The Search For Queen Elizabeth I's Lost Medieval Palace | Time Team | Chronicle

this channel is part of the history hit Network [Music] this is one of the most desirable residences in London right on the banks of the Thames but there used to be an even more desirable residence somewhere underneath this Immaculate Lawn Richmond Palace Center of intrigue for kings and queens for centuries the place where Queen Elizabeth died but surprisingly for such an important site we don't know exactly where it is or even if there's any of it left we've got just three days and finding anything without spoiling this place isn't going to be easy foreign [Music] so all of this was the palace yeah fantastic didn't it amazing buildings Pinnacles on the top where exactly did we think it was well it's all across here with the main building on the lawn where the surveyors are over there and where do we think it was painted from well it's up from the other Banks so it must be somewhere over there where the boaty the blue boat is all those trees looking down this way and where are we we're actually out here in the middle of the river because because the river's been narrowed and constrained and we think the original bank is somewhere across in the front there it is a heck of a massive place where surely we're not looking for all of it no what we're going to do is concentrate on that middle bit which is the inner sanctum of the royal private apartments that big block there yeah it's well documented and luckily there's a locally historian called John cloak who I met many years ago he's done a lot of work on it and thinks he can place that from the documents and maps that exist in so we want to go and have a chat with him and he'll explain it to us John hello you know what the palace is I think so I've made this plan we're about here at the moment so where would the original Riverbank have been just a few yards from the background play sort of here is somewhere something like that yes and where would the palace itself well if we come up this way a little um I think probably about here yeah we would have had the Southern Wall of the private lodgings building that's the inner sanctum bit that's right yeah the Royal apartment so somewhere around here Queen Elizabeth would actually have died that's right amazing thought if John's right then the vast bulk of the privy lodgings plus a moat and the old Riverbank lie within our grasp sandwiched between trumpeter's house the big building to the North and the Thames to the South all under this Immaculate lawn which geophysics have been surveying since crack of dawn their work this weekend is going to be crucial because we've been restricted to just three trenches by the residents we need good crisp results to make sure each trench is in exactly the right position by 10 30 they've got their first print out which doesn't at First Sight look very helpful [Music] I mean what I would want to know straight away I think John is how that fits with John cloak's projected plan that you've got here I mean this is this is this is you know written to be okay but not quite clear to within a few meters each way if we're going to put a trench in on the base of this you know do we put it down here or do we put it up here it doesn't fit with what John says does it I mean the problem I've got is that maps at one scale this maps at another scale yeah and the plot today as far as you can get as far as I can tell we've got a change in resistance here yeah and that falls roughly there opposite of this path so it's more or less is more or less in line so you're saying that this line here could be the south side of the privy lodgings it's possible yeah in fact the geophysics results line up perfectly with John cloak's estimate of the Southern wall and by 11 o'clock trench one is underway [Music] anxiously looking on at the residents of trumpeter's house Baron and baroness van dieden and their neighbor Mrs Franklin this is their lawn we're mucking up [Music] but we are mucking it up as gently as we can the boards round the edge are to protect the grass from spoil and the turf once surgically removed will be pampered for three days history hitters like Netflix just for history fans with exclusive history documentaries covering some of the most famous people and events in history just for you with familiar faces such as Dan Jones and Dr Eleanor janega we've got hundreds of documentaries covering the greatest figures and events of medieval history we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code Chronicle that's foreign supervising the process is Martin Whittaker a professional landscape gardener and then when you're finished we fill in the hole you won't even know the difference can you guarantee that um not in writing one of the questions we hope to answer this weekend is what the privy lodgings looked like when Elizabeth the first lived here this is harder than it sounds because there'd been a palace at Richmond for nearly 200 years when she came to the throne and it had been rebuilt and altered several times the first two palaces were Medieval one built by Edward III in the 1300s and the second a complete rebuild by Henry V in the 1400s Henry VII the first Tudor had to rebuild much of it again after a fire in 1497. and his son Henry VII may have altered bits of it as well but we don't know whether the privy lodgings building was affected by any of this so when Henry VII's daughter Elizabeth was Queen did she live in a medieval building or a Tudor one and then the towers of this excellent place are torrented and pinnacled John cloak has teamed up with Simon thurley one of the country's leading Palace experts and they're trawling through the Contemporary documents for Clues you've got