➤ Time Team's Top 3 LOST BATTLEFIELDS

last year an amateur archaeologist was walking through these Woods when he came across a load of lumps and bumps and they were very lumpy and bumpy he was told that this site played a crucial role in the defense of this island during the second world war and he realized that it needed to be looked at before it was lost forever so he talked to time team about it and they said that no one has ever dug a site like this before because although this is British soil these defenses aren't British they're German part of the vast complex of defenses built by Hitler to turn Jersey into an island Fortress oh and by the way that amateur archaeologist was me so I'm going to be under quite a lot of pressure over the next few days 70 years later the islands are littered with the remains of that occupation during the occupation period 40 to 45 we're talking about some 65 000 plus mines being leading the island and probably over 26 000 tons of other Munitions and it means for the next three days our archaeologists are going to have to be rather careful when it comes to any small fines they uncover so are you still happy to go ahead with this I think I feel slightly more cautious about anything so with the briefing over it's time to get our first trench in now you say don't hit it hard and then the first thing you do is you go and it's essential we're Vigilant because our site at leisure let is a heavily fortified German anti-aircraft battery that overlooked the airport and dominated the surrounding landscape Now hidden under a canopy of trees this rare wartime RAF reconnaissance photograph shows the site in its prime and it suggests it once dripped with heavy artillery we're seeing a lot moderns on the air photo which must be a real Testament to the German camouflage guys and we've assembled our own Army of experts to decipher all these lumps and bumps so with geother's somewhat kiboshed by the vegetation we're going for the old-fashioned approach our first trench over a possible gun emplacement has gone in based on the aerial photograph and Stewart's surveying skills and he's already given us a position for a second Trench there's a whole series of structures here that look as if their buildings Associated within placement that Phil's working on in spite of being only 70 years old we hadn't been able to find any written records for this site they were probably destroyed by the Germans before they surrendered oh I think you got precisely what we had before but these 20 millimeter diameter shells do suggest that trench one is the site of a 20 mil anti-aircraft gun and this gun would have been just one of thousands of German weapons that swamped Jersey from 1940 onwards we've also now opened two more trenches this time over strange features that John's managed to identify from his severely curtailed geophys lovely and one of them has just thrown up a find that's got us completely stumped wondered whether it was part of a field kitchen but that's not going to work for filling it full of soup is it so it looks too fragile for something like a gun mounting doesn't it doesn't it just well there's our first mystery on this site you have two days left to find out what that is and Pete will say why do you bother digging it you know what everything is well we have sorted out trench one it's not just a bank that's thrown up to go around a gun that as Phil's discovered that the defenses built on this Hillside were engineered to last what we seem to get is this this inner stone-built reventment and then we've got this fine-grained material pushed against the outside of it to make the actual bank I mean that makes complete sense you don't want enemy shell fire or bullet striking Stones so you put the soft stuff out there and that will absorb the energy of incoming ammunition from the enemy so our first trench can confirm that this earthwork is a 20 millimeter gun emplacement and it was strategically placed to shoot down low-flying aircraft fills and placement up on the top here on the highest point that's a 20 millimeter gun that's designed to be quick moving it's got a rapid rate of fire and as we know this shape is a 20 millimeter gun we can confidently say that all these features are also 20 millimeter guns which isn't a bad result for one day's digging these larger 88 millimeter gun pits will be our main target for tomorrow as we begin to extend our investigation because it's now clear that this whole Hillside operated as one big settlement so far we've only been digging about a third of this battery and Stuart feels it's about time to investigate another Target at the other end of the site here from other flat batteries you know what to expect there's a guns and then there has to be a fire and command control center close to the guns and sometimes have a shelter for the crew underneath like a bunker or something like that not necessarily concrete could be dug down into the rock or the Earth well I mean the results don't necessarily suggest concrete bunker but certainly something that's going deep into the ground and appears to have collapsed and be full of rubble that's hard ground isn't it so we're opening a new trench over a potential bunker and very quickly it becomes clear there's something rather interesting deep down it's red here there's some tile all right so tiles a brick and then we discover the last thing we need and I think that's perhaps where we stocks I think we've got some form of ordinance going on and this time it's not a stray bullet right here right behind us it looks like a very real very live artillery shell Rock Cut trenches would appear to show the determination of the German troops here to defend their positions against Allied attack but there could be a chance that the soldiers didn't do the digging themselves because our site overlooks the most impressive and most chilling Monument to the German occupation about a hundred feet above my head filling