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other there's a new island off the dramatic coast of Cornwall and to say it's got a romantic history it's an understatement [Music] you can't move the stories of shipwrecks and Pirates and monks and ghosts and treasure maps pilgrims frequently lost their lives in these waters on the trip to a chapel on the island which has now vanished here in lieu we're investigating a story of two chapels in the medieval period they belong to Glastonbury Abbey the important Somerset Monastery famous for cultivating the legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea and according to local Legend it was Joseph of Arimathea who brought Jesus Christ to Lu Island and left him to play in the safety of these beaches while he went off to do business with Cornish tin merchants If people really did believe that Jesus played here when he was a lad that would have got people flocking here wouldn't it oh yeah that would have driven a whole pilgrimage industry of people coming out here to seed you know and the support structure for it it's just that sort of thing that people travel around to to visit so you're really championing the bit now aren't you well of course I am I mean the point is that the Time and Tide are the two things that wait for no man we've got to get off of this island by early afternoon and we've only got half our diggers because the others are I don't know if you can see just round the Headland there up on that Hillside what are they doing there Mick there's another Chapel over there halfway up the hill and they're said to be the same size one sent to me a copy of the other one but the mainland Chapel has been excavated already hasn't it well that's right I mean partially Doug at least I mean in the 1930s some local Cornish archaeologists went in there they're a slightly eccentric ideas they were desperate that it should be pre-normal and they kind of labeled it Celtic what do we mean by Celtic it's a shorthand term in the west country for something that's after the Romans but before the Normans but of course we don't have Anglo-Saxons in this area so it's it's a short down term for that Dark Age period And there are maps dating back to the 16th century showing a chapel right on top of the hill right that should be our excavated area in between these strings so if you want to start stripping the turf off of that that'll be fine thank you so with time in short supply Phil's confident enough to get going without GFS results and Stewart's nose for Earthworks has sniffed out what he thinks is a Nave for the pilgrims and a Chancellor for the altar you see Phil's getting a bit of a wall coming out through there which rather suggests that that's probably the first block perhaps that added on to it so what do you think the timeline might be the very early what they call Celtic Chapel would be wood and we just find post songs then what if we're lucky we find post holes and then we get a stone building on top of that which is pretty small and pretty featureless and then somebody comes along and revamps that with some nice architectural Pieces perhaps doorways chance large windows in the 12th century that would be my guess as to what we'd see on the side the structures themselves could be the best clue we have when it comes to dating because chapels don't have the domestic rubbish that we usually rely on to date buildings hey Phil that trench is coming along yeah I mean it looks like we've got the beginnings of a wall Tony I mean we always knew that there were those big Stones just immediately underneath the turf but now we've got it stripped off you can see there's a nice Edge there but we really need to be able to get down to confirm that that is a war we certainly can't date it but we can begin to suggest that it is a chapel Jackie will show me some bone earlier on what you got Jackie the bits that are really of Interest so these pieces here now these are bits of human femur and it's quite a large individual you can see these ridges running down here this is where the big thigh muscles attach and they really are quite rugged so this is quite a large individual with quite chunky thighs so I've got a mystery of a big thighed person or somewhere on this island at some time and he might not be the only burial here because human bones are said to have been revealed as the cliff faces have eroded Glastonbury acquired this land sometime in the 12th century and legal documents suggest that there was already a chapel on the island at this time at the chapel on the top of the island it looks like we've found a potential north wall and Ian's put in a new trench looking for the West End on the other side of the water we found steps coming down the hillside into the chapel on the mainland chunky stone walls and a floor surface carved out of the rock face it seems to be deliberately terraced into the hillside at exactly the same height as the island Chapel isn't it weird looking back at our Chapel from this Chapel it is and yet this is strangely familiar I mean when you look at the size of this chapel and you think about the Earthworks over there they are very very similar can you see this what looks like a wall running here there's almost like face Stones coming through well they're actually floating on top of this dirt we need to get to grips with this wall to find out whether there was a knave here before Glastonbury added a chancel and Bridge and Oliver have now found some post holes that might prove Croft Andrews theory that this knave was Celtic it would have been a hell of a job cutting through that rock wouldn't it oh absolutely and I haven't excavated them yet but having stuck my trowel down they're at least the Steep so do we think we've got our earlier Chapel our early Timber Chapel if you're very very lucky on the