A Lost Royal Palace | FULL EPISODE | Time Team

this is Kew Gardens internationally renowned for its world-class collection of plants and it's magnificent greenhouses but 250 years ago it was well known for an entirely different reason this was the royal playground of George the third a British Versailles and at the centre of which was the Magnificent White House Palace it was George's favorite home and we've come here to find it we've got one really big clue this sundial which is supposed to mark the location of the palace where George spent some of his matter years but how big was it what did it look like and most importantly where is it now time team have got just three days to find out [Music] this is our target the Magnificent white house as it was when George the 3rd moved in and given the handy sundial fighting it should be a piece of cake well you're quite right we really do an x marks the spot here but we have all this evidence for what the white house here but we simply don't know what sits beneath the ground and that's what an archaeological excavation is gonna be able to tell us what survives here Jonathan what would you like to see come out of the next three days well we know that some work was done here substantial work by William Kent one of England's you know most regarded architects but we don't know whether he just slapped a facade onto an old house and after his work was finished we don't know what George the third did to it when he moved here in the 1770s 80s it does seem to me that you've both got rather architectural goals but all I can think of is the fact that this poor frightened lonely madman was stuck here for so long do you think there's a chance that would be able to get evidence of him in his life absolutely I mean as soon as we can get some trenches in will be excavating the runs of the building and with luck we'll be finding artifacts and finds within those which will give us the window on those lives not surprisingly Jeff physics are concentrating their search for the palace around the sundial the red building at the back is the Dutch house which was the nursery for George's children all 15 of them it's one of three surviving buildings which were part of the palace complex the other two are the kitchens to the west and the Orangery to the east there's the sundial yeah there's the Orangery if we look at the resistance I placed wrong isn't it that lines up exactly with the front of the Orangery this is a big moment for Jonathan is the first physical evidence of the palace that until now he's only known from books and documents well I've been walking over the side to this building for six years hoping to get a glimpse at one day and there it is I mean it has to be that wall doesn't it what's confusing is it looks four or five meters wide but that's gonna be bigger than a wall is now well this is this is certainly a wall I mean this is the the garden front to the house itself isn't it I mean it could be a big substantial war with rubble either side or we might be looking at a wall with a floor yeah that yeah do you think that significant gap well it's just possible it might be an entrance but we don't know where the corners are where is this on the ground um well it's this side of the sundial I mean basically we've got a for ball coming through on this sort of line right the way through here we don't know where it turns we don't know where it turns that end but that sort of entrance that you're employing would be about here eleven o'clock day one and our first trench goes in just to the right and the sundial where we're hoping to pick up evidence of the front wall of the White House we may have permission to dig up one of cue smartest lawns but we're gonna have to be on our best behavior because some of Britain's most highly trained gardeners will be watching our every move some are don't know but Phil's mind as ever is on the archaeology and even before the turf comes off it sounds promising better still cue have provided us with a wicked bit of kit which will help us get to it even quicker I mean I imagine it only works well if you've got no slaw but still no snow and it's not a little Swiss roll where they go stick them back over we know that there was once a Tudor mansion on the site and one of the questions we want to answer is was it knocked down to make way for the White House Palace what did the architect William Kent build his wonderful stuccoed Palace around it and we're hoping that films trench will help us on earth the answer about its early days yet and there's no sign of any stucco fill just seems to fill a gravel pit [Music] it's not only the digging that will help us to unlock the secrets of the White House palace Stuart will be using Q's extensive collection of 18th century maps to help us pinpoint it more accurately but the real key to the site is this a survey of the palace by architect William chambers [Music] it shows in great detail the ground plan of the building and from it we can already identify some of the rooms the state rooms would have been here along the garden facade this would have been an internal courtyard and the Royal privies would have been tucked away at the back but geophysics seems to think they're doing perfectly well without the plan they've just got their second set of results from the heart of the palace well we're just thinking maybe about another trench yeah yeah where's it gonna go what have we got look this is where you first trenches there if you want to put something in I would actually put a trench like that and the reasoning being you're looking at this possible internal wall here that's good and then you're looking at these responses then you can see if there's any intact floor levels I mean these are the main walls yeah and I think it's gonna do something like that yes so we're right in the middle of the house with the second gen showing that that beat that is you know sooner or later we want to know what's going on