the rest of the team are Excavating our German anti-aircraft battery but down here there's a much more tangible example of the German occupation this is the Jersey war tunnels originally created as an artillery workshop and Military Hospital for the Germans but if ever there's a statement that says we're powerful we're here and we're not going away this is it cune out of solid rock the tunnels are a testament to German engineering but they're also a testimonial to the brutal Nazi ethos that some people deserved to be treated as sub-human there is something phenomenally Bleak about that unfinished tunnel isn't there there is it was built by people who worked for the organization Toad and these were voluntary labor there's coerced labor force labor slave labor people from from Russia from Poland from Bellows from Ukraine people who in the the Nazi racial hierarchy were right down there did many of them die yes yes hundreds in in aldeny and around about 100 in Jersey it's a sobering reminder as we reach the end of day two that what we're digging had a real and lasting impact on the people of Jersey this turned up earlier and we're still discovering yet more evidence of the force used to occupy this island what's an 88 shell case that's for sure well I think the the actual gain for the the primer of the Showcase is still present so it's potentially dangerous [Music] back at the heart of the site the scale of the gun emplacements that fired those shells is now evident that looks a bit like a firing step well that's what we think um this one's different to all these other shelters in that it's got that out there now if you if you look through actually what you've got is a field of fire down that trench system and covering that area out in the Woodland Beyond so it makes sense to have a sort of secondary defense line here defending this hill from a land-based attack appears to have become more important in the latter years of the war and we're now confident another one of our trenches is also part of this refortification it's a machine gun posts heck of a lot of hard work you can see it was cut out of the solid rock and it's part of the network of defenses that we can see pretty clearly on the 1944 aerial photo but intriguingly we're starting to find things that aren't on that photo like this big structure behind you Martin what is it right well it begins life you can see it on there it's the same sort of position as that first trench till did but they've dished in one side of it here to create this big Bank there so it stopped being about anti-aircraft defense and actually it's become part of this system and it's providing extra fire support for the guys who are down there in your machine gun so is it shifting from Attack to defense quite right yes how does that time with history well this photo was taken in August I think 1944 and if you think June 1944 Everything Has Changed because you've had the Allied Landings in Normandy so suddenly the Allies they're only 40 miles away in France so it's a completely different game they're suddenly having to play here they are now cut off not just from Britain they're also cut off from France so the irony is that the Germans here who were the procedures have now suddenly become the besieged completely so we always think of D-Day as this big moment when the war turned but things just got worse for everybody here we can now concentrate on working out what we've actually uncovered on site and it's clear that by the end of the war the Germans had built a sophisticated complex of trenches against ground attack how big this thing is all right Shar and Phil fresh from the beach and revealed an 88 millimeter emplacement as robust as any Roman archeology we've ever uncovered we got that little bunker area over there we can actually see now where all the timbery vitamin is but the main thing is this is a seriously big piece of engineering for a seriously big gun while over in Phase trench we've also got something equally robust but this time it's underground well down at the bottom now we've actually got the base of this structure and what we think we've got you see the depth is something with bunker and we've got all these cables and wires coming in so I think we've got communication bunker could this be the brains of the whole operation I don't think it's big enough to be the brains of the whole operation but potentially some of it yes this building here is a command and control center that's where phased again yes trench down there yeah so with all this information what does our man in the sand pit thing because we've excavated around 20 millimeter battery not that's like we can see others on the aerial photograph yeah and we've got a number of them ringing around the site the 88 millimeter ones are square they're very different to the 20 millimeter ones there's a nice triangular pattern of three there yeah and over in where we're standing nice triangle geometric pattern so you can imagine if they're firing at 50 rounds a minute that's 45 rounds from each of these batteries a minute times two 90 rounds a minute these batteries can pump up into the sky that's serious serious air defense is that but you can see how they just went from being an anti-aircraft batteries suddenly to having to think almost in infantry mode this is the weakest side they're expecting attacks up here and you can see they're also in this trench system they're digging the trench along the back of the Hedge line now and they're going to use the Hedge and the bank underneath it as part of the defenses against any attack here it it's not just anti-aircraft it's about controlling the Airfield and it's an anti-invasion defense at the same time so we've got a fortified enclosure as sophisticated as any Iron Age Hill fort with six massive guns capable of throwing up a barrage of exploding shells while 20 millimeter gun emplacements dealt with lower flying aircraft by the end The Fortress