some Exquisite pictures of all that yes we have and they tell quite an interesting story this is the Elizabethan view by vingada and what it shows is what does this looks like in essentially a brick building and we know that Henry the acceptance buildings were a brick and that's one of the important features of it was one of the first brick built palaces but if we look at this painting we'll see it tells a different story here are Henry VII's kitchens to one side all of brick but the main lodgings are of stone and so what we're looking for if we're going to try and find the main lodgings are the stone lodgings which in my view seems to indicate that they work could well have been the same lodgings that Henry V built himself it's at this point trench one hits part of the building just where both geophysics and John cloak thought the southern facade of the privy lodgings might be is a wall brilliant but it's not Stone and it's not medieval how did this brick on passing the trench what do you think of that well I don't know it's it's that's all I say is that that's rather difficult today bricks this bricks Ricks bricks bricks good bricks where's this coming from it's just coming out it's not a hole what a Pity it's not quite hard obviously the critical thing is trying to get a measurement of these because we can tell when Henry VIII had had a series of sort of special you know specified brick sizes and so that'd be handy but it looks like a Tudor brick to me wouldn't you say it so it's got the right sort of Dimensions you haven't got a ruler on you so we can just get a sort of a rough measurement for that no is it got a tape measure that's what you want okay now this this should ah great yes metric don't know about metric that's foreign let's see you know that's quite interesting now that that's an eight and a half inch length width four now if this brick was at Hampton Court that would be a Henry VII brick definitely another Henry dates bring if it were Hamilton Court so there's something for us to go on with all right it's wonderful there are more Tudor bricks in the wall although they're a different size and Barrick and Simon agree it was probably built by Henry VII but under the lawn is not the only place we're looking for bits of the palace [Music] so where events is it then one chunk of Palace Stone seems to have found its way into the Thames where it was spotted a few years ago by the local archaeological Society Phil's volunteered to help them get it out [Music] it's somewhere around here I think this should be easy The Tide is very low and the archaeologists seem to know exactly where it is that might be it but there's definitely there's definitely Summit there so yeah let's have a try with that one I got somebody here pretty hefty yeah oh look at that yeah yeah that's it you want to yeah get your hand caught out he's heavier than he thought oh look at that oh that's rather Splendid ain't it yeah I reckon let's get it out there now all they've got to do is clean it up and work out what it was [Laughter] yeah okay yes just after lunch and mix having a ball at trench one he and Phil have got a kind of archaeological Lego kit to play with a stone after Stone comes out of the ground oh look at that that's a different size window too isn't it it's a different well you see yeah it's at the edge that is a window there but the rent one on the other side that is the edge of the window yeah so that's that's this bit that goes there there and then that bit goes and then it goes there and then you've got to have at least another one over there it's not gonna believe the complete palace here look at this lot that is amazing we've got lots of bits of Windows size a window bits with the way that we've even got the lead and bits of glass out of it it's very good isn't it where she lived yes but she didn't put this up this is going to be earlier we want to know the the Mason's name and the date and what he had for breakfast right yeah we can't do that yeah but what is it very costly what is this piece because we've still watched like that but we don't really understand no I don't think it is I suspect that's another windowsill isn't it yep it's this big Stone which is actually a sill and must have been lying down that way which is really that that's right yep yep so it's got a circle and then a drip below it so that the water wood coming off the front would drip down running down the wall yeah but what is interesting is the shape of this funny molding here and I said it's a funny one it's what I call sloppy it comes right at the end of the medieval period when they're not cutting their curves as precisely as they used to so this is definitely late not for I would say an older palette yep I would say this is well it's it's much more likely to have gone in in the re in the remodeling or whatever happened in Henry VII's Reign other parts of the Tudor window have survived too fragments of painted glass and this bit of lead which would have been used to tie the panes of glass into the frame so that's due to Windows to go with a Tudor wall but that doesn't mean Henry VII rebuilt the whole thing he may just have altered bits of it we won't know for sure until we've dug more trenches which should be quite soon because John and Louis have nearly finished their second area up by trumpeter's house meanwhile Mrs Franklin's attention has been diverted from the gaping hole in her lawn to the Stone from the river which Barn is now identified I think anyway I think it's part of a win um so you have to imagine that it's like that and there would have been a whole sequence of them one on top of another this is the inside display to let the light into the room this bit here and that's the the decorative molding here