➤ Time Team's Top 3 BATHHOUSES

this is freeth in North Wales it's a small village of about 400 people with a Main Street about three other streets no shops and two pubs so they've got their priorities right here anyway back in the 1960s in the back Garden of this house and a few other houses down the street some local archaeologists dug some trenches underneath that concrete and under that glass house they discovered a series of walls and some bits of pot and tile and some Roman coins and they thought they'd got a Roman bath house but is it and if so what's it doing here time team have got just three days to find out thank you freeth is here in North Wales just across the border from Chester Center of Roman occupation in the Northwest the reason that the local archaeologists want us to dig here is because they think this is really special and it's never been properly excavated Harry have you any idea how important your garden actually is no idea at all I just believe there's some Roman walls underneath and that's about it really what have we got well we've got a collection that's how he says of Roman walls or excavations carried out here in the 60s and we found various plans which show possibly some rectangular buildings possibly a circular building possibly a building with an apps on it a semicircular projection on one side but the fact of the matter is we don't really know what the building is what's that look like to you Mick well it's been suggested it's a bath house but I think the problem is all the plans are different and really if we're going to understand it we ought to re-excavate it and see what it looks like in the ground we're beginning to dismantle Harry's Garden it's taking a bit of time because of the path and the stuff around it [Music] next door Phil's moving a bit faster he just had grass to go through [Music] oh fence between the two gardens just has to go it'll be easier to work without it The Village itself runs north south and the Main Street follows the line of office Dyke the Dyke built in the 8th century is now under these houses behind them is the village playing field it was scheduled as an ancient Monument because Roman material was found along the edges the authorities have given us permission to have a look at it well look these thicker dots are presumably where they've got higher readings its resistance survey so that could be Stone buildings [Applause] [Music] it's pouring down now so the incident room is suddenly very busy yeah well it's the problem when we're actually outside Stuart and Henry are looking at the overall topography this 3D map of the area Victor reisan and Sally a Roman baths expert are looking at what a bath house might have looked like Teddy's got this most similar layout although it's half the size and John has now got some geophys results for the playing field these are results from 20 years ago that's our area we've surveyed now if you compare the two take no results perfect match very very similar aren't they I mean it really is good because from what we know in the 60s they stopped here right that over there is brand spanking you virgin ground never been dug before and that will answer the question of all this Rubble it will give us a continuation of the war it will also give us the inside of the building and also it will give us a brand spanking new set of fines this is the wall fills found in the 60s another wall was found in this corner Phil's new trench will provide the missing link between the two if this lines up we'll either have a circular building or one with an apps a semi-circular projection on one side [Music] and he finds associated with it will give us a date for this wall at the moment we've no way of even knowing whether it's Roman or not so okay the Roman army might have been here but why here there are a number of possibilities um first of all freeze is actually on the line of the main Roman Road which runs from the leisury Fortress at Chester over there down through the center and up through this Valley on into Central Wales and eventually the West Coast so out in the playing field Helens opened a very large trench but has very little to show for it we were thinking we'll be coming down onto something structural or not horribly natural yeah is that something you might Quarry out to build a road well exactly but we did have a bit of luck with some Roman fines yeah well from here yeah yeah from the top layers just the star one the actual star piece of romance but this was from very much higher Arc this is from the more like the Ridge and furrows so you either thought that was from the flower pot and here we are a nice piece of Sigma inum quite a big bit really that's looking like a proper archeology now yeah I think we've got undisturbed Roman wall there and undisturbed Roman floors at the bottom there yeah undisturbed Roman but it's understood Roman only since the mid-1960s when they dug it up last time yeah [Music] the only thing this line of stones here is very similar to what you've got in there it's probably the same line oh in other words whatever that wall is it's not going anywhere else but it's coming down here it does line up does it well we need to get Henry in nowhere to ask him to look look if you stand here look you can see the shed hey if you're standing over here you can see the corner of the shed look so he must be going under this garage wasn't it to come out under the fence if he's right it's not a bath house it's a wall at least 15 meters long and it looks more like again like as if it's a field wall doesn't it he's done it it's sort of here before the house is a put here we open up the wall that Mick tripped over it does seem to line up with fills and is on the same height in the extension to Phil's trench he's found the wall but he's also found this ditch inside the ditch we're coming