost to the mullein flowers that tend to pop up across the farm! Next spring I’ll be setting up a moth trap to see if we can find a striped lychnis hanging around, although they are extremely rare to find. They are also very brown and I’m terrible at moth ID, but we must all seek to improve ourselves! A lovely morning out of the office in the autumn sunshine - with Fiona's lovely dogs! You can find more on the striped lychnis moth at Butterfly Conservation here.
Farewell to the Butser Roman Summer!
It's back-to-school week! Our autumn term is already full to the brim with children coming to learn about prehistoric life, and we can't wait!
For now, we'd like to thank everyone who visited Butser over the holiday and made our Roman Summer such a fantastic event. We've uploaded our favourite selection of photos below, all taken by our BRILLIANT volunteer Eleanor.
Next year's summer is already being planned, and we have loads of other great events for half term, Christmas and next spring. See you again soon!
Mary's Villa Blog: Villa Near Completion!
The Roman villa has been shut off all summer, cocooned within a metal fence. The sounds of hammers, saws and working men wafted intermittently through the open windows. Now and again the sound of a concrete mixer turning, maybe the odd mechanical tool and the radio gently playing. Visitors may have witnessed deliveries of wood, sand, lime plaster and, in the middle of August, the return of the sandblaster!The villa is undergoing awesome alterations, and will emerge transformed in September.Duncan Morrison and his team, brothers Matt and Phil, have worked tirelessly since June. They have built a staircase and mezzanine barrier; widened unforgiving flint doorways for wheelchair access; raised a ceiling; built all the walls up to the roof; dug out forty tonnes of mud floor and replaced this on their hands and knees with mountains of opus signinum (Roman concrete) to level the floors. Recently they have been seen perched on the roof in the sunshine mending the ridge tiles.Chris Allen and his team from Emsworth Plastering have laboriously lined the walls with thousands of oak lathes adorned with three coats of lime plaster of different consistencies. The final, glassy coat creates a luxuriously cool, sophisticated air to the rooms and feels so Roman!In the middle of August, John of Airstrip Ltd, returned to blast the front of the villa with his lethal force of sand, to remove the lime coating and make it ready for plastering.As the summer draws to a close and autumn hovers on the skyline, children will be getting ready to return to school. The villa will be ready and waiting for those lucky enough to be coming on a Butser trip!