About
The Novium is Chichester's principal museum, telling the story of the city and its surrounding landscape from prehistoric times to the present day. The museum takes its name from Noviomagus Reginorum, the Roman name for Chichester, and this classical connection is far more than nominal — the building is constructed directly over the remains of a Roman public bath house, the substantial ruins of which are visible in the museum's basement and form one of its most remarkable features.
The museum opened in its current form in 2012, replacing the earlier Chichester District Museum that had operated since 1962 in more modest premises. The purpose-built modern building on Tower Street provides generous gallery space, climate-controlled storage, and educational facilities that allow the museum to display and care for its collections to contemporary standards. The architecture makes a feature of the Roman bath house below, with a glass floor section allowing visitors to look down into the ancient remains from the ground floor before descending to explore them at close quarters.
The Roman bath house is a remarkable survival — the walls of the caldarium (hot room), tepidarium (warm room), and frigidarium (cold room) stand to a considerable height, with the underfloor heating channels of the hypocaust system clearly visible. Built in the first century AD as part of the infrastructure of the newly established Roman town, the bath house served the citizens of Noviomagus for several centuries before falling into disuse as Roman authority withdrew from Britain. The preservation of these remains within a modern museum building provides an encounter with Roman engineering and daily life that is immediate and tangible in a way that scattered ruins in an open field cannot match.
Beyond the Roman remains, the museum's collections span the full chronological range of Chichester's history. Prehistoric flint tools from the South Downs and Chichester Harbour area document the earliest human presence in the landscape. Saxon and medieval artefacts trace the development of the city from its re-establishment after the Roman withdrawal through its growth as an important medieval trading centre and cathedral city. The collection of local paintings, prints, and photographs provides a visual record of Chichester's evolution from a Georgian coaching town to the modern city of today.
The museum pays particular attention to the relationship between Chichester and its surrounding landscape — the South Downs to the north, the coastal plain to the south, and the natural harbour to the west. The agricultural, maritime, and market town traditions that shaped the city's economy and character for centuries are explored through objects, images, and personal accounts that connect the urban story to the wider life of the West Sussex countryside.
The Novium also serves as Chichester's community museum, hosting temporary exhibitions that range from local history and art to contemporary social themes, and running an active programme of events, workshops, and educational activities for schools and families. The museum's location in the heart of the city centre, close to the cathedral and market cross, makes it a natural starting point for exploring Chichester's rich historical fabric.
Categories:
Highlights
The Roman Bath House
The museum's most dramatic feature is the substantially preserved Roman public bath house over which the building was constructed.
Descending to the basement, visitors find themselves among the walls of the caldarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium — the hot, warm, and cold rooms of a first-century bathing complex built to serve the citizens of Noviomagus Reginorum. The underfloor hypocaust heating channels are clearly visible, the room layout is legible, and the scale of the remains conveys the engineering ambition and civic investment that Roman public bathing demanded.
A glass floor section on the ground level above provides a dramatic bird's-eye view before the detailed basement exploration.
Roman Chichester — Noviomagus Reginorum
The museum holds an extensive collection of Roman artefacts from Chichester and the surrounding area that illuminate life in one of the most important towns in Roman Britain.
Pottery, metalwork, coins, and personal objects recovered from excavations across the city document the daily lives of Noviomagus's inhabitants — their diet, trade connections, religious practices, and material culture. The collection includes inscriptions and architectural fragments that provide evidence of the town's public buildings and civic administration, placing Chichester's Roman heritage in the context of the wider story of Roman Britain.
Prehistoric Sussex
Flint tools, pottery, and burial goods from the South Downs and Chichester Harbour area document thousands of years of human presence in the landscape before the Roman arrival. The Chichester area was an important focus of activity in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, and the museum's archaeological collections include material from significant local sites that trace the development of farming, trade, and settlement in the Sussex coastal plain and the chalk downland to the north.
These collections place the later Roman and medieval city in the context of a much deeper history of human engagement with this particular landscape.
Medieval and Georgian Chichester
The museum traces Chichester's development from Saxon re-establishment through its growth as a medieval cathedral city and market town to its Georgian heyday as an elegant county town and social centre for the Sussex gentry.
Maps, prints, paintings, and objects chart the changing face of the city across a thousand years, with particular attention to the market cross, the cathedral, the city walls, and the domestic architecture that gives Chichester its distinctive Georgian character. The connection between the city and its agricultural hinterland — the fertile coastal plain and the South Downs — is explored through objects and accounts that reveal Chichester's role as the commercial and social hub of West Sussex.
Collections
Roman Bath House
The museum's basement gallery housing the preserved remains of a first-century Roman public bath house — with walls, hypocaust channels, and room layout visible at close quarters, and a glass floor section providing an overhead view from the ground level.
Chichester: A City Through Time
The principal permanent gallery tracing the history of Chichester from prehistoric flint tools and Roman Noviomagus through Saxon, medieval, Georgian, and Victorian periods to the present day — with archaeology, art, photographs, and personal objects.
Landscapes of Chichester
A gallery exploring the relationship between Chichester and its surrounding landscape — Chichester Harbour, the coastal plain, and the South Downs — and the ways in which these environments have shaped the city's economy, culture, and identity.
Current Exhibitions
A community exhibition drawing on photographs, objects, and memories donated by local residents to capture the changing character of Chichester from the mid-twentieth century to the present — recording the shops, streets, events, and personalities that shaped the city within living memory.