inside as well as out so we're putting in a second trench to try and locate some of the internal rooms of the palace and once we find clear wall lines will use chambers plan to help us confirm where we are in the building Phil's spent 27 years lifting turfs by hand but he succumbed to the new technology and is getting a crash course in mechanical turf cutter [Applause] yeah you'll need a bit more practice before I let him loose on my lawn I think I think that's very commendable we know I do say so meself while George was locked away here trapped in his own madness what was going on in the outside world it was a time of tumultuous events in Europe Napoleon was destroyed in the continent Britain what was at one point standing alone against the French Empire it was a time of a great industry the Industrial Revolution was was proceeding apace it was a time of really when Britain became far more confident far wealthier ironically at the same time revering the old Mad King who provided a very useful figurehead this place was used as a retreat when when he suffered from porphyria which is seen as madness so after appoints in the late 1780s I think people treated him with a bit more distance so he wasn't really mad he just had an illness absolutely at the time they thought he'd completely got do lolly but since then we we've realised that all medical historians have realized that actually it was a blood disease not not senility probably by the time of his last illness by 1810 he really was mad he was old he was blind he probably was genuinely affected with with some sort of senility but before then it was a disease of the blood did he really talk to a tree he did I'm afraid yeah he did all sorts of awful things which he was reminded of when he recovered back in trench one where we were hoping to find the facade of the palace fills gravel layer has turned into a huge pit notable for its complete lack of archaeology Phil wah is that a great big hole in the ground with nothing in it for this yeah no it's a great big hole filled up with gravel but no archaeology well it's all part of the story Tony they they knock a building - and they got a big hole and they filled it up with gravel Nick wants to close the trench down and move Phil on to another I am I have to say concerned whether or not we're actually going to get very much out of this to me it looks as if this may well be one huge robbing trench and we may well have lost everything come on Phil we can't spend the whole day digging in the tracers Terry this is turning this is this is only day one day one this trench has not been open for very long we have not found the palace yet we've got to keep going you ain't getting me out of this trenches yet apart from Phil everyone's getting increasingly worried that the building may have been totally robbed out and there may be nothing left for us to find [Music] so it's a huge relief when just under the turf trench two produces some brickwork it's a piece of Palace yeah smell the palace and just across the lawn in trench one fills looking quite pleased with himself - what have you got look we've got the back wall of what looks like a cellar there's one edge of it coming along there and the front edge is there and extending away from that we've got the floor going in that direction that way hey Nick I was convinced well pretty much convinced that we weren't going to get very much out this change that we're chasing a lost cause Phil's been proved right and I have to say I'm quite pleased actually so what we can do tomorrow Phil well we're gonna chase that floor across there and hopefully from following the front of the power set there so we've got a fragment of the basement here we've got a fragment of an inside wall there tomorrow let's hope we get right inside King George the Third's Palace join us after the break yesterday evening everything seemed to be going so well it looked like we've got a fragment of Mad King George's Palace in Phil's trench over there and another fragment in this trench here but now it's the beginning of day two and suddenly we've hit a big problem John what's the matter well the joy physics just doesn't tie up with any of the plans we've got for the buildings the dimensions are all wrong we've got that wall showing clearly in Phil's trench that that's nice that's the front wall but we on the geophysics this wall here is 25 meters away but the plan shows it to be only 15 that they just don't tie up Nick thinks the best way to solve the problem is to test John's geophys results by putting a trench into the clearest feature to see if it really is part of the palace but he can't well if we look at the plan here directly in line of the area where we want to put the trench in a gas pipeline and we can't touch that so that's the end of that trench so we completely stop well we want to put another trench in and the back of the building over here this is somewhere along here that's right yeah we want to locate the back of the building but they can't put a trench into the back of the building because they don't yet know where it is so it's now down to Stuart and his maps to solve the problem he's trying to find out why there's a mismatch between chambers plan and the geophys results to see if he can tie down the location of the palace have you got this already scanned in yeah we've Niels just got that sorted yeah and we also have this plan which which is just scanning now which is the actual floor plan of the builders so hopefully with a bit of error but we don't overlay that on to this this map and work out which room we're doing it so we can sort out geophysics mexicali oblivious to the confusion unfolding around them the archaeologists entrenched to have been quietly uncovering more brickwork and they've come up with our first find David oh hi Krenzel I hear you've got something to show me yes a great little find here look that's fantastic this is a stem from a Royal Georgian wine glass and it