across a range of good finds and they're all Roman look at that you see the little projection on the side yes and then the thinness of the glass and also I think you can make out some little air bubbles in it very characteristic of Roman glass what else and the star exhibit a Roman brooch oh yes that's p-shaped p-shaped roach there should be another one of these on this side so there's a gap down the middle they join at the bottom for the tail here but it is an unusual type approach and I think it probably belongs to the late second century on into the third okay these fines give us some relief but they date the ditch in Phil's trench the wall is still a mystery I'm absolutely happy in my own mind at that roleman I've done all quite ditch is Roman but how can he get a date for the wall digging here might give us a point where this wall and this ditch cross that way we'll be able to tell if the walls Roman or if it comes after the Roman period what we've got is this sort of rectilinear arrangement right yeah yeah this reported Roman fines just over the road there yeah I mean that's such a positive result I think we ought to pop a hole in another look which is what we do pretty soon there's quite a crowd around having a look I'd say you've got a good one there looks like a mortar floor it does it's nice and thick isn't it and look you're going to say that when I dug down in that hole there it's still carrying on down and this is a wall Tracy if anybody deserves a drink it's you too after what we've done to your garden wait have you seen this this is our star fine so far it's a dice like a snakes and ladders dice it's not been thrown for 1800 years we'd been chucking it giving her luck over the last couple of days what would we have got ones and twos oh come on Johnny would it at least two three days ago this was our starting point a map of stone walls joined together by archaeologists and historians in a way that suggested a very big bath complex in this area we now know that they were wrong most of these walls weren't even Roman except for this one but then just when we thought that was it [Music] Bridge things starting to come together in your trench yeah it's absolutely brilliant look we've got a Roman ditch coming up here yeah just uncover what looks like a Roman post hole in the piece of resistance is this piece of doorbell as in Watling door yeah so where would the wattle have gone two pieces would have fitted it just in there it is extraordinary how things always start to come together towards the end of day three and it being day three we've got as usual three quarters of the local population but what's so strange is that in addition to all the things that we've got in Bridget's trench in Matt's trench we've got something similar what have you got for us oh we're down on the bottom clay floor here and if you look really carefully you can see these circular evenly spaced stains that's where wooden Stakes would have been and they'd have held up a small wall of partition wall or something like that so there is Roman here it's just much more ephemeral than we thought it would be it's wattle and dorb and mud and post holes it's not made of stone oh wow I mean I'm over the Moon I mean we came looking for a bath house and it's always nice to be able to put the record straight we now know that there is no bath house and then to cap it all we've been able to confirm some of their results which was this wonderful stone-built wing of a Roman building tessellated floor lovely floors and Spinners yes it's darker it really is what a great Optimist you are what is it that we've got what we've got is a whole complex of buildings here quite what it is is more difficult to interpret because he's clearly not a Roman villa neither is it something like a Roman fort Steward came up with the idea that this is actually the nearest supply of limestone to Chester why that's important is you need vast amounts of limestone to make lime for the mortar and the plaster and everything when you're building the permanent Fort there and you'd need a gang of laborers basically to do that so you probably ought to think of this as some sort of industrial military compound of people who are producing all that material to send back over to Chester and I quite like that idea it's wonderful having a quiet little conversation at the end of the day with just the five of us and uh 350 local people go away time team is a hundred percent independent and funded by our incredible fans joining patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews 3D models master classes and more please join us on this exciting Journey we need more support to make more episodes in 43 A.D the Romans invaded Britain with their Shining Armor and their Mediterranean Sun Tans and their Imperial Army but they were deeply resented by the Iron Age Brits and it was centuries before the country was well and truly romanized at least that's the story we know and love but here in an idyllic part of Somerset is a site that tells a very different story The Local archaeological Society have uncovered a villa built within Decades of the Roman Invasion what's more it seems to have been occupied by Brits so were the locals as hostile as we think what was going on here can we sort out the strange story of Black Lands we've only got a limited amount of time just days just years after their arrival the Romans had constructed bath in the southwest a major Roman Center of grand Stone buildings the defeated Brits meanwhile were living in wooden roundhouses and sticking with their tribal culture or were they the society believed the Villa looks like this and early fines suggested dates to the First Century A.D they also believe that the Villa complex was built by Britain's already living at blacklands at the time of Conquest britons who were quick to adopt Roman