The Healing Power of Heritage
Activities free with your admission!
Normal entrance prices apply.
Join us as we celebrate this year’s Festival of Archaeology with the inspiring theme of Archaeology and Wellbeing. Set against the backdrop of our beautiful site, this special event invites you to explore how people in the past found meaning, balance, and calm in everyday life.
Get hands-on with ancient crafts, from pottery to chalk carving and more, and discover how these traditional skills can connect us to the past - and to ourselves. Through immersive activities, we’ll explore the role of mindfulness, ritual, and creativity in ancient communities, and how these practices can still support wellbeing today.
Reconnect, relax, and uncover the healing power of heritage at Butser Ancient Farm.
The Festival of Archaeology is run each year by the Council for British Archaeology. This year’s theme is Archaeology and Wellbeing.
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Monday 28th July
10am - 12:30pm - Get crafty with Maddy from Artscape
1:30pm - 3:30pm - Get crafty with Maddy from Artscape
Tuesday 29th July
All Day - Clay therapy - Get your hands dirty and explore the calm of working with clay
11:30am - Guided Site Tour with our Experimental Archaeologist
1:30pm - Talk on Historic Uses of Plants for Wellbeing with Sally Murdoch
Wednesday 30th July
All day- Clay therapy - Get your hands dirty and explore the calm of working
11:30am - Storytelling for the Soul
12pm - Intergenerational Excavation - Children and adults explore hands-on archaeology together
1pm - Storytelling for the Soul
1:30pm - Intergenerational Excavation - Children and adults explore hands-on archaeology together
Thursday 31st July
All day- Chill out with chalk - Take a moment and connect with the past
11am - 3pm - Meet the Experimentalists!
11:30am - Storytelling for the soul
12pm - Intergenerational Excavation - Children and adults explore hands-on archaeology together
1pm - Storytelling for the soul
1:30pm - Intergenerational Excavation - Children and adults explore hands-on archaeology together
Friday 1st August
All Day - Chill out with chalk - Take a moment and connect with the past through one of the world’s oldest artistic media.
All Day - Spin, Connect, Reflect - Learn how to make a trollen wheel
1pm - Sound Shaman - An immersive meditative musical experience by Rhiannon Randle, Musician-in-Residence
2pm - Powerful plants - health and wellbeing from Romano British gardens - A tour of the Formal Roman Garden with Kathryn Bingham
3pm - Sound Shaman - An immersive meditative musical experience by Rhiannon Randle, Musician-in-Residence
Annual Passholders get free admission to the farm any day we’re open for general admission — you only need to visit twice before you’re quid’s in! Learn more.
DOGS: Please feel free to bring your dogs with you! We just ask that they are well-behaved and kept on leads at all times.
REFUNDS: If we aren’t able to open the farm on the day of your visit, you will of course be completely refunded. Unfortunately in any other circumstances we aren’t able to offer refunds.
COVID-19: We’re still being careful, and will follow the government advice at the time. We’re a mostly-outdoors site, and encourage people to mask indoors if it makes them more comfortable. If you have any symptoms of COVID-19 or have been asked to self-isolate when you’re due to visit, please stay at home and take care of yourself.