takes us right to the heart of life in the palace the Georgians loved their booze and liked to drink it from flamboyant glassware the top-of-the-range glasses that you might find in a palace were extraordinarily intricate with pattern twists in the stems and elaborate decorated bowls there must've been extremely fiddly to make so we've set modern glass maker Bob crooks the challenge of recreating some Georgian glasses so how are you gonna start well the minute we're going to be making an air twist stem and which is the bowl and the stem all in one piece and what we've actually got here at the bottom section we're putting four grooves in it and eventually when that's actually covered in clear glass the trouble bubble in each of those grooves which will then twist up later in the process so you're putting it back in the bucket of melted glass that's right just the trick is to maintain the glass at a constant temperature and to keep it turning so that the pattern can be twisted within the stem [Music] it's a complex process that took a gang of five men to produce but he's making it look easy hi John Steele here yeah they're actually just been done at this very moment just seen the house drop over the top of your geophysics John and it'll be printed within a couple of minutes now halfway there now Bob's working lead glass here what's the advantage of that over the soda glass that was being used before in England well it was sort of invented to rival it but actually it was much more robust it had a wonderful light refraction it magnified things wine looked good in it chandeliers look wonderful in it and it was very tough in fact it was a British speciality and even the gin glasses in pubs were made out of it so that's one down and six to go my god do you like to complicate things Wow but what is it though I mean we've just machines there's a fact to get rid of what we thought with demolition rubble and it's just it's this enormous block of standing masonry look you've got you've got bricks coming along there a blick a brick skin coming along there and then that massive core in there right let's let's figure it out that's going in that direction straight or the Dutch house right down here this wall you got earlier that's going off that of about 90 degrees right so I reckon this should be on the alignment of the palace so if that's the if that's the outside wall there Roy lining up with the Orangery that I reckon is an inside wall why it's got two skins I've no idea but if I the betting man I put at least two pounds maybe three on it this rash what what on this being at the inside wall and this being the front the facade of the house so at last Phil and Jonathan are convinced they found the facade which would have fronted the grandest rooms of the palace or have they not according to Stuart and Henry Jonathan over here let's have a look we're actually in the middle of day two and listen to what he's found out slight slight a wobbler to throw at young afraid we're we go well we've managed to work out exactly where the position of the White House is and where your trenches are where Phil's trenches is in the garden across what was probably a path and the other trench is just eating the house all of that that's where we do takeout times been wasted absolutely you know I mean we found that this is one perplex because we found archaeology we found good archaeology in Phil's trench and we've just been looking at and we've just been discussing the implications and what it means and as where we were very very happy for it to being a corner of this pavilion here I really need to have sit down and have a look at them you'll know series right well I'm not sure it looks wrong it fits with the scale under measurements well the scaling explains the geophysics if Stuart's right the White House is sited much further north than we'd thought so whatever Phil's found it can't be the front wall Jonathan your twitches something's wrong about this you see you see the sizes your injury absolutely on that plan at the White House x amount of the orange and if you take the center of that it's gonna be their weight they're the same length its 50% out well I mean the obvious thing is you're gonna have to put the trench in at this end now that's gonna do what we said still trying to find that back wall but base it on the map that's the next thing I think is double check this is right by looking for the back wall of as you so put another trench in give you a bit of thinking time Phil hello Tony can I come in your trench yeah yeah you remember how pleased you were yesterday because you decided that you'd been digging in the right place not the wrong place I think there was any issue of doubt at all well I think there is mate according to Stuart you're in totally the wrong place you can go look that's the house yeah there's your trench in the garden well then I would say the archaeology disagrees with that go on boy if you clench your fist like I'm saying good man it's not a competition sheer relief that's pulling together together the trellis let me explain to you what I think is happening here yeah first of all they've they've dug an enormous trench that is the natural bedrock on that side yeah where they've dug this enormous foundation trench and they've actually built in the base of it a massive wall now just behind where Jonathan I'll show me where this wall is that one wall is the edge that was the one we found yesterday yeah and the other edge is back here yeah I've got this massive wall going that way we've also got a wall going at 90 degrees to it this one here and we know that this one and this one are the same date because you can see that these bricks overlap one another so that this wall and this wall must be the same date there's no way that this stuff could be garden features no it's so far down and so massive and broad this is to carry something exceptionally heavy if that plan was right you'd have the facade of the White