Fishbourne Roman Palace with kids: A great stop before a Portsmouth ferry
If you have an evening ferry to catch from Portsmouth, there is plenty of time to fit something interesting into the day before you head to the port. We were travelling with our toddler and wanted to make the most of the time before our sailing, so we headed to Fishbourne Roman Palace and Gardens, just outside Chichester.
Fishbourne Roman Palace is the largest Roman home in Britain and one of the most important Roman archaeological sites in the country, best known for its huge collection of remarkably preserved mosaics, many of which remain in the places where they were originally laid almost 2,000 years ago. Alongside the mosaics, there are reconstructed Roman gardens, archaeological finds and plenty for children to get involved with. It gave us a chance to explore somewhere with plenty of historical interest while still being manageable with a young child. If you're planning a ferry journey through Portsmouth or Southampton and have other days to fill, you can find more ideas for places to visit before or after your sailing in our wider guide.
Disclosure: We were kindly provided with complimentary admission to Fishbourne Roman Palace as part of a collaboration, but as always, all opinions and experiences are our own.
A brief backstory of Fishbourne Roman Palace
Fishbourne Roman Palace was built around AD 75 and was an absolutely vast, luxurious Roman home. It is considered the largest known Roman residential palace north of the Alps, covering a greater area than Buckingham Palace. More than 100 rooms were arranged around a huge Mediterranean-style garden, making this a seriously impressive home for someone very wealthy. But who lived there?
The palace may have belonged to Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus, a client king who was allied with Rome, possibly built as a reward for his loyalty to Rome during the Boudiccan revolt. Exactly who commissioned and occupied the palace is still a matter of archaeological interpretation. The palace was eventually destroyed by fire in the third century, but many of its original mosaics survived in the places where they were laid almost 2,000 years ago.
What makes the survival of the mosaics even more impressive is that the site was discovered completely by accident and came close to being lost before archaeologists even realised what was there. In 1960, a contractor digging a water main trench came across what appeared to be ancient rubble. The discovery was reported to the local archaeological committee, and an exploratory excavation followed in 1961. It quickly became clear that this was far more than a few scattered Roman remains, and major excavations continued between 1961 and 1968.
Fishbourne Roman Palace was opened to the public in 1968, with a museum built to preserve and explain the finds. There is a film in the mosaic exhibition about those original excavations, which gives a useful insight into what the site looked like when archaeologists first started digging and how much work went into uncovering the palace.
One of the people closely connected with the early excavation of Fishbourne was Dr Margaret Rule, who became the site's first curator. She later went on to become the archaeological director and chief salvage officer for the Mary Rose Trust, leading the excavation and raising of the Mary Rose in 1982. If you've visited the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, it's a lovely connection between the two sites, particularly as Fishbourne can be visited on the same day as an evening ferry from Portsmouth. You can read more about our visit to the Mary Rose Museum here.
Visiting Fishbourne Roman Palace with a toddler
We visited with our almost three year old son Jamie, and it was very easy to manage with a toddler. The gardens are right alongside the covered mosaic areas, so you can dip in and out of the exhibition and head outside whenever little legs and minds need a break.
We did one pass around the mosaics together, talking to Jamie about what we could see, before taking turns spending a bit longer looking at the mosaics in detail and reading the information while the other took Jamie outside for a wander. This meant we could both look at the archaeological remains in more detail without expecting Jamie to stand still for ages, while he still had plenty of opportunities to run around and explore.
The site is very manageable on foot. We didn't use a pushchair during our visit as Jamie walked for much of the time or was carried on David's shoulders when he'd had enough, but there is a step-free route around the mosaics and an access ramp into the gardens, so a pushchair would be perfectly practical. The car park is also right outside if you decide you need to go and fetch the buggy halfway through your visit. There are accessible toilets and baby-changing facilities on site too.
The Roman mosaics
The spectacular mosaics are the main reason most people come to Fishbourne Roman Palace, and seeing them in person gives you a much better idea of just how impressive they are. Some of the designs are huge, covering entire sections of floor, and the level of detail that has survived after almost 2,000 years is amazing, escaping centuries of field ploughing. Many of the mosaics are preserved in the exact locations where they were originally laid.
The absolute standout is the famous Cupid on a Dolphin mosaic; enormous, amazingly intact and packed with detail, seeing it laid out in front of you makes you wonder what it must have been like to find something so spectacular during the excavations. It was uncovered on the very last day of the first season of excavations, when archaeologists opened one final trench and got their first glimpse of what would turn out to be one of the palace's finest mosaics. They had to cover the trench again to protect it over winter, leaving them with an agonising wait until the following summer to discover the full design.
In this space you'll also find another glimpse of just how luxurious life here would have been. Alongside the incredible floors, you can see evidence of a bath house and the palace's underfloor heating system, known as a hypocaust. Very useful in rainy Britain!
The mosaics gave us an easy way to get Jamie involved too. He is learning about patterns and opposites at the moment, so we could point out the black and white shapes and different designs and talk about them together. Rather than simply asking him to look at (in his two year old eyes) an old floor, we could give him things to spot and talk about as we walked around.
There is a mosaic bingo activity for children too, encouraging them to look closely for the particular details in the designs. It gives older children a bit more of a challenge while exploring the mosaics, while younger children can simply join in by spotting the shapes and pictures they recognise.