where starving troops lived in fear of invasion and the 88 millimeter guns including the one in Phil's trench were now lowered to overlook the island below well basically we've got a sort of uh what I like to think of as a cross between a Roman Fort and a and a wooden box the Roman Fort bit is the bank that goes all the way around that gives you your protection the wooden box bit is the fact that all these edges would have been reverted with Timber and in fact when you would have come in here you'd have seen wooden sides and wooden flooring and in each Corner you'd have had an ammunition box there and an ammunition box there and probably one over there but the central part is really what strikes you it is an enormous hole that is filled up with concrete yeah and right in the middle of it there's the one thing that's missing which is that enormous metal killing machine absolutely but you can just see the imprint of where it once stood you've got these bolts here where it's actually been fixed to the concrete and clearly at the end of the war they cut them all off except one and they lifted the gun away and thank God took it 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 early 2006 a light aircraft flew across the North Coast of Anglesey on an aerial survey of the island then the photographer spotted something strange took this photo healed a massive earthwork about the length of two football pitches and on an island that was once home to one of history's most mysterious groups accused of magical rituals Human Sacrifice even cannibalism The Druids so what exactly is this strange earthwork as usual we've got just three days to find out Mick we've got this huge Summit here clearly visible yeah and yet nobody's ever dug it that seems a puzzle to me not only they've never been done but they've hardly been recognized even the great survey of angles he'd done in the 1930s just said a few Scrappy Earthworks mainly destroyed they're mostly destroyed it doesn't look like get to see them in the huge great Banks and ditches if you any idea what period it is well they just suggested it might be Roman but I don't think we know really [Music] dating this massive Earthworks going to be critical if it's Roman then it's the product of one of the bloodiest episodes in Welsh history foreign -61 the full force of the Roman army descended on this small island their mission to destroy the stronghold of the British resistance an Insurgency led by The Druids in a merciless attack unprecedented on British soil they massacred The Druids and their followers and burnt down their sacred Oak Groves [Music] but if our earthwork was built before the Roman Invasion then it could be a remnant of the very people the Romans set out to destroy a relic of a lost world dominated by The Druids so we put in three trenches over the large rectangular feature Phil opens a trench over what looks like the entrance Matt looks inside the rectangle in the hope of finding evidence of settlement and Bridge opens a trench across what Mick thinks might be a stone Rampart [Music] that show you to that line go let's do it the Relentless elements have made the ground bone dry digging's gonna be tough just say you've got the natural work that comes over the rise yeah and you've got the natural there just in between there that's not some sort of ditch where oh look at that he spotted that he felt it in there hey Phil with more than a Little Help from Ian has uncovered what appears to be the entrance to the enclosure the ditch across the front would have made it impossible to approach the entrance directly it looks defensive but is it Roman or Iron Age an imperial Fort or the last Refuge of The Druids [Music] I know we've got evidence of Iron Age counts in this part of the country but do we actually have tangible evidence of Druids if you go over to another corner of of the island to RAF Valley Anglesey back in the 1940s workmen not archaeologists discovered in the Peaks where they had once been a lake up close on 150 objects of iron and bronze and we have some replica examples here and some images this image of a bronze decorative plaque think of this as the Mercedes-Benz sign on the front of your fancy car but put this on the front of your wagon or Chariot and the question is who was directing The Dumping now let's use a better word deposition gifting of these objects including um swords they'd been bent and broken before they were thrown into like who was doing that so this is what Francis would call ritual deposition just like you you have on your own site at flag fan over in Cambridgeshire yes absolutely this is this is one of the classic ritual sites throughout Britain and Europe you have deposition of offerings into bugs and wet places it is a religious activity and it's only towards the end of that period in the last three or so centuries but it actually gets attributed to The Druids they were the blokes doing the stuff [Music] we've put a trench over some exposed stones that Mick thinks could be a rampart Bridge has cleaned them up and they're looking good well Mick this is fantastic we don't usually find archeology like this on day one it looks very impressive doesn't it yeah it's not what we're looking for at all what do you mean well I thought it was probably part of some sort of Iron Age Rampart structure sure well of course the problem is it's outside the enclosure it's the wrong side of it and it now looks if it's the end of a barn or a building going off in that direction and it turns out to be much more to do with the post-medieval farm site host medieval roundabout when do you reckon 1800 something like that probably if you look at that enclosure on the map and you look at this bottom half badly affected by later plowing and that being post medieval Farm then our best bet for getting the outline of this enclosure is going to be up the top there yeah I followed it so far could you explain it back to me laughs in the Relentless