House looking on to an enormous feature which would be obscuring it down and no hues from the show has that ever existed I don't I don't believe it but I don't know what on earth this is little Tony thought it's not something like a high is it would that leave you with a big slot ah ha ha like one of those years did she stop the sheep coming towards the house mm-hmm interesting thought would it be this massive why would you build brick I don't know I know I know but if I'm a boy me if I'm like throwing it back with with an elephant if they could it be a ha yeah why would I have an angle I don't know film suggestion that the archeology in his trench may be a ha ha isn't as far-fetched as it may sound George the third was affectionately known as farmer George because of his passion for breeding sheep at Kew so he might well have had a ha ha put in to protect the palace from his flock and it wasn't just farm animals that he bred here he also had a private Royal menagerie where he kept kangaroos I could only think that they came over with Joseph Banks who was worshipped first informal because he went off with Captain Cook on the Endeavour they arrived eventually at Botany Bay and he'd writes in a letter he saw this 80 pound Mouse and of course what they do they shot it and at it but they brought here very successful and George the 3rd in fact was always trying to give them away and you know the sort of letters from the aristocracy in the country writing to each other saying oh my god you know George that tried to give me a kangaroo in her hands telling my fences weren't high enough his doctor records going walking in the gardens with him and they all seemed to end up going to see the Kangaroos daily outing so I think I put put a couple of Concerned doctors yes that would be lovely originally Nick and Jonathan agreed to look for the back wall of the palace using Stuart's new map for reference but Nick having had time to think about it has decided to ignore Stuart's evidence and put in a third trench based on the archaeology okay I've eaten a lot of hats in my time this one could be a Stetson so we think this is where the back wall is based on chambers plan well if Phil is on the front wall then the eighteenth-century survey says it's 95 feet long that's 95 feet because I'm going on the assumption or the firm belief that Phil has found the facade wall if it's not if it's part of the garden it's a base for Nelson's : trench 3 goes in to see if we can find the back wall of the palace which is becoming increasingly important because in trench to the brickworks beginning to look like a courtyard this latest discovery could support both theories because it could either be inside the palace or out in the garden and then what you're doing is if you're coming out if you come through this wall you're actually into a courtyard yeah and then I can explain bits and pieces about what's going on here that the latest phase does seem to be this drain which is coming all the way around here and it's cutting this sort of brickwork this wall that's like here and over here yeah and then of course we've got other bits and pieces going on we've got perhaps a soak or something here behind me further sort of parts bits and pieces again of courtyard courtyard rubble so we've got the courtyard but is it inside the palace now that films moved to trench three everything hinges on him finding the back wall and finally locating the palace if he finds the wall will know that the courtyards inside if not Stuart's right and we'll be right back out in the garden he wanted to get as close as you could to George the third didn't you Hodges we've actually got a picture of him look at that Oh what is this coin it's a Mondi thruppence so given away to the poor with a tuppence of penny and afore pants in 1772 so this would have actually been one of those coins that was given out by the monarch before Easter exactly we've got another coin as well which is also really excited he hasn't I love this Tony that's a beauty it's fifty years older from the 1720 is this one and you can see in fact it's quite heavily worn and the King's head's almost flat there so it's one's been in circulation for quite a while so must have been in someone's pocket when the White House itself was being built do we know why it's in this extraordinary shape where it's come from sort of in the trench it's all coming from the other trades actually coming from beside the train that actually came from the fill of the drain in the central trench so while the coins have given us a glimpse of what was happening during George's time at the palace Phil may at last be able to tell us where the palace was why'd you say there's a wall here all I can see is scatter the rod but that's because you're not looking in the right pace Tony this is solid look at that absolutely solid and look individual bricks there's one comes along there and back there's the next one that done that with rubble these are laid bricks now that would seem to me to indicate that the survey information was completely up the chute demonstrate map to 1771 he's he's up he's off the beam really so that's actually quite important to know that the archaeology was spot where you've actually put the trench and said what we predicted we would get yeah you can get rid of that one yeah this is this is the one that was wrong trench in there and ended which shows that there should be a wall coming through on this line Ixion's now with some luck it should turn there maybe a meter or two error but not a 25 meter let's assume for the moment that we've stopped beating Stuart what are we going to do with this trench now we'd already mentioned that there was possibly a cellar in this area so we're still interested in that cellar so it might be an awful lot to take out here and there might be some very interesting finds at the base of it but the beauty of it all is we've actually picked up the wall in that trench there and we've picked