➤ Time Team's Top 3 MILL MYSTERIES

this is otterton Mill in Devon and in here is one of the earliest industrial processes this water turns this wheel which turns this thing here which turns a big Millstone in there to turn this into one of these everybody needed bread so there used to be thousands of Mills all over the country this is dottin It's a couple of miles from otterton there used to be a mill here but it was knocked down in the 1960s the first record of a mill on this site though is in doomsday in 1086 we've never dug a mill before so this site gives us a unique opportunity to look into part of what would have been everyday life for tens of thousands of people we've got 900 years of history and just three days to untangle it what is it that you find so exciting about Mills a really interesting structures and we don't know much about them after all there must have been many thousands of them in medieval England and almost every Community would have had one because it made grind in the corn preparing the bread and everything that much easier and yet we we've done very very little work on them why not if they're that exciting I think it's because of the way archaeologists work you know they're either working with sites that have been going to be redeveloped and they don't often seem to involve Mills or they're too small really to be part of big research projects that might get the money which archaeologists then spend three or four years do you this is pretty well the first process where you harness a different sort of energy a water power to to alleviate all that work so it's an industrial revolution in in in in in one sense this was the last Mill building in doton it was knocked down in the 1960s we're looking for a date for when this building was put up and any sign of anything that may have come before it there was a mill listed as being in Dutton in doomsday in 1086 but the big question is has the mill always been in the same place there are three main areas that hopefully will provide some answers in the form of dates the water wheel would have sat in a deep pit we'll look at how that was built inside was a gear pit to hold the gearing we'll also try to find that and there would have been a domestic area the part the Miller would have lived in hopefully we'll come across bits of pottery and household stuff that'll also help us with the dating [Music] the mill sits here on a road crossing the river otter in South Devon Proto it's over there Banks there but first Phil has got to work out where to dig shall we help you presumably we're on a wheel pet don't we uh yeah we'll put there but this this Photograph was taken from that field over there looking looking this way and where we're standing at the moment is just here this is the mill the mill was in this area here it's coming down here and at the bottom of it is the wheel somewhere in this position at the end of this leak that comes down here that's what we want in it yeah the wheel pit I think the wheel pit would be the best feature to go for straight away because it'll be a big feature under the ground and we'll delineate the the sort of at the end of the building well I mean we should start doing the radar start the radar here we don't need it no you do but you might you may have good map evidence we all know what Stewart's maps are like but no more importantly feel it's the first time we've done a mill we've not done geophysics or radar over a mill it's important that we collect that data as a future reference John we're not here for your groundbreaking geophysics we're here to do a site this is the way it should be done professionally but we know where it is it will take us five minutes over here Stuart yeah start start here Jimmy true to his word within minutes John's got something for Phil to look at that's where we reckon the wheel pit is then you see all these Reflections going down those are actually within the mill building and this is still inside the building but suggesting we've got internal divisions happy now Phil makes a start that's in sit here isn't it Phil that is in look at that yeah nice load of bricks yeah going straight down there look all right so that's one side there [Music] this is Dutton it's the river otter road that crosses the river and the mill where Phil is is here just here Waters diverted from the river to the mill along a channel called Elite delete enabled the Miller to control the flow of water to the mill in the field across the road from the mill side we can see remnants of where the leak might be a [Music] how big was it how powerful and can we find a date for when it was dug Helen opens a trench across it the mill building is really two buildings in one there's the industrial part of it where the machinery would have been and then there's the domestic side where the Miller lived using radar John and his team have been trying to locate that end of the building they think they've found it so we open a trench just across here Naomi is hoping to find more personal stuff here pottery and domestic material which will give us some dates in Phil's trench we're coming across lots of bricks and there's also a lot of metal work that Phil doesn't recognize that's some oh that's some reinforcing I think from the water wheel where one of the uh one of the arms one of the spokes joined the rim of the wheel and it was all bolted together we've got we've got some very good bits of the water wheel perhaps