yeah and then that socket there I think is for a glazing bar if it would have held the windows in the actual glass in place so you'd be in the room here looking through the window to the outside here it's tea time day one and we've had the most stormingly good first day we've got Tudor coming out of that trench like there's no tomorrow but our job was to try and locate this Palace somewhere in this grass and in order to do that then we've got to find a second Edge which is why we're gonna have to dig a second trench which hopefully is what Phil and Micah trying to sort out now with John what have you got well a few more blobs one of which the white diagonal is a modern cable but there are also a number of parallel lines which might be walls or even the moat they're all relatively close and could be covered by a single trench and then 46 meters but mix armed with John cloak's estimates of where the back wall is measured from the front do the two results tie up only one way to find out I'll bring up some measurements yeah you need at least 50 meters fill meters [Music] and then go up to 46. [Music] 16 right on the croquet who yeah in fact the geophysics anomalies are much further north than John cloak's estimate and to cover both would mean a trench at least 15 meters long which is clearly not feasible so Mick's got a problem so what we've got to decide is whether if you like we Center it on that or whether we go rather more this way or rather more that way right that's your choice well the these measurements suggest that it ought to be back a bit this way don't they explain why because because they're all between 37 and 46 so in other words they're no further than that further than that that's the outside edge whereas John's saying that he's got quite a bit of activity going on around 46-47 is that right so there's there could be no sort of discrepancy in your survey in over a meter or something like no I looked at me really this is this is more likely to be out because this is people fiddling with the historical information and the surveys and so on how long are these trenches that we can dig well we dug one five meters there and I would have thought we needed at least five if we could get away with a bit longer yeah over the full range yeah then that would help us enormously with the option on extending it a bit so we can do that without going and asking uh yes yeah I mean a quick pay lawn and so the historians measurements are shelved and the trench goes in on the geophysics results work of art which is lucky because the historians estimates were based on the distance between front and back walls but the front wall in trench one from which they took the measurements is not apparently the front wall after all it doesn't really look thick enough to be the main outside wall of the whole Palace but it may be one of the windows or the galleries or something butted onto the outside of it the color of this Earth is completely different on this side to that side precise so that's why we know it is a it is a wall that separated the inside of the building from the outside which raises two questions first where is the front wall of the palace and second what is the Tudor wall in trench one well what it it could be is this extension on this drawing of 1638 by Hollard there is a porch or a bay or an extension sticking out from here and I'm wondering if what we've got is is that wall there that's exactly where our trench is yeah we've got to persuade the others to actually extend the trench a bit to pick up the real world so I think we need to go three four even five meters further north to test that out let's see end of day one great day fantastic trench I think this is probably one of the best trenches we've ever dug on time team well with all these fines and this Tudor wall which no one seems to think any longer is actually the front wall of the palace they reckon it's the remains of some Elizabethan Conservatory or something they're now betting that the front wall of the palace is around here somewhere so we should be able to pinpoint it tomorrow and they're already taking the turves off that trench over there so with a bit of luck we'll be able to locate the back wall and then we'll be halfway to placing exactly where this Palace actually sits on this lawn and given the number of fines that we've already found outside the palace Heaven only knows what we'll find inside beginning of day two and this is our problem we're looking for the front wall of the palace which we think is somewhere around here and in order to find it that means either we've got to extend this trench in this direction or we put in another trench somewhere around here now if we extend this trench we're going to mess up the lawn we'll probably get loads more fines which we're going to have to spend a lot of time conserving and we'll use up all our Diggers on the other hand if we put in another trench here that means we'll already have dug a total of three trenches and we're only allowed three by the residents over the entire weekend so we'll have used up our entire allocation so what do we do what do we do another little trench or extended oh we've just been agonizing about this and the various opinions Stuart I think would like a longer one we we're a bit cautious about that I think we've actually settled on the idea now that we we're going to come out from this trench about two meters but two meters to ignore the geophysics oh God oh I haven't had much time to look at it I mean things have been so rushed if you actually stand back now and look at the plot yeah this is where we've put in the trench at the moment yeah across the black and the white can you not see quite a strong Edge there but that's 10 meters away by 10 