other hand of course they could be late they could be posted a solution for all we know but we've also got this other new feature that just come up which may support an earlier structure can you see down here because we're Gully and it's been actually cut into the stone it's at a right angle and that could well be a Timber slot for an earlier building and that's in line with those post holes as well isn't it absolutely pilgrims who made it safely to the island Chapel believed that Saint Michael would reward their bravery with time off purgatory and we're just beginning to uncover the Nave where they would have stood Phil I think I might have piece of in-situ flooring here good Lord yeah and that is exactly the same sort of surface that we had on the mainland Chapel yesterday that was was a mortared surface just like this and it's patches directly on the natural bedrock and this wall to a look this wall here so what what angle are we on there where's where's North hang on there we go I'll tell exactly what angle we are bang on East West don't get much better than that doesn't get much better than that this Wall's convincing because chapels generally face the East often orientated to the sunrise of their Saints Day now we can really get our teeth into working out what it might have looked like 1590s all these lovely ships that's amazing because this is is showing the disposition of the English and Spanish fleets at the Armada it's a story map to some extent but you can see along here we've got what's called Saint Michael's Island at that stage but it still shows a chapel it depicts it with a tower but I think you have to take that kind of a pinch of salt we've got the wall now it is bang on East West right now the interesting thing now is what is happening in here because we've got all this these stones are mortared in so this is actually masonry right now what I don't know and I'm trying to resolve is whether or not that wall comes along and turns in other words we're actually in the northeast corner at a chapel yeah or whether it's actually a big sort of swelling to take a buttress or a big column that might support a chancel Arch like the big Stones you've got over here in fact exactly yeah and now you see down there might add another wool yeah now I did wonder at one stage whether or not that might be the South Wall of the chapel but now we've actually cleaned it up and looked at it you actually see that it's on a slightly different alignment in southwest and Northeast right so I'm rather hopeful if it worked out all right for me we'd have a wall come in here be the northeast corner of the chapel yeah this is the chapel that would be a separate building outside it It Feels Right the island Chapel could be much smaller than the mainland Chapel so the theory that they were mirror images is looking a bit shaky beginning of day three here at Lou in Cornwall we've got a chapel on the island over there we've got another one at the top of the hill and this morning we're going to open the stone-lined burial we found yesterday [Music] one day left and frustratingly the tides won't let us out to the island for a couple of hours yet Jack is already hard at work on the possible grave in the mainland Chapel because whoever lies inside it should be an important figure in our story it's all a little bit strange strange in what way it's very narrow but I think actually it's it's now it looks narrower because of the pressure of material pushing down on here you can see this Stone here is angled I suspect it was originally further over there but I think we might find that there's something underneath these I'm probably gonna have to take those out where do you think the end might be then Jeffy well see how the soil changes completely there so I think it actually could be right over here given its position within the church it could be a storage area a reliques although quiz it's usually some kind of books or other kind of container in which you would store things like the bones of saints in your church further down the hill raksha has found the missing wall of the Monk's house that we were looking for yesterday and it's a pretty substantial building we've got lovely cool thing down this side and we've got another one here you can actually see this line going across here so that's the inside of the building the standing remains show a two-story building Croft Andrew found two small bedrooms for our monks and we found the back wall of a refectory which would have been used by pilgrims waiting to get to the island on feast days when they really did make a day of it I don't think we've got anything in there this is an extraordinary find relics beneath the altar would have been displayed on feast days drawing pilgrims to this Chapel to make offerings frustratingly the Bones have long since been removed so we can't date it Jackie I've got bone here but in a different part of the chapel Bridge thinks she's found another burial and it's human part of the human foot bone you've got look to have more down there yeah there is a lot down here you can see it's ranging from here to about here yeah so that looks like it's in situ it's not moved anywhere so where's the grave cut well I think that these two large Stones here which end about here mark one side of it and what I've been thinking of is a wall here is actually marking the foot end of it this gets better and better the small wall was glastonbury's chancel and this means that Bridges burial could well be related to an earlier Chapel and now Oliver's convinced he's found it well the evidence we've got these two whacking great post holes in front of us but the killer piece of evidence is the fact that they align really nicely with The Rock Cut feature stretching off into the distance there and the fact that together they're on a different