ways but are they right can this site point us to the day the Romans arrived we're facing some soggy work down a hole that may hide key evidence to understanding the site Bridge is that a well it is why are we digging it well I mean a hole's just a hole isn't it well it is but this is quite a significant one because this is meant to be dated to the very very early Roman period of our first Century A.D and it's significantly over top of an late Iron Age ditch and of course at the bottom of where you get lots of fines and we just want to see what those finds are and get some more dating evidence that kind of thing Kerry you're our health and safety bloke how are we going to dig that without killing ourselves what we're going to do we're going to put a machine slot in front of the well get down as far as we can safely and then we're going to board it and Shore it so we can work from the outside of the well and we'll have section it as we go [Music] as we prepare for the next storm Matt gets stuck into the Villa Trench I guess this probably came from the Villa if you reckon I would have thought so yeah it seems like the explanation that we've got the demolition dump in the top of the gutter so interesting to see what date that that is our own gear Fizz results are also giving us plenty to get our teeth into pretty good Helen opens her trench where the geophys results show a mysterious Crossing of ditches that may hold fines within minutes a new find emerges stone tile it's got that reddish kind of purpley look isn't it it's got a point to it yeah I think it's worth uh that could be a rooftop worth asking because if it is a roof tile it's not the first one yeah when the Romans arrived Southwest Britain was divided up into tribes such as the daboni while they were Brit to a hostile to Roman Imperial expansion others particularly those who were already trading with Rome were more welcoming and more likely to build a romanized building you've got this Iron Age landscape and suddenly plonked into the middle of it you get this super modern Villa how do they know what to build where do they get the ideas and the Craftsman from well you've got a lot of things happening very close to here go 10 miles to the north and you've got Roman town of bath now this is somewhere where a huge investment is taking place in the 60s and 70s they're probably Masons coming across from Gaul probably Roman Engineers building this massive Monumental Temple and everything that goes with it and I think what John says is correct but I think you've also got to accept that there are people here in the late Iron Age who are probably already important already perhaps High status on what they're doing and that's before the conquest and after the conquest what they do is develop a Roman villa perhaps referring to sites in Southeastern England to show off their allegiance to the new Authority perhaps and their links to the southeast of England and their knowledge of building structures so what would the people around here have felt who couldn't afford this lovely Swanky New Roman villa I think intimidated to start with by it's like thinking about medieval Cathedral sort of peasant going and suddenly seeing this huge sparring Tower this is that'd be in all of it and that's what they feel when they go to see bath okay a small little Villa like this is not quite the same but it's very alien architecture yeah most people in the region of the time are still living in round houses so somebody who builds a Villain Like This is showing off their links to the new political Authority or it could be seen this huge faux pas like someone putting up Stone cladding on their building I'll go with that on the Villa site Matt's been having trouble finding a definite date for The Villa's Construction demolition rubble's been dated to the second century so it's definitely a very early Villa but he could have been built as much as 50 years after the Romans arrived so were there people living here at the time of Conquest we're adding to the pottery finds that paint an unexpected picture so what sort of date range of Roman material we got here mark well we just got a small selection here and we've been really starting with the later part of the first century ID right and the second century IED but we've also got some late Romans some 4th Century IUD but it's predominantly late first and second century but we've got a bit of a gap with the earliest Roman Pottery we have not yet been able to recognize any Pottery that dates from the period of the Roman Conquest through to about 80 75 or they're about so that's about 30 years missing at the beginning of the Romans right right that's right yeah that's what I would say does that indicate that there are gaps in the sort of buildings and occupation on the cycling well it's looking increasingly to me from the pottery that we ought to have another building somewhere right well that's a bit of a conundrum yes I mean you're presumably not thinking of a villa type structure at all are you no I wouldn't expect a villa at that though you're probably thinking about a Timber building a Farmstead it could conceivably still be a roundhouse at this phase and just making the transition to a more rectilinear romanized Timber building right well we better have a look at the geophysics where that might be yeah if we find a missing building it may reveal romanization no longer wooden and round but rectangular or stone built then in Helen's trench we find hints of just such a structure trench in here because she thought there might be a big ditch here and sure enough you can see that against the clay there but it's this side of the trench that you started getting really excited about yeah look we seem to have found a wall it's got these great big stones in it and the fines that are coming off are interesting we've got