4 Best Sights in The Southeast, England

Below ground, at the level of the remnants of Roman Canterbury, this small but informative museum tells the story of the area's distant Roman past. Highlights of the collection include a hypocaust (the Roman version of central heating) and two colorful floor mosaics dating from around the year 270 that were unearthed in the aftermaths of the bombs that fell on Canterbury during World War II. Displays of excavated objects—some of which you can hold in the Touch the Past area—and computer-generated reconstructions of Roman buildings and the marketplace help recreate the past.

In 1960, workers digging a water-main ditch uncovered a Roman wall, thus beginning a decade of painstaking archaeological excavation of this site, which revealed the remains of the largest, grandest Roman villa in Britain. Intricate mosaics (including Cupid riding a dolphin) and painted walls lavishly decorate what is left of many of the 100 rooms of the palace, built in the 1st century AD, possibly for local chieftain Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus. You can explore the sophisticated bathing and heating systems, along with the only example of a Roman garden in northern Europe. An extension has added many modern attributes, including a video reconstruction of how the palace might have looked. The site is 1½ miles west of Chichester town center, a 30-minute walk.

Set over three floors, this fascinating museum tells the story of Chichester and the surrounding area over the last 500,000 years. It's built around the remains of a Roman Bathhouse, so an entire floor is given over to life in Roman Chichester (or Noviomagus Reginorum, as it was known then). Explore further, and you'll delve both back and forward in time, with exhibits ranging from Bronze Age remains to 17th-century memorials. There are also excellent, regularly changing exhibitions on local history.

The medieval Poor Priests' Hospital is the site of this quirky local museum, where exhibits provide an overview of the city's history and architecture from Roman times to World War II. It covers everything and everyone associated with the town, including the mysterious death of the 16th-century writer Christopher Marlowe and the British children's book and TV characters Rupert the Bear and Bagpuss. Look out for the beautiful (and tiny) gold dragon pendant, an Anglo-Saxon treasure that was made in Kent around 1,200 years ago.