Things for children to do at Fishbourne Roman Palace
There is plenty for children to get involved with around the site, and a lot of it is hands-on. Inside the museum, there are dressing-up clothes and Roman objects to touch, while the main mosaic area has activities based around the archaeology of Fishbourne. Jamie was especially taken with designing his own mosaic using colourful squares and having a go at the brass rubbing activity, where he used a crayon to make a rubbing from a Roman tile.
There are Roman coins and pieces of stone and roof tile to handle too, along with blocks and mosaic pieces that children can use to create their own designs and imagine what a Roman villa might have looked like. For slightly older children, there is information about Roman life and archaeology throughout the displays, giving them more to get stuck into as they explore.
For Jamie, being able to touch, make and spot things gave us plenty to talk about as we went around and made it much easier to keep him focused on what we were seeing.
Exploring the Roman gardens
The gardens are another big part of the Fishbourne experience, and they are one of the reasons the site is so easy to visit with a toddler. The reconstructed gardens are based on archaeological evidence of bedding trenches from the original palace and include a range of plants and herbs that would likely have been grown there, as well as grape vines and olive trees. Fishbourne Roman Palace describes them as the earliest known Roman gardens found in Britain.
There are plenty of interesting details to look at as you walk around, including the wave-shaped hedges with little alcoves for benches. We learned that this unusual design is based on archaeological evidence from the original garden rather than simply being a modern interpretation of what a Roman garden might have looked like.
Having the gardens right alongside the indoor areas meant Jamie could have a wander and let off some steam whenever he'd had enough of looking at mosaics, while we could take our time exploring the archaeological remains. It made it much easier to balance what we wanted to see with what a toddler could manage in one visit.
N.B. The garden paths are gravel, so while the site is generally pushchair-friendly, smaller or less robust pushchairs may find some of the paths a little trickier to navigate.
The museum and archaeological finds
The onsite museum right at the entrance takes you through the different stages of Fishbourne Roman Palace's history, from its earliest days as a Roman military supply base during the invasion of Britain around AD 43, through the construction and lavish expansion of the palace, right up to its eventual destruction by fire around AD 270. It's a great source of information and context before you go on to explore the rest of the site.
Some of the earliest objects on display are military artefacts from the site's first phase, including horse harness fittings and fragments of weapons. They give you a glimpse of what Fishbourne was like before the huge palace was built and show its importance during the early Roman occupation of Britain.
As you move through the displays, the objects become a fascinating reflection of the wealth and status of the palace's inhabitants. There is a collection of jewellery in gold, silver and bronze, including gemstone rings carved with intaglios that could be used as personal seals, alongside Roman glassware and high-status Samian pottery imported from Gaul. There are local Sussex wares too, giving an idea of the trade networks that supplied this corner of Roman Britain. Fragments of painted wall plaster, structural ironwork and Roman tiles bearing official markings reveal more about the materials and techniques used to create such an enormous and luxurious complex.
One of the most intriguing objects is a small marble portrait head believed to depict the Emperor Nero as a boy. It is a rare and fascinating sculpture to find in Roman Britain, and one of the museum's most memorable objects.
If you want to see a little more of what happens behind the scenes at Fishbourne, there is also a Collections Discovery Centre & Lab in a separate building across the car park. It gives visitors a glimpse of the thousands of artefacts recovered from the site, along with ongoing archaeological research and conservation work in the lab. It's a nice addition if you have time to explore beyond the main palace buildings, and we particularly enjoyed spotting that the centre is sponsored by Topps Tiles, which feels like a very fitting partnership for a Roman site full of mosaics.
The Roman Kitchen Café
If you need a break during your visit, the Roman Kitchen Café is open next to the car park from 8.30am until 4.30pm daily, serving hot drinks, cakes, sandwiches and toasties. You can also bring your own picnic and eat it in the gardens, which is a useful option if you're visiting with children or want to make more of an afternoon of your visit.
How long do you need at Fishbourne Roman Palace?
The official palace website suggests allowing around two hours for a visit, although you can easily spend longer if you want to take your time with the museum, mosaics and gardens. We spent around three hours there, arriving at about 1.30pm and leaving at roughly 4.30pm. That included time in the children's activities, looking around the mosaics multiple times, watching the excavation film, exploring the gardens, reading all the information boards in the museum and letting Jamie have plenty of time outside.
With a toddler, we liked having the flexibility to move between the different parts of the site rather than trying to follow a set route.
Fishbourne Roman Palace Before an Evening Portsmouth Ferry
If you have an evening ferry from Portsmouth, Fishbourne gives you somewhere worthwhile to visit during the afternoon before you need to be at the port. It's around half an hour from Portsmouth by car, so you can visit the palace until it closes at 16:30, have dinner in the city afterwards and then continue to the ferry terminal.
We spent around three hours at Fishbourne before driving into Portsmouth for food. That was enough time to see the the site without having to rush, while still leaving plenty of time for the ferry later that evening.
Other useful info:
Is there parking?
Yes, there is free parking at the site.
How much does Fishbourne Roman Palace cost?
At the time of writing, adult admission is £15, children aged 5-17 are £7.50, and children under five go free. Family tickets are also available.
What are the opening hours?
Fishbourne Roman Palace is currently open daily from 10:00 to 16:00 during its main 2026 season. Check the official website before visiting as opening dates and seasonal hours can change.
Pin this blog for later!