meters I mean I don't know it's a yeah it looks quite good to me the current discussion is that this wall here that we've got the brick wall might be one of the various little extensions shown on the drawings right and very exciting is that that's not likely to be very wide because of the span of the roof there's no way it's going to be it's not limited no so that if we only come two meters out here and there's a there's a wall there then that gives us the sort of span you might get for that extension ten minutes it also gives us the option I mean the point you made that if we don't get it in that two meters we or we can dig another hole but we'd be mad to do more than two meters to start with in case it's in there so trench one is extended just a fraction in the hope that it'll reveal the real South Wall of the privy lodgings this is done it must be said on the sly when none of the residents are around [Music] Mrs Franklin in fact is busy elsewhere with karenza and perfume expert Maria Liz balchin Maria we've got this recipe from 1527 for damask water it's from Brunswick's small book of distillation do you think you could make this for us well I shall try well we've got a list of ingredients here which we're hoping you might have in your garden strengthen um Walnut leaves could reach that lower abroad they have to scrounge it oh that's good you smell that gosh it does doesn't it Citrus amazing smell [Music] oh it smells good that's time [Music] now doesn't that look pretty they and Cypress to finish it's amazing you've actually got everything in your garden hymns Francis yes [Music] it's going rather well on the lawn too Phil's uncovered another brick wall slap across the middle of trench too and this is a serious wall three times as thick as the title are in trench one you've got what you called a floor here this so this could be an interior floor of the palace I would think there's a reasonable reasonable bet yeah and are you prepared to say that this is probably the palace wall the back Palace Hall I I I I'm yeah I'm beginning to put money on it and I don't normally put money on anything unless I know I'm gonna win at last after yesterday's full storm trench 2 has given us our first main exterior the north wall two more the South and the west and we'll be able to locate for the first time the privy lodgings of Richmond Palace and you see where the Baron's house is now yeah what would have been there in Tudor times well can you see just above it there's there's a bit of an arch showing up just there just over there yeah you'd have come through that that's one of the surviving bits of the palace complex into a big Courtyard which also came under where the big house is and that had a fountain in the middle of it so there was a there was a sort of square area with with buildings around it before you got to the bridge that went across to the private Apartments of the palace now certainly there was a large Orchard over to the left-hand side there where that new guard very nice Garden has been laid out but there were also Gardens and Orchards over to the right down Beyond those trees in front of us and that's where things like the tennis courts were which was a thing that was catching on at the time there were sort of indoor and outdoor tennis areas the Kings of England had so many Royal palaces what is it that makes this one so particularly important Simon two kings tried to make it their dynastic scene the first one was Henry V he died halfway building through building it but Henry VI completed it and then was Henry II and there he is on the wall not looking particularly happy but it should have been because he just finished building this fantastic building and he was the one who succeeded in making Richmond into the great dynastic Palace of the Tudors Henry VII however found it rather old-fashioned and it had a sort of Revival under Elizabeth the first but after that it went into fairly rapid Decline and of course was in the end down after Henry after Charles the first had his head chopped off by midday the morning's drizzle has turned into torrential rain extra planks are needed to protect the lawn trenches are filling with water everyone's drenched the place to be is inside with the perfumers and I'm pounding these up here well it doesn't need very much pounding you're just releasing the essential oils is that sort of I think that's ready the next stage of the Elizabethan perfume making process will be familiar to anyone who's ever made home brew gin yeah the crushed up plants are put into the bowl of a distillation apparatus add some liquid in this case rose water and for a bit of extra Zing some white wine then simply turn on the heat and then the essential oils will be liberated and will rise up with a steam right the way out here and it'll then condense into this tube here and in a few hours time we'll know firsthand what the well-heeled Elizabethan smelt like foreign it's just after lunch on day two and all the joy of the morning has disappeared it's been pouring with rain we're all absolutely soaked and now the wall which Phil promised me was the outside wall of Richmond Palace turns out not to be but what is this thing well you can forget that because that's actually a later wall how do you know it's later because it's sitting on the remains of the war we were looking for the wall that we've been looking for sat here it's been robbed out someone got there first someone's taken the Stone from the wall to use elsewhere and the big bits of rock that weren't usable are just chucked in at the end and those are the things that go down there disappearing underneath how do you know anyone could dig a hole and say oh that's where a big wall is we've got a very very good Edge there Tony