a piece of samian wear and a lovely rim of black burnished where good Roman stuff but then we've also got a piece of clay pigeon so we're really not sure what the date might be yet I mean the thing is we didn't know it was here because we'd only done a magnetic survey we got the ditched enclosure but we didn't see this wall I mean if this is a building then it puts a whole different perspective on it where is the ditched enclosure well you say ditched in closer but hang on I'm standing on the corner it's 30 meters long that way it's 10 meters long that way could it actually be a huge Great Big Timber building this enclosure and if that's possible could that stone wall be the replacement in stone so we could maybe have a sequence how do we find out well we're just about ready to extend the trench and we're going to go exactly that way where you are so I think you better move all right about the West country weather is proving a challenge [Music] in past excavations the local Society have uncovered what seems to be a major Gatehouse designed for the Villa the two supporting Towers had massive footings and they're bothering Stewart I mean what's real news about that Gatehouse is a scale I mean that's a substantial building that scale that six meters by three meters for each Tower something of that older you'd expect either on the fort or a big Villa it seems totally out of context in relationship to that very small building it seems half the size of the actual villa which it must all fit really in respect that would make it really unique and unusual it pauses me when I'd have something so big with that I think it just needs a little bit more work to see if it can get to the bottom of what this structure really is but at least we've already solved one mystery yesterday in this trench we planned a major excavation it looked like there was going to be a 20 or 30 foot deep well in here didn't it there and you were going to shore it up around the outside it was you know half section it I was make sure that none of us were hurt because your our health and safety man I was yes look what we've ended up with yep it's pathetic it is pathetic what's happened is they've taken out their back bill from the last time they excavated it and it bottomed out to about three inches three inch I can't tell you how excited he was about this how long have you been planning it uh for weeks and I've had generators scaffolding uh acros everything in for this and this is what we've ended up with it is but my primary concern is my tent which is in that hedge over there [Music] what are you what are you on in terms of light yesterday Phil's trench gave us a worked Iron Age antler he's now convinced he's digging within an Iron Age Roundhouse but could his Iron Age site be much bigger and run into our second field below what's the news then we've got our village I could not have been more wrong about this tell me what I said this morning I I had this Vision in my mind that this would be full around houses and it's absolutely fantastic but it's nothing like what I predicted at all what have we got instead I mean we've got a massive ditch continuing round I mean it circles around for 40 meters it seems to be a really large enclosure so that means that before the Romans came there was this huge presumably one building well with this enclosure I think that's what we don't know because I mean you know we assume this is Iron Age going with this but actually we don't know that do we we need to look no we've got to dig this really yeah but what we really need to do is get some dating evidence from this field and we think go for this entrance it's very exciting it is yeah yeah [Music] so Matt opens a trench in the second field inside a ditched enclosure if it is Iron Age it would have been built to enclose the iron aged roundhouse in film's tent hurry I've got Mark for you where he comes up trumps I'm all of a quiver I really am I know what I found but I don't know what the detail is you've I've never found anything like this before oh my word it's an Iron Age coin I know that's what give me detail right well it certainly belongs to the group that we'd call dubonic or Southwestern British we've got a lovely head there with them see the nose chin eyes and hair and there should be a horse on the other side yes there is and there's the horse with the triple tail so this is before the Romans have arrived yeah almost up to a century before the Romans arrived I didn't realize they were making coins there yes coinage appears in Britain towards the very beginning of the first century BC or the end of the second century BC and reaches this area by about 60 70 BC what would that horse signify well the horse is a very common symbol on Iron Age coins and it may be a symbol of luck and also perhaps power and authority so Phil what does this coin tell us about what was happening in your Trench I mean presumably it's it's a high status object where these things don't turn up on everything I've just never found anything like that before I've seen pictures of them but we've got to also place in our mind that that we do have this big roundhouse this 15 meter diameter roundhouse now that is a high status building and I think you know the highest status building is going to go with a man of power it's the sort of guy who would have that coin yeah possibly so you're mildly pleased to Affair I am just over the moon literally all of equipment I just can't believe it the most fun that Phil could have without a stone tool in his hands first Iron Age coin ever excavated on time team and it begins a flood of fines from all over the site I don't think we've had window glass no Jane said we have haven't found any on the site before yeah what a lovely color the technique in making it is to blow a great big bubble and then snip it down the middle and