alignment than the walls that we can see only by a couple of degrees but I think it's significant if Oliver's right it means a wooden Chapel was here before the Glastonbury monks arrived and the exciting news is that if Bridge's burial is related to it a bone sample could actually date it it's all getting pretty exciting over there apparently so we're going to leave a skeleton crew on the Headland which is fairly appropriate I suppose and the rest of us are going over to see what's happening [Music] after we left it seems our archaeological Hermits made the most of their Island Experience the big news is the mats found a burial carved into the Bedrock Ian thinks he's finally found the West Wall of the chapel and traces cleaned up the possible standing Stone so ah you've got a grave cut haven't you this is it here look you can see it cuts into the Shale going all the way along there is a wider head end coming back down here do my eyes deceive me or is that a very big bone that is a very big shin bone there's his foot there unfortunately no knee bone and no sign of a thigh yet do you think it might belong to the same person we found on the first day well in a way I hope not because that would mean the Barrel's been really Disturbed Disturbed or not if he's buried inside the building he could be a significant figure in the Chapel's history that's a really curious looking wall you've got there it's quite a complicated story because here you've got this plaster here and you can see the line of the wall continuing through here so I think that this stone is actually added on which employs to me that this is not just one Chapel that was built and then that was it periodically it was refurbished it was strengthened it was modified it's a very very long story and part of that story the addition of the chancel is exactly the same as we found on the mainland but this isn't the only similarity it looks like Matt's burial is in the same position as the reliqui in front of the altar if only our big boned man could tell us when he was buried because we're running out of time to work out just how long this story is but with a few hours left we're putting another trench in because Stewart spotted a ditch running all around the top of the hill which might give us an idea of how long a chapel has stood here we're only just below the surface and already we've got some fines it's certainly medieval at the latest and probably earlier it is handmade just do a throw a spanner in the works that may influence my decision this could actually be a Ramana British shirt then it looks like we're heading further back into the time of the Cornish Saints because the latest theory is that our burial and reliqui are from an even earlier Chapel than the one Oliver found which Glastonbury probably revamped by adding a chancel and if so pilgrims could have been coming to pay their respects to relics in this box long before glastonbury's time island has turned into a hive of activity Kerry is trying to lift the possible standing Stone without much success and it's all going on in the oval enclosure where we've been pulling out a coin every eight minutes so far there are six Jonathan that means one more coin and you've got another horde to your name you've got one beautiful coin here though you clearly see the figurine of the Goddess on the back back on The Lawns the huge Stone doesn't want to stand up so Kerry is now burrowing under it it's smooth underneath so see I don't think there's anything under there I think we can go for the standing Stone exciting as this is It's Undateable these are medieval shirts of Polk one's actually got a little spot of glazing so that helps me a little bit I think these are mid to late 13th century so how does that fit into the the history of the island and this Chapel Nicholas well the late 13th century is when Glastonbury is giving up this site and bringing the monks back but it's possible that this is one of the last monks or priors of the place and if it's not that it's the Lord or Lady of the manner it's clearly a very important grave it's being excavated out of the rockets at a pole position in the church and Matt's burial isn't alone just as we're packing up outside the West End of the chapel Ian's found what looks like a kissed burial but you're gonna be staying here anyway aren't you so will you let us know at some time what it was cheers we've got to go like now okay let's go even as we're loading onto the boat another kissed burial emerges from under the South Wall excuse me you're welcome it's beginning to look like this enclosure could have been a burial ground for thousands of years maybe even into prehistory over the last few days we've discovered that the story of our two chapels began long before glastonbury's monks arrived when Lou Island could well have been one of the earliest outposts of Christianity and a chapel on the top would have been a Beacon of Hope for Traders from the Mediterranean Crossing formidable Seas sometime later another Chapel was built on the mainland at the same height looking to the island with our reliqui box at the altar for pilgrims to visit and eventually in the 12th century glastonbury's monks rebuilt both the Chapels as a sort of some Michael theme park over the last three days we've just scratched the surface of this magical Island which has been a very special place going way back long before Christianity time team is a hundred percent independent and funded by our incredible fans joining Paige 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 a few years ago some geothers was done over some Crop Marks in that field up there and it produced some of the most tantalizing results that we've seen for years not only that but a metal detectorist has found a tiny bit of Bronze Age gold up there and lots of pottery has