Fishbourne is the largest known Roman residence north of the Alps, a vast palatial complex covering some 4 hectares, built around AD 75–80 on the site of earlier Claudian-period military supply buildings and a proto-palace. Arranged around a formal garden as four ranges with an audience chamber on the west, it was occupied until destroyed by fire around AD 270–280, after which it was not rebuilt.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its scale, early date, and Mediterranean-style luxury have led to its frequent attribution to Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus (or Togidubnus), the client king of the Regni named in Tacitus, making it a key piece of evidence for client kingship and the rapid Romanisation of southern Britain's elite. It sits at the head of Chichester harbour, adjacent to the civitas capital at Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester).
Excavated principally by Barry Cunliffe from 1961, the site has yielded the largest collection of in situ early mosaics in Britain — including the famous Cupid on a Dolphin polychrome mosaic laid over an earlier black-and-white floor — along with painted wall plaster, stuccowork, marble veneers, and the bedding trenches of a formal garden whose planting layout has been reconstructed. The north wing and reconstructed garden are preserved beneath a cover building operated as a museum by the Sussex Archaeological Society.
Fishbourne is the largest known Roman residence north of the Alps, a vast palatial complex covering some 4 hectares, built around AD 75–80 on the site of earlier Claudian-period military supply buildings and a proto-palace. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Fishbourne is classified as a Roman villa — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Fishbourne Roman site (0.3 km), Noviomagus (1.4 km), St Martin's Lane, Little London car park, Roman site (2.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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