these walls up here in this trench and we've now picked up that wall in that trench so it really means that we can go anywhere in the plan of the building put the trench on and know what we're going to find here with these three trenches we really cracked it Stewart's completely perplexed he can't understand how the map could be so inaccurate so he's going back to the drawing board and he's collecting all the old maps from scratch just across the lawns from our trenches tucked away behind the trees is a small building which served as the kitchen block for our palace look at this I'm Tony this is where the meals for King George the third were made what's this thing right we've got a great half here for roasting meat so all these racks there are to put your side of beef or whatever over a dripping tray and this mechanism is pulled down by a weight and turns the spit itself so it's all there from the 18th century but these bits of meat would have been massive well the really interesting thing is there's so many little rests with lots of different spits because we know from household accounts they were clicking masses of different meals every day for the royal household kind of stuff for the Queen and the Prince sausage you've got about 18 courses here most of which and meats very fancy things lumped entrance and asparagus sadly is the poor king he's having a very plain dinner he has mutton cutlets and a mutton and that's about it really with her apple dumplings and jelly okay we've got the meats what about the two veg okay meat off the spit then on your shoulder bring it this way and you need to take it through to the vegetable kitchens through that blocked arch are they still there they are let's have a look okay Tony we're on the other side of this door here's that flip this back so with this a bit of serving hatch exactly meat thank you drag it through yeah and then here is the vegetable kitchen and would this have been the actual table they'd have prepared the vegetable preparation tables no doubt plates and things up their knives hanging down chop cook over there still here yeah yeah exactly steaming pans over there now where do we go out here rejoin the meat yeah and we make our way to Ward the White House now look I'm not gonna go all the way to the White House with me meat it's about 15 meters yeah and through wind and rain if you go out that door so where else would you go we'll have a look here here are the makings of a tunnel but it's bricked up how do we know where it leads what we don't so I'm hoping that John can help us in the garden John why are you up there trying to see where the building is so we can track the tunnel is it it's a totally stupid idea or is there something down there well I don't know we've just got to try with the radar well we have the results uh not tonight tomorrow well hopefully tomorrow we'll find a tunnel and more of the building that it led to join us and see what we uncover after the break two days ago I was asking why on earth we were bothering to try and find Mad King George the Third's palace when we were pretty sure we knew where it was well 48 hours later I can categorically tell you that the palace is there or possibly there or it might be there or it could be down there and the one person more than any other who's created this confusion is Stuart who yesterday was practically driven from the site after one allegation about where it might be but like an archaeological Dracula he's come back from the dead with another location for this clip I don't know what I'm going to help sort the situation out or come for me I have to say this is the the White House in here in the background and on here these are the three trenches this one here is the one behind you you see it's on close to the back wall of the White House the one here is outside the house and that trench over there the most interesting one which we thought was on the front wall of White House actually is inside the building and the front wall might be even further out between the grass and the path Stuart seems to be shifting the palace all over the place his first theory put it here and trench one into the garden wrong for this latest interpretation of the maps is even more dramatic it shifts the palace 25 meters south putting trench 1 into the middle of the building and Phil supposed back wall in trench 3 into an outhouse once again can fusion rains Johnson your eyebrows actually raised well that they did when we did we thought this was still do think that's the front of small at the white as if not as a cruel twist of fate I can you know you screwed up you screwed up the big toy yesterday you gave me a dustman my confidence in you was totally shattered and yet the archeology in the ground still supports that that best fit that we had yesterday that the wall over there is the front of the building and then when we predicted from that that there would be walls in this trench at the back over there lo and behold we found them they're all on the same alignment the other thing is that trench to where we expected to find the courtyard in the middle of the house is a courtyard we've got a vaulted subterranean structure we wanted a cellar we've got a front wall with nothing beyond it for the front of the house we've got two options the first thing we need to do is undertake a geophysical survey along the front of the house this will locate the main wall if it's further south and Phil thinks it is in his trench the second thing we've got to do is we've got to extend the trench behind us we need to find some more architectural features within the building then we can lock our position down then we know where we are there is actually a third option coming up with this trench I was digging yesterday I don't know why we're bothering to do all this because even if Stuart is wrong he'll produce another map this morning earlier on I actually got a pin to there and look there's an end wall in there now if we