more than you would expect to survive we've got a lot of the the iron work that held it together and we could get the size of some of the components from these as well the pieces in Phil's trench give us an indication of the size of the wheel they fit together like this it's a big wheel about three meters across probably dating from the Victorian period and earlier on today Helen put in a little trench over here to see if she could find the elite which is the stream that they use for driving the water wheel how'd you get on oh well we've done brilliantly we've we've got we've got almost all of it let me show you what was it like digging this stuff not bad it's it's generally soft with a few hard lumps but they're particularly easy bit was when Ian was digging it with the mechanical Digger I'm afraid this is the clearest bit this is um the lenses of little layers puff pastry layers of gray and yellow which have come from where the water was this is the actual leat here and then along here again incredibly obvious these red stones are kind of stone lining um to to the elite itself so we've got the whole of this side the only thing we haven't got is the other side it should be exactly the same on the other side but it's underneath that great Hill so do we know what date this wall is well well if it's a stone wall Mick I think that means it's going to be before the 18th century let medieval 16th century as early as that yeah well the reason is if it was 18th or 19th century it would be a nicely dressed stone wall or it more likely would be a brick wall and it's not and you think it's like medieval late medieval yeah Helen this is you late medieval it's brilliant isn't it is exactly what we wanted the work of this trench is now done so we can now say it goes across here to Phil's Trench where it should join the wheel pit if we have that Phil you got anything in your trench of course I have got the wheel pit this is the wheel pit a lot of that's actually filled in but we have got to the bottom of the wheel pit and look look at this this brick wall is actually made out of recent bricks they're frogged look there's the imprint of the frogs Yeah but what we have got is the pivot point for the wheel so the actual wheel would have pivoted on that point there I mean that is really good because it'll give us an opportunity to reconstruct just how big this thing was so this this whole thing here that is all the wheels that is the wheel it's a hell of a size wheel isn't it this photograph of the mill is helping us make sense of the archeology I think it might be fun oh good yeah that's following the the shape of the water wheel oh we've done it yeah there's a wall there's a great wall there sure that's the word the word it comes in at a higher level comes in at a higher level I I either either at the top or sort of halfway down the wheel were you as Vindicated strip that back a little bit you've said we want to see I did you said it was critical I did and it and it is this walls the same height as the wall to the side which means that Mike's original thought was wrong this isn't an undershot wheel like this it's a breast shot one like this a much more efficient system off to one side of the wheel pit we've come across a large piece of stone Phil and I have a look at it where should the middle be there somewhere laughs we're practically after the cameraman's waist in debris is that something in the middle a hole a hole in the middle what is round in a mill with a hole in the middle a polo [Laughter] Oh you mean this whole thing is the hole so it's been blocked up wow I mean that's Hollow it's a puzzle isn't it Mike I'd say I wonder if we should be taking the machine to clear the top off here so we can get a really good look Phil I think you're actually probably right to be continued Phil now as his Millstone and it's a beauty can Martin date it it looks to me as though there might be four three or four grooves coming off of the Central in here down here can we clean it up a bit we'll just have a look the curving shape of those certainly pushes the date of this back I mean this is so 17th 18th century Millstone I would say ah that fits in with some of the pottery we've been looking at sure look at that isn't that a strange shape the key is this bit in the middle the shape of this dates the stone as 17th century the dates are all beginning to tie together we now have the floor of the domestic part of the mill building it too is a beauty this was probably the kitchen floor we decide to lift a section of it to see if we can see signs of any earlier flooring across the road in the other field Helen and Bridge are drawing a blank they found the continuation of the elite this wall is one edge of it but there's no sign of a wheel Pit and the building doesn't seem to be attached to the lead it's not looking like an earlier Mill and dating is a problem it's either before during or after but we don't know which yet oh wow oh it's a big piece of wood that is interesting isn't it this is a piece of the water wheel it's the rim how'd you know that well look you've got a really nice curve there and we've got a lump of wood here which which I think is part of the base of a pedal and what are these lumpy bits well we've we've got bits of pins for holding the paddles in place late 19th century late 19th century judging by the guy with a flat cap late 19th century doesn't sound much really but actually it's 150 years ago