Time Team's Phil Harding opens Chichester's Novium Museum

The Time Team star has won a strong following alongside Tony Robinson since the show started in the mid 90s, blending accessible study with rapid fire examination of a huge variety of British sites.

So it’s a gratifying sign the Salisbury-based archaeologist is approving of Chichester’s new Novium Museum.

Presiding over a special opening preview, he believed the £7m facility with its centrepiece Roman baths, including baths, fourth century Chilgrove mosaic and Jupiter Stone, will prove a major asset.

“I think it’s a wonderful-looking museum and it’s great Chichester has something that’s up to date,” he said. “With a blank sheet of paper like this you can look at new ways of doing things in displaying stories – that’s what it’s all about as we all love stories.

“It should appeal to everyone, to scholars and specialists who work in the business and anyone who lives in the district as it’s their heritage and it will also bring in visitors.

“Chichester has a wealth of history and this will be an attraction for them. “I hope that it’s a great success, as a lot of people have put a lot of work into it.

“It’s hard not to be drawn to those baths – as an archaeologist, if there’s a hole in the ground I’ll want to look at it and see what’s happening within the layers.”

At 62, he still has plenty of energy and passion for his work, which was instilled at a very early stage. He revealed it was a question of ‘archaeology choosing me rather than me choosing it.”

“It wasn’t until I was 15 that I did my actual first dig near Avebury, it was a Romano British site and it had everything you could have wanted from a site including good finds and social history.”

Of all the remarkable places he’s seen, does he have a favourite site he’s visited down the years?

“I think with Time Team, the dig you are on at that moment in time is your favourite. You’ve helped add to the story of that place.

“One of my personal favourite finds was of a Saxon “equal arm broach” – I’d never found anything like it before and the fact it was from a village right near me made that special.

“It’s important to have some moments where you go “wow, look at this” and I found that with things like finding a carbonised crab apple which dated to the Bronze age,” added the archaeologist with a wry laugh, who hopes he’ll also be able to leave something of a direct legacy himself with the archaeological works he’s penned over the past couple of decades.”