extend the trench just a little bit we should be able to find out whether that wall continues across there in other words whether it's an integral part of the house and also possibly if there's a return there or whether it's a totally isolated feature yeah geophysics have been hoping to chase our secret tunnel but they've had to postpone their search so they can widen their survey to see if Stuart's right and the palace does extend to the south of the sundial Johnny gonna put us out of our considerable misery well I'm not sure if it's gonna be too happy I mean I've extended the survey 35 meters beyond this wall here you want more walls don't you I'd have liked them yeah yeah well that's the war we had on day one and 35 means nothing at all that's the modern Road I still don't understand this because if this is the front wall that what's happening at the back makes absolutely no sense at all in either plan system that we've got it's sort of doing to doing that I can't square that with the evidence I've got are we happy that this is a front wall now Boyd I am surely what we need to do is to get Henry to plan all the walls in the trenches get that on the map then get the various plans of the building and move them around to see if we get the best fit I think we're focusing too much on the plans I think we're allowing ourselves to chase the walls that are marked on the plans and should we try to find them when really we should be letting the archeology speak for itself the simple fact is it's more complex than we thought in order to resolve it all the maps are abandoned and Henry gets to work mapping the precise location of each archaeological feature these results will be combined with chambers plan to find the best fit and should allow us finally to locate the palace but in trench three Phil's uncovering yet more confusion what he thought was the back wall of the palace turns out to be part of a cellar that appears to be completely detached from the main building given what you've got this could be a discrete building it could be an outhouse or something couldn't it given what you've got what we don't know what we up because we haven't cleaned it up yet it's just what it's doing that way we know that this wall now does not run that way so it projects it further north in the building them we perhaps had had given it credit for in the first instance so on the basis of the archaeology here Stuart could still be right he could still be right and and we and I could have miscalculated the position of the palace but there's a there's a complication to that because if we were right here in finding us at the north wall at about this point we should be able to track it over there and this trench here exactly we just opened that one up yeah and what chambers shows in his plan is that there are a couple of royal toilets on the inside of the north wall at about this point so we should find a little rectangular brick opening okay and yeah is a rectangular brick opening it does that look like a privy to you and where it's got potential it's got potential yes it's a potential privy hey it's a bit smaller if I get in the train how much room do you need well you won't have much room to me if you're a fat King you get wedged if this is the Royal Privy then everything else starts to make sense right Neil how's how's the yes scan of the floorplan coming on I've already got on my system Henry's finished recording the archeological features and the trick now is to see if he and Stuart can fit them into chambers plan we might not yet be able to tell the location of George's home but chambers shows that it was splendid it epitomized the grandeur of one of the great architectural periods in our history I think when George the second gets going that's when Q comes into its own and we tend to think of the whole epoch from 1714 to 1830 strictly when the George Georgian kings reigned as one as stately classical architecture in houses exactly yeah but there's another side to the story because the kings themselves would they would they were breaking all the rules what they were doing once they were here is building follies around the garden representing world architecture Islamic Chinese architect so you could basically go out of your door and walk round the world and back again was George the Third's uncultured as we tend to think George - the first was not at all he was very much a man of culture he'd loved the Arts he loved the sciences he was a marvelous patron at the same time that there was a big contrast in his personality he was also a great family man but also lived a very austere personal life which is why I think the family was set up here at Kew it was to get away from the the temptations of course if you like George's attempt to live a frugal life and protect his sons from the vices of court came to nothing his sons rebelled against their Spartan upbringing and took to the bottle with a vengeance meanwhile our attempts to create the kind of glasses they would have puffed out of have moved on to the next phase but crooks made six wine glasses for us and they've been handed over to our artists to be embellished Steve's engraving the first glass with fruit and flowers this one would take two to three hours to complete the whole of the glass and the same process would have applied in the 18th century engrave the shapes of the leaves use smaller wheels for the feather agent and the veins and we'll say the process simply hasn't changed at all that one sort of two to three hours for grapes and leaves this glass which has got the Prince of Wales blooms now this one I've already spent five hours on that as it is and is that more or less finished no no there's probably another three four hours left her to complete the design another form of decoration was to paint directly onto the glass with special enamel paint it was a delicate process and only the wealthiest families could afford glasses like these the desires they chose would