come up including this 5th Century piece but this is Cornwall this is Turkish and this tiny little bit believe it or not is African someone on earth going on here well evidence has been found suggesting ancient Mariners plied these Waters thousands of years ago bringing in from overseas exotic Goods such as wine silk and Papyrus and taking away local tin and copper so is there the remotest chance that this is the shadow of an early trading site the like of which we've never seen on time team before so with the old geofys as our guide we're going to start our investigation by opening two trenches one in each of the fields that overlooks the beach in the lower field nearest The Cove Matan raksha are putting a trench in over a large geoffiz anomaly which doesn't much look like the traditional round houses in the other field could it be because the archeology here as Mick suspects was linked to ancient trade whereas over in the upper field Phil's investigating what could be an Iron Age roundhouse that wouldn't normally be associated with the types of fines previously discovered on this site fines that include pieces of bronze Ajax Roman coins and of course the Intriguing exotic Fifth and 6th Century pottery from overseas in fact we could be looking at a thousand years of activity but unfortunately most of this material has been found lying about on the ground and that means the archaeologists can't use it to date anything here one thing that fascinates me about this geophys is that they seem to have really thick walls around these houses what I think you've got is an outer Stone Face a core of rubbish midden material and then another inner Stone call so it's a composite wall does cavity rubbish insulation make any sense to you Francis well sort of sense Tony yeah I think the main thing is you've got structure you may have fines actually on the floor in the central halves but what that geophys tells me is that those houses are very understood well we've dug prehistoric round houses before on time team and circles like this do suggest the remains of a mud or Stone House roofed with thatch or turf it might also be surrounded by a ditch to drain away the rain water while inside there's normally a half for the family fire [Music] but although archaeologically they're fairly easy to cover it's much more difficult to date a prehistoric house what you need are fines [Music] this is a Roman coin which is nice to see because several others have been found in the field by the metal detectors why do you say that's Roman um from its shape it's it's been hammered by using a hand hammer and also I can probably go even a bit further go on and say that it's most likely from the emperor Hadrian who was around about the second Century A.D so confident and in front of a television camera that's experience look at that how many of you could tell that that was a coin to the emperor Hadrian so our first piece of data date matte trench firmly into the Roman period possibly centuries after our potential prehistoric settlement in the other field that is if we can find it because at the moment all we've got in Phil's trench are a series of strange Stone features John is simply bemused and Confused well I mean you've definitely got a good Edge swinging around there back in the lower field Matt's on a roll it's Cornish what we call native courseware I wouldn't like to say whether it was Iron Age or or Roman because it doesn't change a great deal but it's it's that kind of period so and that's just out of that it's just out of the edge here where this natural's cut away into this silk stuff isn't it so stratified among this this material it's uh it's good dating yeah I think here's the second one that's a rim there you go yeah it looks like the base of a straight-sided jar again native courseware and and look at the state of the pot it's obviously been used for cooking yeah really burnt so that's great the geophysics showed this huge ring in this field here and this is the ring here it's this ditch ah so that is actually that yeah it goes all the way around like that so now I'm walking into the house and you can see that the saw is kind of going this dark gray color especially around here that's because there's so much charcoal in here and we found some burnt animal bone up there as well so I mean there's just their rubbish all over the floor really is this the wall on the other side ah now according to the geophysics the ditch there the wall ditch should go round behind you and should be at the other end of the trench there so this should be about the center of the house so is this the half that's producing all the charcoal and burnt material yeah it looks like it right you've got fires in the fine straight yep with some great stuff out of here so he's on a bit down there yep yep there's another bit in the city down there you can see that's a bit of amfraid so these are these big wine Royal storage jars this is coming from the East Mediterranean then yeah that's post Roman as well that's fifth or sixth century so if this isn't my outside wall where is the other outside wall well according to the geophysics it should be right about the other end of the trench there right here somewhere yep raksha can you stand up for a sec and the other wall is where raksha is if that's right it's a heck of a big building mate it's a huge building especially if it's producing material like this this post-roman stuff that's really exciting why would it be so significant if it was that sort of date because we don't get structures that are sort of post-roman very often particularly with the fines associated with them and this is the so-called Dark Ages because we don't know very much about it usually because we can't tell her of that period because we haven't got the phones to go with them so if this is fifth or