If you happened to be around the cathedral last week, you might be forgiven for thinking you had stepped back in time.

Staffed donned Roman armour and welcomes nearly 500 children to the St Albans Cathedral Education Centre to become modern-day Roman for the day.

The children were treated to three activities during their Roman experience days: firstly they learns the story of St Albans, then took part in a "blanket dig" to discover artefacts from different periods, before helping prepare a Roman "cena" or banquet.

Education officer Steve Clarke said of the blanket dig: "This activity is about peeling back the layers of the past, looking for what was lost or broken and giving children the opportunity to handle these artefacts and develop their investigative skills in the process."

The artefacts they uncovered during this task were from Victorian, Tudor, medieval, Roman and Stone Ages, and the children used the knowledge from this activity when they visited an archaeological site currently being excavated by experts.

In the Roman Triclinium, or dining room, on the menu were dates alexandrine (stuffed dates), dulce domestica (fig balls), mixtura (herbed, cheese puree) and melcas (cheese sweetened with honey).