Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire.

Today has been one of those days when you find something to visit, and when you get there you don't want to leave. Tucked into a lush green valley just off the A3 near Waterlooville, close to Butser Hill, is the Butser Ancient Farm. This place has to be seen in the flesh as it were, to understand and appreciate what it is that is being achieved here.

The farm is a replica of what a farm and village would have looked like at the time of the ancient Britons, around 500 BC. The village and farm roundhouses have been painstakingly built by the owners and volunteers as not only a museum, but as a working farm and experimental archaeological site, that can be visited by the public and school or university parties.

This is David Freeman, a working archaeologist and builder of many of the ancient buildings and roundhouses that can be seen here.

Having sat down with him for about half an hour i came away with my head crammed full of historical facts and figures, how the roundhouses were built, who lived in them and their way of life. I couldn't cram all of the recordings together so i have split them into three separate stories which are best left to the expert .....



Having told me one thing about the ancient Britons, David told me more .....



Finally, we got onto the people that actually lived in these buildings, and exactly what the Romans thought of them .....



David was a guy who certainly knew his history. Having given me a short tour of the farm, i came away with a great deal of knowledge that i previously didn't know, about the construction, the way of life, and what it is to be an archaeologist today and the techniques they use to uncover and understand the ancient way of life.

Look closely at the buildings and you can see the painstaking work and knowledge that has gone into the building of this ancient farm and it's buildings. This can only have been achieved by rigorous research and a lifetime of work in studying the ancient Britons and their life. The farm itself is a pleasure to walk around and is quite easy to navigate around. I was expecting something larger in format and size, like a modern farm, but that is the point. Ancient Britons lived in sometimes small family groups and farmed the land close to them with crops and animals, and the Butser Ancient Farm is a good and accurate portrayal of what life would have been like hundreds or thousands of years ago.

So, if you do ever find yourself out this Summer and fancy something a little different for the kids to see, you can take them along to see the people working here, with events and demonstrations all year round to fire up the imagination. And you never know, like me, you might just learn something along the way.

You can visit the Butser Ancient Farm website HERE.

Paul Martin
http://www.media-attention.co.uk