The Magic of Middle-Earth

Chichester is a brilliant little city, filled with history, eclectic shops, and a real community spirit. The term ‘city’ usually makes me think of tall buildings and thousands of people rushing about to their next destination, but Chichester, whilst still busy, holds none of that urgency, making it the perfect place to celebrate the life and work of the infamous J. R. R. Tolkien, best known for ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ sagas.

The Novium Museum is just off West Street, opposite Chichester Library. Walking in we were greeted by friendly and helpful staff, who gave us our stickers for the exhibit entry and directions to the exhibit hall. As we turned to leave the museum reception, I finally noticed the huge Roman building excavation below the main floor of the museum, as well as huge rock bricks, the size of a dining room table, and a bright blue Roman shield. But, before we got too distracted, my sister whisked us all upstairs to the exhibit.

After deciding to take the stairs, despite a lift being available, and one of the best designed lifts in existence (although I’ll get to that in a moment!), we reached the doors to the exhibit. Before heading inside, we took a moment to look out the huge window over the roofs of Chichester and across the road to the Cathedral. It was a stunning view with little factoids and notes about the history of the view peppered along the bottom of the window.

We entered the exhibit, and I instantly heard the familiar melodic notes of Howard Shore’s ‘Concerning Hobbits’, a personal favourite piece of mine that I often use in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Sounds and sights from the Tolkienverse came thick and fast. A flaming Balrog bust, the mine dwelling creature from 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' and the Amazon series 'Rings of Power', burst into view. The next thing in my line of sight was some original artwork inspired by Tolkien’s works. Paintings of shire-like houses and farms, the chaotic and brilliant Tom Bombadil (who was cut from the movies!), and some slightly darker forest themed scenes.

I then turned to a full wall of glass cases, filled to the brim with books, prop replicas, and information about Tolkien’s life. I spent what felt like the entire Second Age poring over all the placards and nuggets of information next to the replicas and books before moving round to the Hobbit setting. This setting had a halfling sized table and stool which were impossible to sit on! Next to these was a dress up station where you could become a Hobbit and climb onto the huge chair and pretend to sip from your tankard at The Prancing Pony in Bree.

The rest of the exhibit featured comics, music and games all inspired by Tolkien’s works and I was surprised to find an animatronic dragon at the end of the room! As we were leaving the room to explore the rest of the museum (which is free), we decided to take the lift... and as it opened, we were greeted with a scene from inside a space station! I couldn’t get a photo to do it justice, but it’s super realistic and filled with information about space travel.

Exploring the rest of the museum was also very interesting, there were lots of Roman history and artifacts including a lead coffin and a couple of skeletons. This small museum is filled with loads of local history mainly from the Saxon and Roman periods, but also the Victorian era, brilliant for any history buff, and a great way to spend time in the relaxing city of Chichester.