sixth Century then this could actually be Illuminating the Dark Ages which isn't a bad job for tomorrow is it the star finding match Trends yesterday was this small piece of Turkish pottery that had somehow traveled hundreds even thousands of miles from the Mediterranean ports to Cornwall in the fifth or 6th century and it's this evidence along with the pieces of African part that have already been found that lead archaeologists to believe our Cove could once have been visited by ships from all over southern Europe the problem for me is it seems an odd place to put a harbor this is the the modern map and our site is just in there and you can see immediately how how sheltered it is around the back of this Headland here you've got the full force of the Atlantic coming up here but if you come around here it fits perfectly sheltered this green area is all Sam's which you wouldn't really want to to bring a Bose over the main channel of the camel is out in the middle now I'm going off down the Estuary down up towards padstow if they can tell how deep the channel was in ancient times then we should be able to work out how big a boat could have sailed here thousands of years ago got some lovely bits of pottery coming up now Carl over in the Iron Age settlement it looks like Phil's made the Breakthrough he's been hoping for the confusing strips of rock are beginning to reveal a recognizable shape and there's at last some dateable pottery from the trench well that's fantastic this is the first distinctive Iron Age um shirt I've seen on the site I can tell that because it's very upright in nature whereas the Roman ones are much more folded over probably sort of late third early second century BC so there's absolutely no doubt this could not be into the Roman period no this is definitely Iron Age from the upright nature of the rim I mean the thing that strikes me is that that shirt and the others with it are so big and in such good condition they can only have come from this building it's not looking really quite as round as it was it's more I mean it could be rectangular quiet place for a trading post whereas John Gia Fizz has put his money on something like a workshop either way if we're lucky we should get more information about where our ancient Traders were from and when they visited oh look at that is that Sabian well I think it is except there is so badly decayed look all the the really bright red is worn off but look it's got this sort of spirally pattern going around there and around there it's very dude well it is that is but at least it's good Roman but at this stage it's impossible to tell if a good Roman was actually here over in the other field we have a whole prehistoric Village to deal with and Francis is now looking for signs of the first settlers possibly from the Bronze Age if Francis does uncover a prehistoric trackway it could push the date of our site back by another Thousand Years oh that's the same fifth and sixth Century stuff that we had from this trench before it was really high status stuff I mean it would have had wine or olive oil in it but I mean you just don't find this sort of thing on most British sites and I mean to find one really fresh shirt it hasn't been lying around for long so that's got straight into the ground and there's another one oh yeah that's in the same pot what's the betting I can get them to join I'll get you a drink if you can sort it out yes beautiful I'm glad we've got an experienced archaeologist on this dig this may be the least convincing pot reconstruction ever but it's yet more evidence of trade in this case oil or wine coming along this Coast in the fifth or 6th Century what about the date uh no that's a tricky one we know that this driveway is in a Terrace that was grown down by animals Hooves over hundreds of years probably so I wouldn't be at all surprised if this drove way didn't begin in the Bronze Age then go on into the iron Edge when it was formalized by the ditches so for all we know there could be a thousand years of settlement on this Hillside thank you Francis that's why this cluster of houses was such a peculiar shape [Music] being able to find a funny material evidence that links roundhouses to the port complex next door but with such a dense collection of sturdy large houses I can't help but think this Village must have benefited from the prosperity a successful Port brings it's a theory that would appear to fit in with Stewart's latest piece of work because he believes our site was managed by a powerful tribe you see that the Headland all the way around here the village is in here and if you look between these two curves you see that line of ditch running across when you look in the field you can actually see it yeah to the right going across the field and across the track into the next food there's a banking ditch that cuts off that entire headline yeah yeah well that's a classic Promontory force of the Iron Age where you control the the headline and cut it off and I think that's why the village here it's kind of supporting that Center and indeed the the linearity of that settlement and its direction we've puzzled about and when you look at it it's on this line here and it points literally towards where you ought to cross into this tribal or Chieftain Center upon the hill I think its orientation is because it's geared towards that Center up there yeah yeah but I think it would be a mistake to think that the Headland and and the political Center up there actually had many people living on it I think the people were actually living in our settlement over there and because they're on the best agricultural land whereas up there they'd have been wind blasted and exposed and I think these people were supporting the headland [Music] throughout the day in Phil's Harbor trench we've been building up a