that is that is a true Edge that effectively is the edge of the foundation trench the wall would have been built in that Foundation trench so you're pretty sure that what we've got here is the ghost of the wall that was the outside wall of the palace I still believe it is yeah or at least I still believe that's where it was yeah so do you only have pint or not I owe you half a point [Laughter] a ghost of a wall trench one the extension has produced nothing except more damage to repair when we finish digging so they've all decided to count this thin one as the front after all very convenient now all the effort is going into getting to the bottom of it in search of a floor efficient though this looks digging for the floor could take weeks so they decide to burrow a small hole instead it's a lot deeper than it was it's a lot deeper and it's going down we haven't actually got any evidence for flooring as yet and so the Wall's still going down it's got a meter below this ground surface is it it's ah you've got a bottom I can see you've got a person from here no back at trench two Phil's trying to find the width and depth of the north wall Foundation Trench wait oh look at that Bella means what is it Phil falamine jug Tony what's that mean they've always got this rather gruesome looking face on you see that there's these two eyes and he's his eyebrows they're very very characteristic what's it a period would that be well I mean we're looking at the 17th century let me be absolutely ideal for them demolishing the palace yeah and what would have been any wine and how big well I mean they're they're they are quite big bellied so I suppose you're looking at something like that with a little handle on the side probably for carrying it and for boring right get back there yeah get some more stuff foreign and just across from Phil a new hole has appeared in trumpeter's lawn this is our third and final trench and it's gone in where geophysics think the Northwest Tower of the privy lodgings might have been Franklin's keeping a watchful eye on things so it's a bit of a relief when just inches under the surface mcvadig hits something solid but what about that stuff in the middle that looks like concrete it feels like concrete it looks really hard give it a cloud oh yeah all right there's obviously it's going to take us some time to pick that apart tomorrow now won't it it's got color in it wonderful oh it's great as the Evening Sun breaks through Barrick and Hazel Forsyth our two defines expert are getting very excited about two pieces from either end of the site well it's a piece of terracotta ornament off the front of the building it looks almost modern doesn't it well you could be turn of the century our Nouveau couldn't it but it's actually Henry VIII probably the 1520s before he lost interest in the palace and it's terracotta just the thing they did in those days very new very fashionable and what about this one well much the same date but the exciting thing about this one is it's colored the paint is still there just blue stuff yeah blue stuff it's beginning to break up but it's there and what are these leaves well this is typical Renaissance Design acantha sleeves probably part of a long freeze these plaques if you like were attached pegs onto the exterior of the palace so you have a decorative freeze running all the way around much cheaper than using carved Stone to find something like this with the paint still on it is spectacularly rare a real Triumph for time team originally there'd have been thousands of them connected end to end forming a blue Renaissance halo around the building [Music] six o'clock day two we've got all three trenches in looks like we've got plenty to do and just when I thought I wasn't going to have to go to the residence and ask for special dispensation they seem to have decided that they want a fourth trench where and why why are you looking at me there and because the geophysics have come up with some interesting data I mean basically what we've got Tony is a linear anomaly that looks as though it could be the Western Wall and it fits in perfectly with where Stuart says the Western Wall should be so where do you want to put it in at right angles to the anomaly just at the bottom of the bank yeah about just about down there somewhere yeah somewhere there yeah I'll give you an exact measurement she's here oh right to Alaska Mrs Franklin Mrs Franklin we would like to dig a fourth hole uh well how big and where uh probably about probably by one and a half like the others what we're just as big as the others there like that one down there probably only probably about five meters long so you know but the thing is this is exactly happening what I expected would happen when you got so far with just the three tips you'll want to go to another trends and then they go to another Trend and I mean you're not going to be gone by Monday at this week oh yeah now we have to be gone by Monday yeah and and whatever happened this would be the final trench it has to be because we're all finished tomorrow evening because we can't go on after that all right yes okay then well I presume the barrel would approve well we'll ask him no no no we'll ask him as well but if you're happy we can at least say that to you yes you can yes okay okay that's very kind of you thanks very much but we've got the new results for that area now so I'll be having a look mixed powers of persuasion work with the baron too so our fourth trench will go in across where we think the West Wall of the privy lodgings was first thing tomorrow back in the Gazebo the damask water has been bubbling away for several hours and the smell of Elizabethan England pervades can you smell it now it does smell faintly like decaying