but actually isn't it in his trench films started digging but there's a problem there's more wood but there also seems to be concrete this is confusion Mike because there's there's actually a piece of Timber this Timber is coming right in underneath there underneath the concrete underneath the concrete I reckon that concrete's gonna have to come up one way or the other foreign across the lane Helen's searched for an earlier Mill has come to an end she was looking for signs of a wheel pit but there isn't one she's now found most of the elite running from Phil's trench across the field she's been working in but there's no sign of any building that might be a Mill and no sign of any structure other than what was probably a house we've opened two holes in it looking for an earlier mill on this site and I think what we have shown is that there's no we haven't found a meal and there's no need for a meal in this field everything connected with the leash is going over to that one well that's really important isn't it because up until now we've had circumstantial evidence that there's only been one site for a mill here because that's the best site that they could possibly be now the archeology is confirming it absolutely it certainly is here yes this is all leaked connected with that Mill in fact the lead turns out to be the key to dating the site at the earliest Mill analyzing the various Maps we realize that the key map is that of the parish this is the parish boundary on this side the parish boundary is the elite as the late man-made and doesn't follow any natural feature this means that the lead must have been here when the parish boundary was laid out and that pushes it and the mill right into the 10th or 11th century before doomsday back at the main site just off to the side of where Phil's digging we've found a second Millstone but the quality of this stone is very poor it's such rubbish Stone isn't it well it is when you think we're in a county with dark wall grannies with ports that you can bring Stone in from the French Basin Forest of Dean's not far away what are they doing using rubbish like that it's a new red Sandstone sort of conglomerate type yeah and it's very unusual in fact it's the first one I've ever seen in battle but they would have had grittin their grain wouldn't they that have used them well they would but I I suspect it was used at least laterally grinding animal feed with all right so it wouldn't have matter quite as much or maybe coarse grinding of some sort but I think the other thing is it tells us a bit more of the story that this wasn't a particularly prosperous Mill latterly that they weren't buying good quality millstones in so that's in great contrast to the the five Shilling at doomsday which was it was a lot of money well it is indeed isn't it yes it shows how over a period of a thousand years the life of a mill can change it yeah yes we have the wheel pit but we also have this other piece called the pit wheel this held the gearing to turn the millstones we do have rather a deep hole where the pit should be Stoner crows if this is the pit wheel then it is going to be a deep slot almost as well it has to be almost as deep as the water wheel he's a hell of a hole toner in it come on hey and there's also this big metal lump here it do done it do you want to see if we can get this out I think we should go for it yeah it looks like the pit wheel or part of the pit wheel what what's this bit this is the rim of the gear right where the where the wooden cogs were mortised in this would be the working face have it upright so vertical Martin yes yes vertical gear and these mortises are for the wooden cogs that uh it were in the face of the gear to mesh with the the rest of the gearing in the mill to wire using wooden cogs well this was a fairly early gear and in the early day they couldn't cast to good tolerances and two cast iron gears running together would have been very noisy and put a lot of stress on each other so the larger gears were often made with mortises cast in them to put wooden cogs in which were all paired and prepared by hand and it made for much quieter and safer running the Cog in the center is the piece of gear we've now found this linked the water wheel to the millstones it was a key part of the mill equipment we've now plotted the internal walls of the building and have a good idea of how the inside of the last Mill building on the site worked the last building on this site seems to have been put up in the 18th century our earlier walls on the middle Stones date from the late 17th century but the fines take us further back to the early 1600s the wheel pit has early bricks and even earlier stone at the base and right at the end of day three Phil's come up with the goods once again a piece of Timber that starts there yeah well I managed to trace it a lot and actually I got it you're going right through to there it's going underneath the wall so that piece of Timber has either got to be earlier than that wall or at the very least the same date as a foundation Timber exactly yes I think we're looking at a medieval material unquestionably I think you see the topographical situation of the place argues that it's earlier even the structural stuff because this Mill meat that runs right the way through is the parish boundary that's likely been fixed in the 10th or 11th century Dalton's on this side of that there's a very limited area perhaps about 50 meters on