wind our plans and our minds are taking a battering but as the clouds gather yet again the archeology begins to shine through ah Francis here I was saying there's not a lot of Hope for this trench there's actually a coin down here oh hey perhaps this can help us to date the earthwork look oh a coin it's out of context but could be dateable now that come off that spoil tip over there and that looks to me like something early early Roman rather than later exactly both trenches seem to be getting deeper and deeper nine feet yeah 2.7 meters well I mean I'm absolutely speechless what a treat what's amazing is Helen what a small space it's fitted into and we never thought it was going to go that deep do you think that it tells us anything that shape that incredible depth and narrowness well I mean normally if you see something as narrow and Steep and v-shaped as that you'd say Roman but we don't know that is its shape and if it was Roman I'd expect to see a lot of pottery knocking around we hadn't had a whisker of a finder nothing until no charcoal no no we've really tried hard to find something just as things are getting really interesting the weather we've been battling all day wins day two here in Anglesey and we're just beginning to come to grips with this strange earthwork which covers this entire sloping field yesterday we found a big ditch which Francis swears is Iron Age and if he's right that would be great because it would mean that the people who lived here would have practiced the druidic religion and would have witnessed the horrible cataclysmic events that occurred when the Romans invaded except Francis having said all that we hadn't got any proof at all that this ditch is Iron Age have we no and I don't expect to get much but Tony you don't get Iron Age Pottery in this part of the world the depth of the ditch is fine I'm quite relaxed about that what about the shape of it does that help you at all yeah that's fine I mean there are a number of examples of that shaped enclosure around sort of farmsteads in this part of the world it's not actually a rectangular is it well no I mean that I think that's the point though it's not as if it's been laid out carefully is it it's a rock Square so what might that imply I would guess it's more native than Roman no Roman army has come along with textbooks and measures flying around I can hardly take my eyes off all these field systems it can see in the fields around it seems the farmers were spot on about the shapes in the field next door the circular features I Can See Fields out they see a track way or a drove way going down there which is what you'd expect tell me what it does show is that the enclosure that we've got is at the heart of a very active prehistoric run repaired landscape it's not sitting by itself is it but what's the connection between our Iron Age enclosure on the hill and the shapes in the next field we're sending in geophys to have a look and extending our search for the people who built this earthwork even further which might not be such a bad idea because back in our enclosure we're struggling to find any trace of them we've widened Matt's trench over the Deep ditch so we can get down and dig it out by hand and Phil's still plugging away at the entrance so far they're both empty if someone mentions Druids nowadays we tend to think of hippies in white sheets on Salisbury Plain don't we but do we have much tangible evidence that they actually existed in ancient times we must be careful because whose territory are you on now you're in Wales and we have living Druids our own intelligence yeah Caesar tells us that The Druids in Gaul France today which he happened to be conquering at the time that they came over to Britain to study that is the best teaching the best source of learning so what was this knowledge that they were imparting well I mean there seemed to have been three types of Druids basically a priesthood and then soothsayers sometimes called ovates or vartes from valatin and bards and it's the bards we see a lot of in Wales because they're The Poets and the singers and and the artists but we can broaden their role in were they the scientists you know we use it's a modern term scientists they were foretellers of the future and we are also told that battles between the native peoples the pre-roman peoples their own peoples they'd come in as actual peacemakers so they knew that they're playing many roles but that's not how the Romans saw The Druids is it they saw them as blood drinking cannibals Tony as you know the natives didn't do the writing it's the Romans who tell us the story it's a story that includes blood curdling accounts of elaborate Human Sacrifice but is that just Roman propaganda or could The Druids really have conducted such ceremonies with a vast network of fields and a massive strategically placed Hilltop enclosure this was more than just a simple Farm whoever controlled it must have been a powerful chief so with time running out we concentrate all our resources on the main enclosure everyone that is except Henry but down to a boggy area in the valley to take a core of soil the gray stuff at the bottom is 2 000 year old mud it's a sign that in the Iron Age this bog was a lake [Music] it's so typical of you on day one you prowled around the side on day two you moved into the next field and now we're what 200 meters away in the middle of a bog yes it's all about landscape context soil I keep banging on about it but knowing something about the Scythe isn't it isn't sufficient in yourself unless you know something about the landscape that site lived within and how it developed and where we've walked to down here doesn't particularly look like it to you perhaps but this was a large lake here in pre-history so what do you think the relationship would have been between the lake and the people who lived up there well this this two relationships one is very practical one is supply of water and from the