vegetable matter doesn't it I mean not quite as bad as spoiled cabbage but a little bit of the rose oil remains there you have to be very clever to smell the rose off through the rotting compost smell so does one put it on why don't you it won't burn a hole through my wrist or anything I don't think so actually that's remarkable so that's really a lot of the rotten vegetables got out of that it's certainly better A lot smoother isn't it well perhaps they knew what they were talking about satisfied with its bouquet and curious to see how much of the white wine has distilled Maria decides to go a stage further and taste the potion laughs [Laughter] it's pure Rocco I wasn't expecting that oh yeah if Maria had only waited another five minutes she could have had a perfectly decent glass of red wine with the rest of us as We Gather on the banks of the Thames to celebrate a real roller coaster of the day well it's the end of Dayton it's been a pretty tough day but as you can see the sun's come out again and hopefully tomorrow we're really crack it in our fourth and final trench here that make our fourth and final French oh really it's the beginning of day three and there's still a heck of a lot of work to do this is trench one and those are the sellers that went right under the privy lodgings and there's a lot of digging to do before we get to the bottom of them now not only are we going deeper but we're going wider as well we want to establish this wall of the lodgings which is why we're digging this trench morning gents excuse me and over here this is where we're trying to get the turn of the building hi Mick morning tone and we think we know more about this wall of the building Phil Tony have we established the width of the wall yet yep we've got the other edge here look look at it diving away there and where's the other Bridge back against the edge of the cut there so it's about that's right this big yeah great this one is the one I've hardly seen at all it just looks like a great jumble of brickwork to me Mick what do we know about this trench well this is where the geophysics had a very sharp angle which we think is the junction of the north wall with the West Wall so we thought we'd put this trench down over to find that but in fact we've lined up the rubber trench now with the Hoops for the um uh the croquet game across here and it must be somewhere under here so we've extended a bit and we're cleaning job but you haven't found anything of the Tonya no we've got a bit of an outer edge where Greg is up the corner but it's it's early days yet we're gonna have a bash at it this morning and see where we get with it and can you tell me anything about all this brickwork no not yet I don't we can't see it clearly enough yet well hopefully we'll know a bit more about this one later on in the day we're going straight down to the the other trench over there okay take a straight measurements Stewart has been keeping a fairly low profile this weekend but he's obviously onto something this morning he's measuring everything inside he seems particularly interested in the distances between our first three trenches okay Jenny I'm more interested in trench four the one Mick and I had to get special permission for yesterday we hope it'll hit the West wall and it'll be very embarrassing if it doesn't where do you think you might have a wall then well listen this wrench we've got lots of brick Rubble and uh we're hoping to find things up at this end when you say you're hoping to find something you've got any indications yet uh nothing in situ it's all just Rubble so we haven't got a wall yet moved a lot yesterday after the success of yesterday's distillation karenzo wants to explore further the world of Tudor perfume she's helping Hazel make an aromatic fashion accessory called a commander Bears what are we doing here you're giving me this this the grind up yes what is it it's benzoine which is um an aromatic gun from Sumatra from Sumatra and it's one of seven ingredients which goes to make this Commander the other star Oris bergamelt for being there and ambergris where does that come from sperm well intestine oh actually it doesn't smell as bad as you make might expect outside in the trenches we're racing to finish the job in trench one they're still trying to find a floor but the sides of the trench might collapse if they dig any deeper so they're drilling for it instead [Music] trench 3 is undergoing another subtle expansion to find the extent of what could be more Tudor brickwork and I'm still anxiously awaiting a wall in trench four Tony [Music] over here a minute come in over to trench two where Stuart's very excited yeah I think you'll like this this is one of those moments you dream about yeah what I think we've now got in this trench here almost by look we're based on the geophysics we've actually hit the main entrance into the privileging we put the trench in just here and it's perfectly Central just got a good look to that facade and if you stand just here and look through what will be the doorway or the bridge going straight through the hallway of Trump's house you can see the Gateway on the other side the Gatehouse that would be the main entrance into the palace straight along here isn't that marvelous it's extraordinary isn't it and and the the Kings the Queens will come straight through that hallway in effect of trumpeter's house Thomas so trench 2 hit the ghost of the north wall at just the place the main entrance would have been and these two steps on the outside of the building were probably the footings for a bridge across the moat to the rest of the palace trench 2 has also produced some floor tiles from inside the building which could be a clue to whether the privy lodgings were Medieval