have reflected their passion for oriental or classical themes and would have been a good way to show off their sophistication and love of culture hopefully they'll be ready for some Georgian revelry later today after three days of humiliation with his Matt Stuart has finally redeemed himself he's managed to find a fit between the features in the ground and chambers trusty plan and it looks pretty tight this is the Chamber's plan this is a plant with all the trenches on on all the walls here in yellow that you've found if you do this put them together we can explain virtually every feature that you've found let me take you through it right over there where we had trench one that ghost wall that we say was robbed out that is the ghost wall of the South facade and I I hold my hat off to you on that one you're right on that one so I own the PI about that side you bang on that if you come to the back which the trench over here that Phil was digging the deep trench that fits perfectly with that building there even to being divided of these little narrow slots here for either dumping rubbish down or whatever that building is but it fits that exactly see come further along this wall in here that you've picked up matches exactly that wall on chambers plan and it just drops on perfectly now the dust settled steward is noxious to take the wrap for the muddle he's blaming the maps there was a cartographic crime committed here I can assure you show wasn't your cartographic sure it's absolutely certain no record looks good excellent we found it at last we've managed to find the exact position of the palace and we can actually identify the rooms we've been excavating the wall in trench one was the footing for the facade and behind it lay the most elaborate of staterooms drawing-rooms libraries and dining rooms the brickwork in trench 2 was an internal courtyard after all and would have had a stately fountain as its center George's privy was tucked away at the back of the building and films mystery floating cellar was part of an outhouse that was attached to the back wall of the palace one thing that chambers can't help us with is our tunnel which we think linked the kitchen block to the White House but geophysics are on the case they've been using radar to chase the signal they picked up yesterday and because it's pretty rare to find a secret tunnel all the gardener's are keen to lend a hand we've got it we've got it it's over by the tallest tree over there that one there and we've tracked the line through and and it works so if I came out of the kitchen underground yummy play to meet and go hurtling off in this direction which I can't get to because of all the fences I've got around alright okay I'll catch you up see you later don't drop it come on here we are well look at this this is what we got on the radar these reflections I mean we got a line of them and when we put them on the map I mean they just projected back in a straight line in through the kitchen door it may well still be the tunnel we've all got downs through there and what we're actually picking up is sand I don't care we've got something in a straight line that leads back to the maybe it's a pathway then and it's a tunnel further on well our times run out and if it's good enough for John it's good enough for me one last question remains what happened to the original Tudor house and entrench - Jonathan thinks he has the answer right here we are that in the heart of the building and we ask the question was this a new building in 1730's or was it built on top of an older structure well here we find characteristically Tudor bricks how do you know the Tudor well they're not like all of the bricks that were made for the Georgian part of this building there's not a single sandy colored or purple one amongst them they're deep red and they're shallower than the Georgian bricks they may well be reused but I must remember that in the 1670s there's an old house on this site and John Evelyn visited it and saw its orange gardens and said it was remarkable for its time that's what this seems to be do we know whether that part of the trench is part of the earlier build it could be part of an earlier hard standing or a courtyard garden it certainly got some water features running through it and all we know is that they were still functioning when those Georgian threatening bits were washed up 230 years ago in the drains so we now know that the palace was originally a fine Tudor mansion with a beautiful secluded central courtyard and when the royal family took it over it was extended and by William Kent he added the great facade to the old house the palace surrounded by its wonderful gardens was George's favorite home for 30 years until it became too old and rickety to maintain and so was demolished in 1802 three days ago I said I wanted to get into the heart of the White House and in this trench we really have two hundred years ago when George the third had finished his ablutions he to walk down one of his magnificently appointed corridors he'd have stepped out into his open courtyard with its bubbling water features and fountains he'd have peered into one of his staterooms and then he'd have opened his big front doors and looked into his garden his own version of Versailles and he would have smiled as he watched his drunken sons and their hangers-on disporting themselves in the evening light they are tony has a glass with the white house on it we made ourselves to George the third [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 183,931

Rating: 4.9171052 out of 5

Keywords: Team Team, 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, White House, White House Palace Kew, Kew House, Lady Elizabeth Capel, Samuel Molyneux, George II, Prince Frederick of Wales, His Royal Highness' House, A New Plan Of Richmond Garden, Kew Palace Sundial, Queen Charlotte

Id: l1XEfpuI1pM

Length: 48min 41sec (2921 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 08 2020