the side of it you could put a mill we've tested it with three or four trenches this is the most likely place for that so yeah it's not just that it's 400 years old 500 years old it's likely to have been here for a thousand years when this building was demolished in the 1960s it wasn't just the end for a building that was a couple of hundred years old it was the end of almost a thousand years of Milling on this very spot [Music] time team is a hundred percent independent and funded by our incredible fans [Music] this is Manchester City Center and behind all these Posh shops lies a story that changed Britain and the world and it's all down to this stuff cotton it's only just over 200 years ago the cotton cloth started to be manufactured in this country and Manchester soon became the PowerHouse and driving force behind the new cotton industry the building at the heart of this story lies here in the city center and it revolutionized British Society built in 1780 on this spot was the first cotton mill in Manchester today it's buried under this car park and we've got just three days to locate and retrieve one of the most important historic sites in Britain not that you'd know it today Francis if there was a mill here they managed to wipe out every single piece of evidence of it well not actually Tony behind you there you can see you've got cobbles now I think that was the surface of the yard that went outside the mill now certainly early 19th century cobbles so presumably then Mike the front of the mill was ran along those cobbles yes Francis we've actually got a number of maps this is one from 1831 and it shows the mill is a rectangular building with a reservoir below it and then the cobbles running in between if we know that then why are we bothering to dig the side because although this is a factory that's been used for 150 years Tony we don't know how the meal was laid out we don't know how it develops but digging one rectangular building isn't going to take three days not one building it's been rebuilt a number of times burnt down in the 1850s for instance so how are we going to locate it well issue we've had a bit of a deliberation about this the obvious one a bit of whack a trench right through the middle of it but we we really want to find out a bit more about how well preserved it is where the width of it is so what we're gonna do is just pop one in through there that will give us the precise width of the walls it will give us the location of the walls and it'll give us some idea of the depth of deposits as well you seem quite excited about it your passion is prehistory yeah but this is this is the prehistory of the Industrial Revolution [Laughter] [Music] Arc right created two cutting-edge systems for the mill the first was a steam engine to power the mill directly something no one else had yet achieved the second was an Innovative water system that used a steam engine together with a water wheel we had to find evidence of both systems near the center of the mill to find this we need to find the Mill's walls even though we've got various plans they aren't reliable so the diggers will place trench one here which they hope will stretch across one side of the original Mill foreign hasn't been developed since the blitz of 1940 when a mill rebuilt in the Victorian era was destroyed by the luftwaffe [Applause] because of the hard modern tarmac the GFS team can't stick their normal sensors in the ground instead they're using radar to cover the whole Mill area which will take them all day within an hour of stripping the surface Phil thinks he's hit the jackpot Gary this is it this is the wall of the Mill House we've got the yard out there and here's the wall and then inside the mill let's see a bit more of this wall here if Phil has hit the wall of Arc right 1780s Mill he's uncovered a building at the root of massive change in Manchester a building that helped transform a village into a metropolis as day one nears an end we're still not sure if Phil's walls are Arc right but Mike's confident of the date of the wall in trench three well we stopped digging and starting the recording what happened here well what we've got here Tony is we've got the end of the mill we've got the couples here yeah and then we've got a line of bricks a bit bashed about my couple of holes which have been bashed through in the mid 20th century but either side we have brick Walling you see the two rows of bricks here and then a row of bricks and some Stone sets over here and we think that's the doorway into the mill you say it's the door into the mill but earlier you said to me there were lots of Mills at different times there are lots of Mills now we're pretty certain this is Arc right 1781 to 82 mil why this is a brick from 1854 it's very sharp it's wire cut and it's quite chunky very nicely made however that is a brick from this wall much much more irregular it's made in a wooden mold it's a slightly smaller size and it's far more irregular and this was made in Manchester between 1780 and 1820. this is the brick from arkwright's first meal I bet you're glad you found that absolutely delighted so Matt what are we gonna do with this trench now well that's it really Tony's job done here but we have got a Bonus and we've got to the end of the trench we've got this huge stone column base here and if you look closely you can see the circle there where the cast iron flange would have been at the bottom of the column and