open it out flat this is a beautiful thing we've gone down into another layer a lower layer in the pet here and we're coming up with these really lovely fine wigs and I just like your opinion on their date yeah we'll start with the same room stats south gaulish from Southern France yeah and I think that's from a sort of shallow plate or platter known as a form a team but it's a type that probably dates I don't know you're probably looking at the last 30 years of the first century ID which is interesting oh great Bridges fines are just some 40 years from the time of Conquest but we still lack evidence of occupation from the actual transition point from the Iron Age to the Roman period lovely there's the let's keep it on the trail actually until we can get it in the tray oh lovely now what are you looking for I'm just first of all just looking at the profile as the first chance to get it it is a classic sort of mid first century AED Corden jar profile I think this is probably going to belong to somewhere towards the middle of the First Century A.D it is in fact right on that transition say that date again the middle of the First Century A.D middle of the first century just either side of the conquest I was going to say that's sort of 50 A.D which is about the time of the conquest right at last we've got firm evidence of people living somewhere around here at the time of the Roman Conquest a pot imported from the Roman Empire for wealthy britons of course it doesn't give us the exact location of the conquest period building but it's a big step back in the second field maps at the bottom of what we think is the entrance to a huge enclosure located by Gia Fizz so how are you getting on with this ditch then Matt well I think I've just about got to the moment now finally it's a little deeper than I thought it was going to be yeah it's enormous isn't it yeah and at the bottom it's kind of claggy clay deposit with bits of charcoal and I found one bit of pot out of it and I just want to have a look at it oh it looks good well it's definitely late on age that's excellent so that confirms that the ditch was dug in the late Iron Age then and backfilled in their own period yeah excellent because all that was roaming down to about there yeah but the initial digging is is later Iron Age brilliant she's got the rest of them great so Matt ditch is a massive Iron Age enclosure around Phils and bridges trench the pottery has shown that the living area at the time of Conquest is also within this enclosure from the geophys and huge curve of her trench Bridge suspects her rubbish pit May cover another roundhouse and she's found a fixture what's that thing there well this is really neat this looks like it's a pivot Stone from a door so you've had the frame coming out of here and the door pivoting back and forth like that yeah that's good there we go all right that's very nice got that triangular shape there and that you can see the groove Mark in the side there where the with a pivot of the door frame would have come up there you can see where it's been wearing away so it's quite a sophisticated building what might it have been well potentially we have a stone-built roundhouse possibly built after the Roman conquest by people using Roman Pottery so if we've got a romanized roundhouse that's a completely different part of the story isn't it it is but we knew we were lacking a building at that Pier because we got the pots we haven't got a structure to go with it looks if Bridge might have found it and the reason we haven't found it before is it's been demolished so is it that when the Romans arrived here the high status locals didn't just go oh well we better move into uh classic Roman house they just use some Roman technology and Incorporated it into their own roundhouses and only Built a romanized house later yeah they continue sometimes to live into roundhouses until they build the Villa perhaps but this could be the missing link it could be but I'm going to go down and find that for you with just a few hours to go Helen's rectangular feature has given way to another structure entirely one of stone and so romanized this is looking a lot better anyway it looks like a proper excavation yeah it certainly does it's looking absolutely gorgeous but we've still got a few problems like well everybody agrees that this is an Iron Age roundhouse well this sort of area in the middle yeah yeah with these stones from round in an arc yeah and it's got Eve strip Gully thing and all the things that you'd expect from an Iron Age roundhouse yeah except it's only got one solitary single piece of Iron Age Pottery right so there is a possibility that it could actually be a Roman roundhouse so we've got Matt digging a trench across the wall to try to find out and Tom is working away at a post hole which could also be Associated to try to find something that's earlier so what about this war then well the wall is a real Enigma because it did seem to turn that end pretty certain and then Peter out but then at this end it just kind of gets a bit lumpy and and stops it just seems to be a wall in the middle of nowhere and that's really odd it doesn't relate to a building as far as you can see it's all then does it no absolutely not as she runs out of time Helen's Roman walls remain a mystery she thinks she's got a romanized roundhouse but the date remains elusive Bridge though has found an even more impressive building hi bridge what's good on Earth is that are you impressed I mean it looks as though we've got massive foundations God it does doesn't it I mean that's clearly been carefully laid Yeah and look we've got a construction cut running around this side and it's curving up in that direction through there so we've got good levels on all of these yeah and this Pit's cut through the top of it yeah and actually what's really nice