picture of Roman Traders we found coins same in wear slag and food waste but we've been missing a crucial piece of evidence and until now Tony our African red slit wear shirts which down here in Cornwall generally mean Fifth and 6th Century deposits so that's post Roman indeed yes and where were they found well this is the important thing those shirts were found in there in other words they are well stratified all the other assures that we've had of that type of pottery have been in the colluvium the hill wash so they're totally unstratted by the stratification for them is good now that's digging speak for undisturbed archeology and it proves that these Byzantine fines in Phil's trench are contemporary with Matt's finds next door although we didn't find any proof to link our two fields we now believe the whole site probably evolved over many hundreds of years from a Bronze Age farming Community into one of the small but bustling late Iron Age trading centers scattered around the Cornish Coast meeting the demands for local Commodities as the Roman Empire expanded after the Romans disappeared in the 5th Century Merchants would have continued to call in occasionally with their exotic Goods until the Byzantine Empire faded several hundred years later it's lovely isn't it the perfect Cornish Seaside picture with Fields rolling down to the Sea it's hard to imagine just how busy it must have been in the ancient past with a thriving settlement trading with ships sailing in from the continent and Beyond and as they came in below that Cliff just there they would have brought with them fancy Goods like oil and wine and new ideas too perfectly symbolized by this find that's come up in the last hour or so it's a stylus possibly the earliest evidence of writing ever found in Cornwall dating from around 200 A.D maybe it was used to record all those Imports time team is a hundred percent 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 Brew the old Hall lies in leicestershire three miles from Leicester and to my mind it's an archaeological theme park there's an 18th century Farmhouse graced with the ruins of a magnificent 15th century brick Manor while in the garden medieval masonry rub shoulders with a huge Mound or mot the remnants of a Norman Castle Dash a classic mob and just that big mound of dirt and then there's a big old Banco you look oh yeah so to launch our attack on this fantastic site we're starting with what we think was the home of gruber's first residence the Normans geothers have started to survey the top of the mot to see if they can pick up any evidence of that original Castle but Phil's already ahead of the game as he thinks he's found our first glimpse of it just down the slope Stone down there well you know what they say Phil one stones of stone two stones in Norman Castle or in my neck of the woods two stones is just a couple of stones but this does look promising and the perfect place to open our first trench to see if we do have part of the Norman castle and evidence of the Norman family that owned groovy for centuries and talking of people at the top of their heat Phil's found his initial couple of stones are turning into a considerable pile of stones but are they our first evidence of the gray Family Phil have you got anywhere yet true right we have Tony we have got the remains of the stone building on the mop look let me show you on the geophysics here is the stone building on the top of the mop and our trench is exactly here and we've got the wall here look Tony look there is the Leading Edge of it the outside face of the wall and it's coming out into this quarried area and in that direction it's filling up most of the side of the trench well that's a promising start but it gets better than that Tony you know there are some excavations done in the 60s on top of the mop there yeah well we've actually got photographs of one of those trenches that trench is right on the top of the mount look how wonderful this set of stone steps is leading down into the Mott so that should be under there somewhere all that material is running on the top of the mop this is not this material here this is not this wall this is a totally separate excavation that they did in the 60s that's extraordinary I thought we were going to be trying to find out how high this Tower went it now seems we're going to be looking at how deep it went as well this is turning out to be rather a good dig right everyone clear we've got to get to the bottom of the wall that way we should be able to find out if the tower was here first and the mop was built around it or if the Mott came first then the tower plonked on top on most time teams that would be a big enough challenge to keep us going for three days but we've also got a 15th century manor house and a medieval wall here to get to grips with and Mick thinks the key to all of that is the Bailey which he believes would have surrounded The Mott I understand what a Mot is it's the hill with a big building on the top but what a Bailey well the Bailey is the enclosure next to it there's our Mott look and these ditches and Banks here I think are part of the Bailey this building is probably inside it probably comes up to the road and then back somewhere like that if this structure here is part of the main hall then that building over there might well be the replacements for that so geoffers begin to survey the field in front of the mot for any evidence of the buildings Mick would expect to find in a Bailey and crucially whether this standing wall once formed part of a Great Hall and what makes this so exciting for me is that we've got a real chance to put people in any buildings we do find because we do know that they were all built by one extraordinary family the grays this is Hugh Grom menil who comes over to England with William of Normandy