Crop Marks we do have evidence now in the field where Bridget's digging of a trackway which actually leads down from the fields towards this bog they're bringing animals down to to Autumn so that's very practical of course the other is ritual once you get into prehistory that awful word but we do know that lakes and bogs become areas where in prehistory people are depositing votive offerings metal work so they're actually chucking it into the lake that's right these are really our special places in pre-history so there might still be Iron Age objects in this bog that were cast in 2000 years I think that's the case we're not gonna be able to dig it are we yeah I mean there's no I mean it's actually very large there's no way you'd even attempt to dig something like this we'll let it lie from his Hilltop Home the Iron Age Chieftain who ruled this corner of Anglesey could see the source of his power economic and spiritual laid out before him and he made sure that anyone looking back could see it too if you remember the geophys showed another ditch on the outside of the main big ditch so we put this trench in and what we discovered wasn't what we thought it wasn't another ditch right but we came across these big rocks we found about five of these and they went in the in a line across the trench here so I put an extension in yeah and I think that's the foot of a wall so you've got a wall through here we've got a wall this in other words the bank that accompanied the big ditch yeah had a revetment right Stone revetment to stop all this stuff tipping it over yes we've just got the bottom of it it may well have been higher yeah in which case you could have seen a stone wall down there in the valley and it would have looked you know really spectacular and it sort of enhances this impression that this is a very high status important site it would look like a fort on the horizon wouldn't it yeah yeah in an imposing structure like this we'd expect to find substantial houses so you're happy that there were actually Iron Age people building shelters here not just putting up fences yes I think it's more than shelters this is houses this would be a substantial house you know where people have reconstructed they're quite substantial buildings their reconstructions show these were simple but brilliant designs carefully placed posts bore the weight of the roof and Define the large communal space and the thatched roof would have kept out the very worst Welsh weather it was the perfect house for this hill as an essential weatherproof home fits for even the most powerful Chieftain down yeah even Francis wouldn't get this excited about a rubbish pit oh this is looking good but hang on I see another of these yellowy Stones just under there there yeah yeah right so what it looks like then Francis is a kiss so it'll be a little grave possibly lined with stone and probably what Bronze Age early bronzer well it certainly is the appropriate size and shape for a crouched information if you know so much about it do you really want me to bother and dig it laughs [Music] this is completely unexpected looking for signs of Iron Age settlement it seems we found a Bronze Age grave not two but four thousand years old [Music] the oval grave was lined with large flat Stones the body would have been curled up inside it seems the acidic soil has destroyed the bones but the discovery helps us rewrite the history of this hill we're saying those post holes are about 2 000 years old and that burial is about 4 000 years old in other words people who were looking at that burial were as far away from it in time as we are from the Romans but think now if they were a heap of stone over this burial pit yeah it was there it was being respected by the Builders of these new houses from his Hilltop Home the Iron Age Chieftain who ruled this corner of Anglesey could see the source of his power economic and spiritual laid out before him and he made sure that anyone looking back could see it too if you remember Virginia fish showed another ditch on the outside of the main big ditch so we put this trench in and what we discovered wasn't what we thought it wasn't another ditch right but we came across these big rocks we found about five of these and they went in the in a line across the trench here so I put an extension in yeah and I think that's the foot of a wall so you got a wall through here we've got a wall this in other words the bank that accompanied the big ditch yeah had a revetment right Stone revetment to stop all this stuff tipping it over yes we've just got the bottom of it it may well have been higher yeah in which case you could have seen a stone wall down there in the valley and it would have looked you know really spectacular and it sort of enhances this impression that this is a very high status important site it would look like a fort on the horizon wouldn't it yeah yeah in an imposing structure like this we'd expect to find substantial houses [Music] but so far the only sign of Iron Age occupation is a series of small post holes they don't look much but Mick and Francis are impressed it's probably the best evidence we're going to get for settlement on this site for actual buildings and structures isn't it yes but dating them with any Precision is impossible other than by absence of pottery but they're right in the center of our enclosure which is where we know they ought to be so they're at the center of power if you like and if we could join them all up into coherent pattern I think we'd find there would be round houses about sort of eight meters diameter thatched roof that sort of thing but the posts can't have been very big they're pretty small but I think the problem is you see we're seeing just the bottom bit of the post hole all the rest of it the actual photo Mooring which supposedly has been eroded by plowing across this site we're right at the bottom of them so you're happy that there were actually Iron Age people