about it is you can see where they've actually put the pit in they've been digging away digging away and then gone bang against these and realize oh blow that why move them out the way and just win over the top yes it looks like a massive footing yeah have you had any material from around it or within it all of this here in front of you around this Foundation let's have a look we've got some decorated Salient well that looks to me as we've had all the data about 60 to 80 or you do that's good that's earlier than what we were having yeah it is and I mean looking at this this this looks like good sort of late Iron Age bead room but it's also appearing with the sort of earliest romanized forms as well so we're definitely looking I think at that period about 60 to 80. so this really is filling the time that we've had for structures and occupation indeed can you imagine how what the size of this building must have been truly astonishing and you know unusual in any context in Roman Britain I'd say to seek foundations on this scale in the countryside this early in the last minutes of the day Bridge has revealed what we've been looking a romanized building constructed by Brits within a few Decades of the Romans arrival over the last three days you've got more and more excited about this site yeah I think it's been a fantastic site why well it's it's that Junction between pre-history and the Roman period and you know we're right on it I think we're right on it more or less where we're standing actually in the three days we've found the site where romanization first took hold at blacklands we've uncovered three round houses and while Helen's remains undated the heart of the story is in Phil's High status Iron Age one and bridges massive Stone one from those critical years after the Romans arrived and our fines paint a picture of the people at blacklands who adopted Roman ways so quickly Pottery revealing trade with the continent Rare Coins belonging to the powerful and wealthy pretty good few days absolutely this site promised so much and it delivered even more not only did we extend the Roman Life of this place by about 200 years not only did we get right into the heart of an Iron Age roundhouse but we got very close to the people who were living here at that extraordinary moment in time when the Romans arrived here in Somerset time team is 100 independent and funded by our incredible fans want us to make more episodes joining patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews 3D models master classes and more and you get to have your say in the process as we develop new sites this is withington in the Cotswolds an area of outstanding Beauty with a rich farmland and some very classy houses in Roman times it seems to have been pretty much the same because 200 years ago Plowman somewhere around here discovered a huge Villa excavations revealed some Exquisite mosaics but no one was able to date The Villa and there's no record of exactly where it was but that's just the beginning of our story 200 meters below the Villa field is this lovely little spring and guess what Roman mosaic and Roman tile have been found here and in this field over here no one's dug here but the two sites are too close together not to be connected could the big Villa over there have had a huge complex of buildings down here I think it could but I'm more interested actually in the spring which is under the bush over there this is called withington by the wall well which rather suggest it was you know perhaps named in the Saxon period and we know that Romans when they come in they often take over pre-existing sites like Springs which are religious interest and put temples and turn them into their own religious sites Temple well maybe this is a very unusual location it's very wet down here there's a lot of water about it's going to flood I think it's much more likely that main Villas further up the slope but perhaps this is the predecessor the early villa which is then replaced with the later Villa further up the slope David what about these bits of Mosaic do they give us a clue well this could belongs to an early Villa um but I think it's more likely a bath house so so we could have elaborate bathhouse associated with with the Villa either down here up there or and perhaps we could have a swimming pool associated with an early Bella the the important thing which I keep going back to is what is the relationship between what is happening down here and the really big Villa up there all right if you were all gambling men which I know that none of you are what are you gonna say this is Temple I'd like a temple early Villa swimming pool we're not going to know till we start digging are we going no sooner has Phil got the turf off the Mosaic pieces start appearing got our first one look oh nice over yeah what the matter it proves Roger wouldn't plant in them hold on there's another one out all over the place yeah the Villa was excavated by an eminent antiquarian called Samuel license and that's the problem really because he seems to be more interested in chasing mosaics than he was in working out the extent of the Villa so our first job's gonna have to be to find it but John we've got these zonking great pylons here aren't they going to get in your way it shouldn't be too much of a problem these instruments are designed to filter out that sort of noise there are so many tesseri or pieces of Mosaic coming out in the lower field that Phil's put the machine away to avoid any damage to the archeology in the very front of your Spade that one yeah another one there nice one that's loads of found loads and all I've done topsoil from there to there and about 10. but what we want is to get him in a floor because that's what we want we've barely been going five hours Phil says he's found something to bring me out in Goose pimples