Time Team archaeologist to be special guest at preview of new museum in Chichester

Mr Harding will be at the preview event for 'Golden Ticket' winners on Saturday 7 July. Forty golden tickets have been given away allowing up to four people entrance to the special preview of the museum.

The Novium opens to the public at 10am on Sunday 8 July.

Councillor Myles Cullen, Chichester District Council's Cabinet Member for Economy, Property, and Tourism, says: "We are delighted that Phil Harding will be our special guest for the Golden Ticket event.

"The museum is now in the final stages of preparation and we are very much looking forward to welcoming everyone in."

This week a specially-commissioned piece of artwork is being fixed to the front windows of the museum. The work is on the theme of water and has been uniquely designed to link with the Roman bath house remains. The artwork will reduce the light ingress and will help to protect the remains and will enhance the visitors' viewing of the bath house film shown across the remains. The artwork is by architectural glass artist Kirsty Brooks. The Novium's architect Keith Williams has been instrumental in the development of the piece so that it complements the architectural aesthetic of the building.

The museum service has about 150,000 artefacts, both on display, in store. Among the many other fascinating exhibits include the Chilgrove Mosaic and the Jupiter Stone, a portion of Roman sculpture base dated between the late first and early third century AD.

Many of the items have never been on display to the public before. The building is very modern and spacious and the second floor reveals breath-taking views of Chichester Cathedral. The Novium building was designed by the award winning Keith Williams Architects, whose projects include the Wexford Opera House in Ireland and the Unicorn Theatre in London.

Galleries will look at continuity and change across places in the district and influences from different people, as well as to wider technological and social developments.

The museum will also contain a shop with a wide range of local and unique gifts, souvenirs and books and the city's Tourist Information Centre.

The Novium will be open:

• Summer: Monday to Saturday 10am- 5pm, Sunday 10am-4pm; and,
• Winter: Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 10am-4pm.

Admission fee applies.

For your information:

Phil Harding resume:

After he left school, he worked in a puppet factory in Marlborough, until he became a full-timearchaeologist in 1971. He worked initially for the Southampton City Council Archaeology Unit, combining this with five seasons of excavations run by the British Museum at the Neolithic flint mines of Grimes Graves, Norfolk. He has since become an acknowledged expert on flint knapping and is fairly skilled on another crafting technique called 'pressure flaking' where instead of striking the flint with blows, pressure is exerted on the edges to shape the tool.

From the mid-1970s he worked on excavations in Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight for the Department of the Environment. In 1979 the archaeological section of the DOE for the region became Wessex Archaeology, a non-profit organisation which is one of the biggest archaeological practices in the country. He continues to work for Wessex Archaeology when not filming. He has been a member of the Institute of Field Archaeologists since 1985, and in 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. On 24 July 2008, he received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Southampton.

His television work includes Time Team from 1994 to present, Meet the Ancestors and Time Signs.

Date: 26 June 2012

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