as part of the invading Army wins at the Battle of Hastings and is rewarded by William who now makes himself William the first of England with an enormous Grant of land which includes gruby we know that he fortified here and he created a base here for himself we actually know that because after the death of William of Normandy he doesn't support the nominated Heir William Rufus but supports William's oldest son and so he has to build up the cast we fortifies it and he builds up the walls expecting trouble long time since I've seen you excavate a wall that size this is a seriously big wall Tony and it's such a a great thrill to get into a really deep hole but of course there is a really serious side about digging this deep hole and that is to find out how old this wall is and how it was constructed and the only way we can do that is to carry on dig in deeper and get to the bottom of it isn't that going to be a bit dangerous it looks like it could collapse on you no I mean what we've had to consider that but you can see what we've done we've already made the trench much much wider so that effectively slopes off the sides it means we can go much much deeper so can I walk up the alternating you can now but once we've cleaned them you keep off them yeah yeah yeah with now two days left to build up a picture of all the homes lived in by the gray family at bruby starting with their earliest residence the Norman Castle and yes we've got walls in the geoffers and in our trench but they seem to be going down and down and we just can't date them yet but we do know that another trench in the 1960s located a staircase unfortunately we can't locate that in the ground so we're putting in a trench to locate that trench sorry that staircase [Music] I don't think there's anything to write home about no we need a late 20th century Biro expert for that now I need to know if it's 1960. oh it's a um over in traces trench we've now been digging for over a day and I would like to have some idea of what's going on have you got any idea at all what sort of building this might be well I think it's probably a chamber block and a two-story why do you say it's two-story well it is high status it's substantially built but if you look at the window over there by the door it's only a very small window and what's the implication of the tiny window well if you've got a single story building High status you'd expect to have a lot more light coming into it I see that implies that there must be another floor above where all the Lords and Ladies came with the windows in yeah the big Windows yeah so perhaps we can identify at least part of the home which the Grays lived in in the 14th century a two-story chamber block with a top floor where the Lords and Ladies would have slept and it's likely to be the white chamber mentioned in the Dowry document with a seller below possibly The Wine Cellar so nearly the end of day two and I think our quests to piece together the story of the Gray's homes is looking quite promising limey it's quite big bits it's all 15th century and probably the first half and Phil's finally got to the bottom of his castle wall have you done two right Tony and it's been really really worth it it's just been an exceptional trench I don't really want to leave it I mean we've known for some while about how this wall was built so we've got this horizontally bedded stones to make the face on this side and on that side with this massive rubble infill and then periodically these leveling up courses just to stabilize the whole thing but the crucial thing that I wanted to know was what were the foundations like what was it actually built on and what's the answer absolutely solid Bedrock I like to think that because this solid Bedrock was here that the area may have actually been present as an upstanding null and that they were sufficiently good Engineers or geologists to realize that this was a much more robust geology and it provided Good Foundations for a castle have you found any evidence that any of this could be Saxon there's not a shred of evidence in its Saxon I think this is one beautiful Norman Castle yes have you ever come on been in there for hundreds of years Phil I got that you got something interesting absolutely Mick I finally got to the bottom right and I think we finally got the actual threshold here for the doorway you've got a door jamb one side haven't you that's right we've got the jam there and we've got a jam on this side you probably can't yeah you can just see the corner of that we've got this floor dead level oh yeah I mean that's going into the middle of the tower isn't it we think we got the tower yeah with a doorway yeah and in there is a Cellar yeah this is where this is going into right at a later stage they take away the doorway right it's nice Stone yeah probably a decent door and they just plug up the hole with these stones and then they fill the middle in with Clay so we've almost cracked it we know when the castle was built in the Norman period who built it Hugh grominil and why it descends so deep underground because there was once a Cellar at the bottom of it accessed by our stairs so perhaps when the Gray's fortunes rose with William Ferris in the 14th century they began to build their stunning medieval home with two-story accommodation a magnificent Great Hall and batress ranges forming a quadrangle property fit for the remarkable Elizabeth Woodville Queen of England and later her son the Marquess Thomas Gray went one better demolishing this Stone Palace and building an even more fashionable brick residence our 15th century Tower [Music] 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: 40,498

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: SsfE6pJLf0A

Length: 45min 12sec (2712 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 16 2023