these would have run all the way down the center of the mill there so presumably that's proof positive that we're right inside the factory absolutely by the end of the day we found at least one piece of original Arc right wall and we're uncovering possible sights for the engine and there's a whole other side of the story yet to explore for you this dig isn't just about some old bits of Machinery is it no we think had Cellar dwellings underneath them where the people may have actually lived we can look at those tomorrow should be some good finds there shouldn't we hope so but in addition to that we've started work on this trench here which is going to be huge and already we've come up with this really interesting Arch here so tomorrow we're not only going to try and get into the hearts and minds of the people who lived here but Into the Heart of the factory that dominated their lives these are the same type as this which would make them our price as well well you know there was the whole thing is aren't right yeah I mean there's no question that war there is later than that well it sits on the on the plinth there confused so are we suddenly Mike and Phil realize that 1780 bricks may not mean a 1780 wall so this Arch may be nothing to do with Arc rights engine worse all the dating they've done on the walls of the mill so far is thrown into question now I think we do have a little bit of Arc right here and that's these column bases you can see there's one there another one there another one coming up there arkwright used to use column bases to run down the center of his buildings so that gives us the alignment because we've also found one in that little trench over there this tiny little thing here yeah that's right and that also had the only bit of Arc right wool that I'm prepared to swear by right now you can see what those two ladies have obliging this stood yeah hello they're down the center of the building yeah and then the other one is over there yeah by the genuine Arc right wall now what we do know is that Arc rights buildings were 30 feet wide if the columns are going down the middle if we measure out 15 feet on either side we'll get where the walls ought to be so do we do that yeah you can come and help me come on grab the tape yeah hop in next door for that column yeah from the middle of the column uh the middle of the column right here we go 15 feet right so the wall by right ought to be here and this solid brick all over it uh yes that's a slight problem isn't it what we'll do is look underneath them just to make sure that there is wall there and if we are on the money there it's our price Mill so we bridges made great progress on her angel Street house revealing nearly a complete Cellar dwelling in just a couple of hours ports from Frederick Engels and others describe the hardships of living and working in the Mills of the area one of our teams Stuart has got a personal insight into what Mill life would have been like his mother worked in a mill near Leeds I remember how little money we had in those early days and I can remember hiding from the rent man we were a bit short on a Monday night we used to we used to have to keep quiet and the lights were turned down because the rent man was expected and things like that it's weird because whenever we talk about middle life it seems like it was another era it's amazing to me that you who a relatively young bloke thank you still remember it well I do I agree I grew up with it my my mother was a weaver worked in in the weaving sheds all her life she was incredibly physically strong she worked eight looms at once but had to keep them all going the whole time so incredibly hard physical work you know one of the historians told me and I thought this was so extraordinary that all those Northern comedians who used to speak like that with all those gestures they actually did it not as an affectation but because virtually all of them worked in the Mills and it was so noisy there yeah they continually had to do all that elaborate communication otherwise no one would ever understand what they were saying yeah but I could actually remember you know the Looms turning the noise they work force the people and one thing I remember about the lost my mom's friends um the Weavers is that they they'd lost fingers because when the shuttle was going backwards and forwards you had to catch it and turn it round and if you didn't get it right it took your finger off and I remember a lot of my mum's friends all sort of missing the old end of their finger or a finger missing and things like that so injury and deafness and hard work we're all part of a Weaver's life beginning of day three and guess what it's raining in Manchester mind you would have been pretty wet here 220 odd years ago when Richard arkwright built his Mill because we're pretty sure the whole thing was powered by water and steam not that we found that much of the factory because every time we've got anywhere near it it's miraculously seemed to disappear through our fingers isn't it so are you really confident that we actually do have the water wheel here yes and yet you've been found wanting so many times over the last 48 hours why are you so sure well all the maps tell us the water wheel was in this position here where we stood we've seen it on the radar plan but if you're not convinced look at this vertical section there's the top of the ground that red line marks that road surface below that