building shelters here not just putting up fences yes I think it's more than shelters this is houses this would be a substantial house you know where people have reconstructed they're quite substantial buildings and nearby melon clan on a team of experimental archaeologists and Modern Builders are demonstrating just how substantial their reconstructions show these were simple but brilliant designs carefully placed posts bore the weight of the roof and Define the large communal space and a thatched roof would have kept out the very worst Welsh weather it was the perfect house for this hill a substantial weatherproof home fit for even the most powerful Chieftain three days ago this earthwork was almost unheard of one of the few Clues to its existence was a photograph now we've uncovered four thousand years of history on this Welsh Hillside it begins with one person buried but not forgotten because two thousand years later this hill was still a special place the power base for an important Chieftain it gave him a link to the past shelter food even a sacred Lake he had it all and then the Romans arrived life on Anglesey and on this hill changed forever curiously empty ditches suggest Wind and Rain began to fill them with Earth soon after the invasion The Roundhouse post holes were covered by a blanket of soil and the Roman coin dropped on top it seems the chief and his people vanished and the once Mighty earthwork was abandoned the round houses fell into disrepair or were even demolished and the terrifying events of the Roman Invasion were hidden beneath gentle pasture [Music] this exposed Hill Bears witness to the Island's Darkest Hour Dave it's really come on isn't it yes it has uh growing nicely we're almost on the last stage despite dry Willow and strong winds Dave and his team have proved it would have been possible for the Iron Age Celts to build a wicker man let me show you the head does that remind you of anybody [Applause] [Music] the finishing touches to our wicker man it's easy to forget that two thousand years ago this would have been a gruesome spectacle that's stuffed with straw instead of humans it's far from terrifying in fact it feels strangely familiar mate Phil certainly seems to be feeling a connection foreign faint Echoes of this ancient custom in our modern traditions corn dollies and the Green Man to guy Forks how much of the ancient British way of life did the Romans really destroy how much do we owe to that elusive Elite The Druids 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 the mysterious ruins of Hopton Castle still bear the scars of a tragic past 400 years ago this Fortress was torn apart by a civil war Siege small band of Defenders inside who were loyal to Parliament gave their lives defending it against an army of King Charles the first today only the tower survives has witness to their heroic Last Stand and nobody's got any idea what the rest of this Castle looked like so that's where we come in we've been invited here by the local preservation Society to try to find out and maybe to solve a little mystery along the way Richard you're our castles expert and you want us not only to sort out what the castle looked like during the Civil War but to address the issue of a war crime because not only is it a fantastic site it's got a fantastic story with the Civil War Siege and these Brave Garrison holding out against the royalists for several weeks before finally surrendering and then being rather brutally murdered most of what we know about the siege of Hopton comes from a man called Colonel Samuel Moore The Garrison Commander he wrote it all down in his journal and it reads like a novel that the royalists attacked the outnumbered Defenders three times losing hundreds of men it was only when the attackers had the parliamentarians cornered in the tower that they finally gave up well first thing first and that is to find out what this place looked like so geoffiz get to work looking for buildings six then okay thanks and Stuart our landscape investigator starts hunting for the castles ramparts from its shape we suspect our civil war castle may be medieval in origin it fits the classic model of a modern Bailey which is basically a big tower on a mound with a defensive ring below it suppose we start a trench somewhere about there yes it means fill and Bill the local English Heritage inspector can make an educated guess where the outer wall might be this wall which we think might be part of the original medieval castle and might have been refurbished in the Civil War down into what we think might have been part of the original backfield ditch yeah and then up onto this bank which is probably going to be part of the defenses or the assault in the Civil War yes yes that's what you call a Turf that is that's axminster that is fake alone and with no sign of relief for three weeks the 30 odd Men Behind These Walls held out against hundreds of royalist soldiers and over in his trench Phil thinks he may have found the first evidence of fighting we've got a musket ball it's a bit splattered but it's definitely a basketball but it's a Civil War I don't know but given the site that we're on I bet it is so we're in the right period but are we going to find the bloke who was on the other end of this we'll know later Phil's looking for the old castle wall and the moat where we think we might find traces of the first attack this bank here was was we thought originally might be part of the medieval castle defenses well we've gone down through it and we're getting masses and masses of bricks but more importantly we're beginning to get Pottery too you see here I mean here's the base of a pot and here's another piece of pot little Tony handle but I mean this stuff is clearly not medieval still if his Rampart is from the Civil War does it fit into the history uh the 26th of February is the first attack over the next few days Field Marshal Helen geek is going to do a spot of War