what you got oh look this is what we got we got a mosaic look there it is isn't that absolutely incredible and look it goes right the way across there it's still going there look it's still going look there it goes and you can see so there it is let's have a ghost there see there it is it's still here two square meters already wow I know and of course it's going back in through there and the further it goes back in there the better protected I think it's going to be because I think here we're right on the edge of where it's been taken away by the plowing when we say a Roman Mosaic this is just white with the occasional bit of red in isn't it it's not it's not pretty oh come on Tony what do you mean it's not pretty look it's a Roman Mosaic how often do you find a Roman Mosaic just like that on day one very very rarely Jeff is who've split into two teams have a hunch there's also a villa down here by the river their first magnetic results told us where to dig Now by using resistance they should be able to pinpoint the walls and the outline of any building that may be here our first trench in the upper field has delivered good archeology but we can't begin any evaluation work on the scheduled Villa until we're sure that we found it Rich where are we we're on a Roman wall you can see it's completely running off in that direction and we've got two faces one running up here and one on this side here it's moving about 50 centimeters across but the problem is what's going on on either side of it we've got this really dense material here we've got various things coming out of it compacted material look we've got here tisserie coming up we've also got a few bits of this great way of Roman Pottery oh look even licenses beer bottle I don't think that's Roman by the end of our first day we found more archeology than we often see in three days there's even a second Mosaic up the other end of Phil's Trench the problem as always is understanding what's going on what we've actually got at this end of the trench I think we're outside the building and you can see we've got the collapsed roof which has come sliding down out here here's the main uh back wall or front wall of the building this we now know is a corridor going through so your straight edge becomes part of the next wall which has been robbed and now inside here we've got the main rooms of the building with a collapsed Mosaic where's the Mosaic man we've got one piece there that bit there and that long piece going across there so it's quite extensive isn't it so what are we going to do here tomorrow well we've got John's new geophysics this has got the resistance on it doesn't it yeah and I think what's exciting about the results is when we've only got the magnetic we thought Moon might have just a simple maybe three-roomed Villa now we've got the resistance it clearly shows that the room's extend in this direction it's much bigger and more complex than we thought so we're going to do a bit more with this area tomorrow and then Target a train somewhere in the middle ear probably a 10 by 10 something like that and what about our Villa up there well the big news Tony is we've actually found licenses Villa but the problem is you don't know where we are in it so we're gonna get a trench across it tomorrow let's work out where we are on his plan the Romans were renowned for their water engineering it seems odd to go to such trouble to bring fresh running water down to these buildings from a spring further up the valley when the river was so close in the lower field our Roman experts might have the answer they've been looking at the fines from this trench and they're now convinced that the building was a bath house a basic Roman bath house had three rooms a warm room a hot room to sweat out your dirt and a cold plunge pool to cool off they think we're digging in the hot room oh come on how can you tell that from one trench because it's got distinctive types of tile including this one which is a fusois which is the one of these box tiles forming the vault in the ceiling so you literally get a tube of correct of boxes going around allowing the hot air to circulate up the water and around the ceiling so this this sort of odd shape is is deliberate oh yes that's incredible so that's it and we've even got a bit of the bolt this is a twofer nice light Limestone so you can get the whole of the stone Vault for half the weight so you get a really good Stone Vault instead of a wooden roof which would rot in a hot steamy room so is this the voltage sort of roof that has caused now of Mosaic to collapse in highly likely yeah and presumably It All Belongs to the fourth Century that's what the coins are saying anyway but does it because I've got a piece of box towel here from the from a wall box tile which is which has roller stamp decoration and is almost certainly first or second century implying therefore that we may have an earlier bath house on the side so dish decoration is literally put on with a roller can we get a piece of clay and you as opposed to as opposed to a comb decoration freehand comb Recreation hey this is really good and it really because it looks as though we've got not one bath house but two bath houses yes I need to get my head around this David and Richard are saying that we've got two phases of bath house here 300 years apart and as this might be a hot room could there possibly be a hyper Coast an underfloor heating system right here under the rubble this is all made up ground blue stone I think what they've done is they've dug a slot into the side of the hill to take the stone away yeah and that's what John was seeing on the geophysics the thing of it is it's not all doom and gloom because we do actually have some preserved Roman archeology in here and then we've got got it and animal bone so I think what's happened is that literally