road surface is this clear response that has to be the wheel pit and does it work for you in terms of the logic of the architecture it does Tony because we're in the middle of the mill and that's in and our front Mill is where the water wheel will be so why is it so significant that we find this wheel well it'll tie everything down I mean if you know the position of the water wheel it transfers the energy virus shaft into the mill and once you know position that you can work out where all the Looms are how many would be the whole layout is dependent on finding that back on site the hunt for the wheel pit isn't going quite as planned Francis can I remind you of an exchange earlier on today Tony are you confident that there is a water wheel in this trench you four yes yes yes yes hello water wheel where are you it's not there 'll be a little bit more complicated than that Tony is it yeah in fact it's it's all happening as we speak Phil down there has got something and I don't know what it is he won't tell us Brad says yeah got it really yes yards away Phil's now uncovered the thing that ran under the wall I wasn't expecting that it's a 20th century drain well I completely cops back [Music] that is deep that is deep how deep are you now well I did dangle a tape over there and it was 12 foot so it's supposed to be 15 foot so I'm I mean money's on three more foot and that's eight feet wise eight foot wide just bang on the money for that one and we didn't see it foreign all the walls down there all four of them appear to be lined in this stuff and it's all the way around oh that looks like that pitch or bitumen but that's the feeling that's right then presumably that hole was designed to take water that's going to protect the brickwork yeah it would have to be watertight so that could mean that's a well what if this is the very first steam engine he installed the 1781 one which was meant to be running the Machinery that would have to be in the middle of the mill like a water wheel to run the Machinery it failed but instead of building a new engine they adapted it as a pumping engine that would mean that we found our 1781 engine and it and and under our very noses it was here all the time okay okay thanks mate it's deep it's massive isn't it all right so if the wheel was in there what about the steam come over here we now think this is the site of arkwright's 1781 steam engine he tried to use to power textile machinery but if that was his very first engine that was the one that didn't work properly it was so why is it still here well it was positioned in the middle of the mill so it could run the line shifting to pound the textile Machinery that way yeah it didn't work so what it looks like they've done is they've reused it for pumping water from the lower Reservoir through the well there and out onto a Spillway into channels running that way somebody has tried to apply steam to textile Machinery so this isn't just archeology this is history this is where the modern world begins 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 buckmill lies near the village of stoke Trista in Somerset we know that the ruins belong to a Watermill that went out of use 150 years ago but its past remains a mystery although there is one exciting clue a doomsday reference that suggests beneath the ruins we could find a mill that dates back to the Normans so by Excavating Blackmill we hope to learn just how this powerful Mill would have shaped the lives of people around here possibly for a thousand years yeah Phil's job will be to uncover the industrial end of the mill by digging down into the wheel pit while at the other end of the building we're hoping to find what we think is the Miller's house and the moment the brambles around the wheel pit are cleared we make our first find so what's that then any ideas it seems a little bit lightweight for the mill but I can't think what else it could be at this point I'm told identifying Mill Parts can be a bit of a brain teaser because there were so many bits and Bobs of Machinery required to get the power of the water to the millstones but we do know our Mill is likely to be one of three common types of water wheel the most basic and least efficient undershot wheel or a middle of the range breast shot wheel or the most complex design of all an overshot wheel with almost no records to go on we'll be relying on our army of diggers to explain the Mill's past so now the brambles are cleared they can get stuck in a cavity opened up in here but there's a piece of curve in that oh God that looks like that looks like part of the wheel Phil I think we found a bit of a metal water wheel this really is a big Discovery and the more of the wheel we find the more it can tell us about the power and importance of this map ah there ish that's fantastic that's part of one of the buckets of the water wheel that's part of a metal bucket that is the water wheel it is part of the water wheel part of the bottom of the wheel is still in there can you date this design of construction well an all metal wheel all like that is gonna be sort of middle of the 19th century down here amongst all this Rubble somewhere we think we've got the mill wheel the very heart of all the activity here we couldn't have really dreamed of better in the whole of the three days but the other thing that's really impressing me is the size of this site now we started off with just a few crumbled bits of wool and now we've got