Field Trip to Butser Ancient Celtic Farm

What better way to round off our study of the Celts than to visit a “real” (reconstructed) Celtic village?  I love the way learning leads the way to new experiences – I didn’t even know Butser Ancient Celtic Farm existed until recently, and there it was just 40 minutes’ drive away, waiting for us to spend a very pleasant Sunday exploring.

Everything at the Farm has been constructed using authentic Celtic/Iron Age materials. The houses looked just like our model Celtic Roundhouse (not! :-D)

The Farm was having a Celtic weekend when we visited, which meant there were lots of hands-on activities to try.

C ground grain into flour (rather coarse flour – apparently Celts’ teeth were very worn down!).

She mixed flour, yeast, oats and water to make a kind of bread which she baked on a Celtic stove.

She also made yarn out of sheep’s wool.

We crushed chalk, used for building roundhouses and levelling their floors.

There was even a mock archaeological “dig”!

The site also houses a reconstructed Roman villa …

…complete with underfloor heating.

There was an opportunity to make mosaics in the Roman house.

While C was baking, spinning and grinding,  J was hunting around the village for the answers to a scavenger-hunt-style quiz on Celtic kings and Roman emperors.

Our field trip was a perfect complement to our study of the Celts and a great introduction to the Romans. 🙂