gaming now there's a body of foot who who approached the out walls along with Richard our Castle's expert she's going to compare Colonel Moore's account of the battle with what we find in our trenches but it's what happened after the siege that really intrigues me so the guys from The Garrison who died could be over there where they're geophysing or they could be somewhere completely different it's just potluck whether we find them or not is there anything that you've read in any of the documents that could narrow down the search for us yeah I think so I mean the first one says it's a seller now we ought to be able to find a seller with geophysics and it would be very recognizable if we do encounter it that's one good hypothesis that we can test that they might be in a Cellar the second one is that all the sources concur in saying they're they're somewhere near water mud or water and so I think that we could go for for anywhere that's waterlogged or with standing water have a look around there and see what we can find [Music] well John's been busy doing Jeff Fizz and he thinks he might have picked up a good candidate for a seller not far from the tower John you've done it you know Bailey what's the show it's pretty good I mean we've done mag and res and I think we're starting to see clear buildings inside look at the magnetics to start with so the white line is showing what I think is a big structure there and the black on the inside it's either midden deposits areas of burning in the resistance you can also see that the shadow outline of buildings now what I think we've got in front of us here you can see it clearly in the earth pretty obvious you know but we've got a wall going underneath that Hawthorne Bush I think it actually turns through a right angle and comes back underneath our feet our second trench goes in to see if we've got a seller foreign possibility for the mass grave but what about the muddy ditch I'd assumed that our whole team were over here trying to sort out the castle until I saw this little head bobbing up and down Behind These rather nasty Metals Henry what are you doing once I get to the bottom with the auger when I look at the soil down there I will be able to tell whether it's flowing water through there whether it's still water whether it's just a muddy hole some of the documents say the dead bodies were found in a muddy pit right you could be giving us some evidence couldn't you yeah no they should tell part of that story yeah Phil's doggedly digging away trying to work out the shape of the castle [Music] from this morning he now reckons we do have a wall it's just underneath the Earth Bank he found earlier all right look at it look at that yeah the burning is running underneath so the the construction of that bank is later than that burning you know I just I do wonder what the hell all this Burning is though well we know the buildings were burnt during The Siege oh exactly you see you you just make you wonder it looks like by the time of the Civil War the inner Bailey was surrounded by a small and rather unimpressive wall and instead of a moat it had Earthworks and at the center of it could be a very large building it looks like we're coming onto a sort of different level here we've been through this incredibly loose compacted brick deposit yeah which I guess is what do you think the walls of the building this is beginning to be more like one of those crime scene investigation shows than a Time team a bit of gold but then as is always the case on time team something turns up which you don't expect I heard some bleeping and the words gold we've got a gold hammered coin oh wow this ball from the bottom of this trend this extraordinary thing about gold that when it does come out it just shines straight away doesn't it if it was put there yesterday look at your face you're quite pleased aren't you made my year but Helen's got to double check the date but could this gold coin have been dropped by one of the Garrison or even by their killers in the hands of trained soldiers and At Close Quarters muskets were deadly it makes Moore's claim to have shot and killed hundreds of royalists at the breach sound much more plausible but where did this happen our armchair generals are playing toy soldiers to find out so they're through the breach most most of the 200 so it's at least 100 the within the breach but not within our works but as in a pinfold in the circumference of the burnt lodging what is a pinfold it's basically a very large sheet pen it's for sorting out sheep so they're caught in a trap yeah so do you know where that first breach in the wall happens I have very strong suspicions Helen it's in this area down here anybody coming through this narrow Gap in the breach will be trapped they could be fired down from there from there they're literally trapped like sheep in a Sheepfold if Stewart's right then somewhere here should be a range of buildings which resemble a sheep pen as well as giving us a direct link to the history if we do have structures here they'd make this Castle far larger than we first thought we're gonna have to ponder this one over a few beers tonight but before we can down tools and raise glasses whoa my goodness we've got our hands full with yet another remarkable find from the seller I think that's a cannonball in fact I'd put even money on that being a cannonball [Music] so could this mean we're close to the end of The Siege I feel how heavy that is Tony just that little bit of it is some ways isn't it imagine that coming crashing in through the walls and Landing right in the bottom of the cellar I'm in no doubt now that this is the brick dwelling house referred to in The Siege accounts and what we know is that the Defenders set fire to it to stop the world is using it so I guess what we've got here is evidence of burnt Timbers being fired on with ordinance surely this now locks Us in the history and our community together what a beautiful