all this and if that wasn't enough take a look down there Helen what do you reckon that is well at first sight that looks very much like an Anglo-Saxon comb anglo-serkson this Mill is starting to get rather weird so Phil what have we got now how we got the other side the wheel Martin that's excellent here's the actual circumference inner circumference of the wheel coming round there and then we've got a bucket there and looks like we've got a bucket coming in there but the crucial thing is we've actually got part of the internal structure of the wheel because we've got one of the spokes in there and then we've got another one there look and another one here and another one back there as well what they've done before they demolished the mill was they looked at all this scrap metal in the wheel thought we could make use of that so what they've done is they've chopped the wheel off and then when they've demolished the mill all the demolition Rubble was gone in on the top of it and the rest of the wheel's been taken away but the 1782 map would suggest they also put a lot of effort into their homes second trench is now going in over the end of the building we believe is the Miller's house [Music] and within seconds Fey and raksha hit a rather Posh Stone floor it's a little bit here I just want to see what's happening disappearing yeah I think yeah if we just go to that level yep in the middle of the building Tracy is looking for the Cog pit which would have held the gears required to transfer power from our 19th century Mill wheel to the millstones Mick suspects the Mill's history should go back much further but the big question is this is only what 18th 19th century what's underneath it well yeah that's the problem you see we could end up with a really good plan of an 18th or 19th century Mill for which there are 100 Still Standing so they've all been turned into tea shops haven't they yeah and Posh restaurants sort of place you go to you know and in the cockpit Tracy has uncovered what could be another important piece of the Mills Machinery I mean we've got we've got the Cog hole here which would have attached to the wheel the Cog pit which would have been in here we haven't got it yet okay that's good isn't it yeah but then behind me I think you're gonna like this oh crikey first Millstone yeah yeah half a millstone anyway a half a one is that in situ there is it well we don't know until we've cleaned around some more of the demolition material but it does look very flat it might form back wheel uh the back wall rather of the cockpit but that should help because the size of it the type of stone the patterning on this will give us the date of it yeah and then we see it coming up down here where James is working we've got the floor coming up great yeah it's starting to really come together what is it in the landscape that makes you think there might be an earlier Mill up there well there's a couple of things first of all this depression we're in is the original stream course the Meandering course the stream that comes down the valley see it rises up up here yeah and we're mix heading up here up here look terrific from all the work there he's walking along it that carries on up this side of the valley up into the hills up there and what that leak should be doing is bringing water doesn't mean like a mill just about there well let's make it a bit more dramatic than that yeah yeah Phil hasn't stopped digging into the wheel pit at that Mill since he uncovered a section of water wheel Oh Martin Come on finish it's getting quite a lot of this wheel now you've got a lot more showing now than yesterday well that's right you see I mean yester if you remember we started to expose the wheel over there but now we're away from the wall look you've got a nice run of the metal wheel running right down in under my feet and we're beginning to get these spokes going right through it's going to be fascinating you've exposed so much more of this now that I can see that my initial thoughts weren't quite right in what way I was thinking that it was a a brush shot wheel turning that way ah and now as you can see from the way the buckets are it turned that way didn't it it's an overshot wheel the water must have come over the top they could only be filled on the downside well you can actually see that here because of the curvature of this bucket here forgive my ignorance but what difference does it make which way round the wheel goes well in a way the direction doesn't matter too much it's where the water comes onto it the fact the water's coming on the top and it's an overshot wheel means it's the best solution it's the most powerful it's the most efficient type of wheel you could have so is that really up in the status and and power of this Mill yeah I think we're putting it up where I'd like to see it really it points to this being an older site Mill's not going to be massively far that way because what they use the water for the wheel and as soon as they finish with it it's off back down to the streets going down there so it's really if it's not in this section here we need to be sampling along this Terrace here for perhaps another 30 meters to see if it's in this because it really ought to be in the next 30 meters or so I would suggest Phil last time I was here it was all covered and scrubbing up 19th century we've done I'll have a lot of work we have and now it's all complicated is the house at the other end and