this Quarry is chopped away all the Roman archeology last night we wanted to close down the lower field we've solved Rogers molehill mystery we're convinced it's a Roman Bath House complete with collapsed Mosaic floors now we can see how the rooms of the Roman Bath House related to each other in this lower field next door to the plunge pool Matt's beginning to uncover what we suspected all along David there was a hyper Coast here an underfloor heating system so this must be the hot room there look at this oh definitely that's there the feeling yeah for the floor this stack here still in situ stacks of tiles called peely supported the Mosaic floor allowing hot air to circulate underneath and through flus in the walls well we've got bits of this collapsed floor yeah yeah but the bottom of this I can't see how far down it's actually going a little bit of Tessa coming out all over the place you may find another stack somewhere over here so close yeah well they sometimes separated by roughly 30 centimeters it's good thanks at last coming good in the upper field after all the hours of geophys and Collective head scratching they've stumbled on the remains of a mosaic and alongside is the decisive clue a mosaic has been lifted from here and who else would have done that other than our old friend Samuel licensed this is the Mosaic you mean this is this that's right the problem we've had for two days is that we've been chasing license whilst his room's running in this direction or they're going in that direction so where would the Orpheus mozaka be that would have been under the grass at the far end of the trench in that direction well it's been a struggle yes thank goodness I was able to chippy you on otherwise we might never have worked it out it's all down to you it's disappointing that we didn't find more of the license Villa that we assumed would be easy to locate the quality of these mosaics alone tells us that this was an impressive 4th Century Villa occupied most probably by wealthy Yeoman Farmers the early ancestors of England's medieval knights yesterday back in the lower field the experts thought that there were two bath houses on the site one earlier than the other and today mats found the concrete evidence we've got this huge chunk of open Signum concrete but as you can see it's got this lovely kind of purple do you know which part oh yeah so I know exactly what this is this is the first floor of for this room and it's part of the same phase as the concrete that you've got of the concrete floor that predates the Mosaic right so it's the earliest the earliest phase and and then this phase I suspect the room was used being used very much as part of the bath house for the use of the bath house it was a hot room and the that when the Mosaic was put down possibly the use of the room had changed somewhat that there would have formed the base the floor of the bath and here is here's the edge along there that's the quarter round molding yes this has been totally waterproof and at the bottom of the bar um no this is not in situ this has been this has been ripped out yes and just dumped but this isn't quite as fancy as a mosaic though is it but yes but it's waterproof so it's vital yeah undeterred by failing to find a spring head John's at it again 25 past five and still worth waiting for though look at this we've got the whole landscape now magnetically here's the scheduled Villa series of prehistoric enclosures surrounding it then we've got this Avenue that we saw yesterday and that appears to connect the two Fields with the possible Shrine down here we still don't really know yeah and then in this field sort of Bath House feels as we've been calling it look at the resistance results there's the stream there's the stream just orientate there's the plunge pool there's the trench with the Mosaic look we've got a whole new range corridors rooms absolutely fantastic and basically it extends up the hillside there and even more exciting look at the scale it's actually larger than the scheduled Villa up there so is it another Villa it looks like it doesn't it it's got a bit two thousand years ago there would have been many more people living in this landscape based on our fines it looks as if a modest range of farm buildings including a bath house was in use by the river just after the Roman occupation in 43 A.D this settlement grew into a larger and more affluent complex with its own piped running water but it would have been vulnerable to flooding so perhaps it was the same family that built the Villa that license discovered further up the hill on the site of some other prehistoric farm buildings this later Villa almost eluded us but no one could have predicted the quality and the significance of the other discoveries we made we came here because of a handful of tesseri in this field but we found this amazing bath house once Romans would have sat among these beautiful mosaics sweating then they would have sprinted over to Phil's plunge pool to cool off and exchange the gossip of the day but this being time team in the last few minutes we've been handed this it's Jeff is of yet another Villa up on this slope here it's bigger than license original Discovery and part of a huge Roman complex name's John Gator time team is fan funded by patreon this vital support helps us to make new episodes joining patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews 3D models and master classes plus lots more

Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 48,381

Keywords: Archaeology, History, Education, Educational, British TV, British History, Tony Robinson, Phil Harding, John Gater, Stewart Ainsworth, Mick Aston, archeological dig, Channel 4, Time Team Full Episodes, Full Episode, Time Team

Id: zTzz_wHnb3I

Length: 52min 6sec (3126 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023