spot you've brought me to get a lovely view with a castle here but there's nothing here ah there is something here though because if you look in this area over here Phil there are lots of lumps and bumps that suggested there might be buildings here and walls that there were things blocking this end up here and for once I agree with you [Laughter] what's that there going that way here yeah that's my wall Matt's found the far end of our brick building and it isn't just a house it's a mansion in fact it was so big the builders had to fill in the motor around the tower just to squeeze it into the Bailey [Music] picture of the of those of the defender's lives and it backs up Colonel Moore's journal in every detail wow after being bombarded by constant fire with the attackers through the breach the Defenders set the brick mansion on fire before fleeing to the Tower a terrifying sequence of events which we found in both the archeology and the documents the mercy of the royalist commander some Michael Woodhouse and Richard thinks he's worked out how he forced them to surrender all I had to do is run out the bank and attack that that looks like a door but it's actually a window opening now they're trapped on the top floor they can't do anything about people attacking the bottom of the castle so this is another example of this building not really doing its job as a defense because it had a vulnerable window close to the ground yes because the window either side of the window the wall is only about that thick so it's dead easy to actually bash through I think what we can see there is what was done during the Civil War and that's what makes them give up because they think that they're going to lay explosives and they say it's better to surrender them to be blown up yeah extraordinary isn't it to see something so vulnerable from all those years ago that led to such a terrifying end yeah it's ironic that the strongest looking part of the castle the tower was actually the weakest [Music] we found over the past few days suggests that in both medieval times and during the Civil War Hopton was more of a country house than a castle [Music] to turn down knowledge of this place on its head and explains why the Defenders failed to hold on to it but it also begs the question why did more and his men defend a hopeless cause why did Moore refuse to surrender when he had three opportunities to do so it's difficult to explain we can only think that he must have been inspired by religious fanaticism or by the belief that God would come to his Aid or because he was terribly afraid of the royalist army he'd possibly been reading the newspapers as well and hearing these stories about the massacre of helpless prisoners and he possibly didn't trust the royalists offer of quarter what about the other side why did Woodhouse allow such a terrible atrocity to take place well that's the really difficult question to answer somehow we were off the map of chivalry and chivalry and honor did operate in most of these Civil War encounters there were rules that you could follow like table manners the fact that the first offers of quarter roof were refused may have made him feel that they were off the map but I suspect one of the accounts of the massacre says that Woodhouse left his mentor themselves for three hours it was normal royalist behavior but in this case they seem to have been particularly violently inspired and that might be the cause of the massacre but evidence of that Massacre continues to elude us with no signs of a mass grave anywhere else we were praying that we'd find one at the bottom of the cellar but alas as the day draws to a close we've got to admit defeat you're kind of Performing the last rights on this trench then aren't you filters so completely convinced that's natural are you well look there's the bottom of the wall yeah it's about right on top absolutely I know I think this is a deposit that not even a parliamentarian or a royalist ever saw but while we haven't found any bodies we're pretty confident our seller does match one description of where the men were said to have been killed it's unfinished without any plaster and it's also at the bottom of a burning building and what about it being full of stinking water well most intriguingly of all computer modeling suggests that our seller was liable to flooding as well who knows perhaps this was their place of execution after all after the battle was over Hopton was left a smoking ruin the tower was badly damaged and fell into disrepair for several weeks a small band of men had turned this country house into a small Fortress and held out against overwhelming and terrifying odds 400 years on we've pieced together their last stand and discovered the Magnificent 17th century chamber block where they fought and may have died this morning there you said to me Tony the excavation of this trench will unveil the story of this Castle has it done that oh it has the archaeologists worked out so well what we've now found is this huge post-medieval seller it's about 20 meters long and above that you could imagine a two or three story brick house and it's placed here to deliberately to replace that that was old-fashioned old news if you have money this is how you lived imagine chimneys fancy Windows plastered ceilings this was all mod cons it is ironic that the new building should have been burnt down and the Garrison Retreat to the old one absolutely at the time of the war forget the word Castle Hopton was a house and it was fighting was taking place in all sorts of places during the Civil War not just on set-piece battlefields not just a storm your castles but everyday houses were being attacked and bloody murders taking place at Close Quarters hello my 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: 173,810

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: 6yTLCFnIS58

Length: 56min 42sec (3402 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2023