still a house is that still contemporary I think that's still residential yes yeah but we've still got to actually try and tie in the actual phases of building with what we've got where Tracy is yeah and then we've actually got to start building on from that and trying to actually understand what's going on in the phasing over this side and this wall here you see once we get up on the top here yeah we've got a wall coming through here yeah it comes through underneath here and go straight down through the wall pit yeah this doesn't appear to come straight through here look we got this one that comes across there yeah yeah so these walls everywhere and until we actually look at the at the way each wall joins on or butts up against every other wall we won't understand what's going on in this building it's gonna be tricky isn't it we can do it at the site of our possible early medieval Mill Matt and his diggers have spent a day and a half sifting through play but have yet to make a single find if you thought life couldn't get any more miserable for them it started to rain the only person who seems unfazed by the many phases of buckmill is Helen yesterday's fines are telling her there was once a flourishing family business here well we've got a will of the Miller who died in 1703 John bangerfield and he leaves a big estate it's worth something like 300 pounds and it includes land as well now I don't think he should have been making that money from the mill did it come from the land maybe this object that I'm just halfway through cleaning really illustrates that because it's a it's a clothing class it's got very detailed very well cast decoration and you can probably see in the sunlight that it's got a little bit of silver coating on it so when new it would have looked like silver this would have looked really smart this dates to the first few Decades of the 16th century so it's nearly 200 years older than the 17th century items it's a purse hanger would have had coins or something like that in there and so it's the kind of thing that you wouldn't have unless you had a bit of money very much of kind of middle class item and that was also found in the 18th century Mill so one wonders if the people associated with the mill were always a bit more middle class than you might expect the scale of the Mill House that John benjafield lived in late in the 17th century also points to our Millers being surprisingly posh while our early medieval Mill is condemned to the clay at the cockpit of buckmill Tracy has had what can only be described as an archaeological Epiphany yeah I had a real Agatha Christie moment earlier on come on give us your moment well we have the strange tale of the broken clasp smashed teacup and the careless smoker recount the story to me well we got down to the bottom of the cockpit yesterday yeah and we've got a really well rammed in stone floor down there yeah underneath the floor just at the point where it was being laid we found this this mid 17th century and would have been some sort of dress fastening so somebody's been standing up here this is broken off and fallen down they haven't found it they've carried on laying the floor so that gives us a really nice date for the laying on the floor then straight away when the floor has been laid before anything's built up no silting or anything like that we have chappie he's smoking his pipe this is the careless smoke this is the careless smoker and he's smoking his pipe and he's dropped it and he smashed it why is he careless well you can't have a naked flame in the flour mill because the flower will just combust and bang as your meal so the only time he could have been smoking was when they were building the walls and then unfortunately the same poor chat he's had his cup of tea and he smashed his teeth up and what sort of date is this the cop date is 1660 to about 1680. so that ties in really nicely with the clasp and gives us a good dating for the construction of the first phase of this part of the mill so very possibly thanks to John benjafield and his Butterfingers we now know that the earlier phase of the mill was built between 1660 and 1680. but just how he became so wealthy remains a bit of a puzzle because the mill was only average in size and power we don't know how he came to have such a big house unless perhaps he had his fingers in other pies and because of our archaeologists detective work we now have a pretty good idea of what Buck Mill would have looked like right back to the 17th century this earliest phase of Mill could have been built by John benjafield between 1660 and 1680. at which point the mill would have had a much wider water wheel in the 18th century another pair of millstones were added around the 1830s the more primitive wooden wheel would have been removed and replaced by the cast iron overshot wheel which required fundamental changes to the water supply and wheel pit buckmill had Elite bringing water from the stream over a mile up the valley so it would have been a remarkable feat of engineering that supported not only generation after generation of Miller but the entire Community around them 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 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Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 42,845

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: niCjSLVDaN8

Length: 50min 0sec (3000 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023