The Largest Roman Palace North of the Alps
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex was first constructed just three decades after the empire’s legions conquered Britain in the first century AD. Rediscovered in 1960, Fishbourne is the largest known Roman residence north of the Alps, and much of its sprawling ruins have still not been excavated fully.
In this episode, Tristan chats to Dr Robert Symmons, Curator at Fishbourne Roman Palace and its museum, to find out more about what makes the gigantic villa–and the spectacular artefacts it left behind–so special.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Ancient's on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's |
| 0:13.5 | podcast we'll brace yourself because we are talking all about the largest Roman palace |
| 0:20.0 | north of the Alps. At least the largest Roman palace that we know of to this day in 2022. |
| 0:27.0 | I am talking about a site that is situated in southern Britain in West Sussex near the city |
| 0:33.0 | of Chichester and this is of course Fishborne Roman Palace. Now I've been going to fishborne |
| 0:39.0 | since I was very very small since I was three or four. It's one of the closest attractions |
| 0:43.6 | to where I grew up. It's an astonishing site. And a few months back I was fortunate enough to head |
| 0:49.7 | back down to Fishborne to interview the legendary curator there Dr. Rob Simmons. In this chat we talk |
| 0:56.2 | all about Fishborne's discovery, the archaeology at Fishborne, some theories surrounding Fishborne's |
| 1:02.3 | use including a lot of different animals that seem to have been present in Fishborne's grounds |
| 1:07.7 | and so much more. Including a Twitter trend from the late 2021s that seized the Ancient History |
| 1:15.3 | community or at least a quirky small part of the Ancient History community called Hashtag Hypercost |
| 1:21.8 | Gate. If you're intrigued that's good because this podcast is going to reveal everything about that. |
| 1:27.6 | So without further ado to talk all about Fishborne Roman Palace here's Rob. |
| 1:33.3 | Rob, great to be back. |
| 1:35.1 | Kristen, nice to see you again. It is lovely to see you and I must say first of all I think in the |
| 1:40.1 | Ancient History world and archaeology world you do hold the title of the best beard in the business. |
| 1:45.5 | I bet there's some pretty stiff competition out there. |
| 1:48.5 | Absolutely. It is a stiff competition world, the archaeology beard world. |
| 1:52.4 | But we're not talking about the beard today, we're talking about Fishborne Roman Palace. |
| 1:55.6 | This has got to be you see on so many lists of top 10 Roman sites to come and see in Britain and |
| 2:01.3 | just such a remarkable site. Yeah, it is. I mean I think it's just working here. You can't |
... |
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