or Tudor so what sort of date are we talking about for these tiles Hazel probably 16th but they could equally well have been used yes and they probably were something in the order of this sort of size right um I mean now so you can see when you turn them over they're really substantial because they were designed to carry a lot of weight and and withstand heavy wear with heavy ears would have been flawed with these in the palace Brown floor rooms yeah ground floor rooms what about these here well these are roof tiles and this is a bit of roof that I've tried to reconstruct from lots of tiles and on some of them you can see that this one is torched to give added weatherproofing clustered underneath it afterwards yes well actually as you build up your roof you start with laying one tile putting the torching on and then setting it onto the Nets and so on down and I mean what these do seem to show is that they all absolutely smashed to Pieces aren't they and all you know cracked up yes uh like as if you know some that they've been shedding off the roof as they've been pulling the building apart it seems very very likely explanation after all his toil entrenched too Phil wanted a break so I promised him a trip on the river with John cloak I didn't tell him who'd be driving I didn't sweat it a nice bit of Awesome [Music] so I feel very like being Elizabeth must be fantastic wasn't it in tutor times rolling down here and suddenly coming on this amazing palace with all these towers and weather veins and things wonderful and of course the river wasn't just an ornament it was the main means of communication transport from London all the goods of the palace came down by river well all that they needed I mean all their suppliers were brought here unloaded taken up into the palace and then ambassadors would come by water from London on other visitors would be received here there are many accountants of that so it was sort of M25 really yes and then um of course the Royals would come down in their great departures so they've got out of the boat just here and gone off into the palace that's right yes this is trench four the one that we got the special dispensation from Mrs Franklin to dig and while all the friends he's been going on in the other three trenches all day Jenny's been at the bottom of this quietly scraping away with frankly no one paying much attention and all of a sudden she's come up with this what is it Jenny um it's a very large wall uh we thought it was much later initially because these bits have been added on later but underneath it is a much more substantial wall that's probably the West Wall of the palace so I needn't have worried the Western Wall made of brick not stone is right where John cloak and geophysics said it would be which just leaves trench three five now well well by five o'clock Mick is finally prepared to reveal that he's found the Northwest Tower of the privy lodgings and with it a potted history of the palace and in fact this bit here we are fairly clear now is the first bit in this hole this this bit with the two sides like that because it's got a lead drain look coming out under it this is lead sheet yes here yeah yeah it does and that's probably coming out and going that way into the ditch or the moat that runs right across the front of the privilegings here so this blocks first this lot here is added on to that probably in the base of a tower and we can see that because we've got an edge over here and the edge up against the wall through there and it's full of stones and mortar and plaster and all rest of it in there so as Fashions changed or whatever it would get bigger and they'd change the shape of them they fill that in the next interesting bits if you come Round Here this big stone is the outer edge of this Mass here and it probably had another Big Stone there and another Big Stone there and at some stage that was hiked out because they decided to put a brick front on that again the latest style and what we can see about this is that the chap who built it the Builder built it could reach down and fetch the water off uh flush with the bricks whereas over here probably because he couldn't reach he's left the mortar oozing out between the bricks and so original ground surface was there and above that the bricks are rounded and smooth or they've been worn because they've been out in the air and they've been eroded we can't tell for sure when each of the alterations took place but the First wall almost certainly dates back to Henry V who built the first privy lodgings on this site the stone fronted Tower could be his too the final brick facade on the tower could well have been put on by Henry VII when he renovated the building after the fire in 1497. as we've got this corner turret does this mean that we can now work out the entire shape of the privy logic yeah we know this is at the corner of the palace so that war must come across here we've got the rubber trench of it over there it comes up and joins this Tower somewhere and this then has a wall running down this side which you're hoping to get in that trench and that must join this Tower as well so this is right at the corner of the palace we know that the rest of it is over in that direction wonderful incredible and we're sorry about the disruption oh I don't mind about that when we came in and I saw the law and I was very worried about digging holes in it so was I I just hope you feel it's been worthwhile now absolutely so we've done it we've tied down the exact position of the privy lodgings trench 4 has given us the Western Wall trench three the corner Tower and moat trenched to the north wall and trench one one of the bays in the southern facade though they never did find the floor and John cloak's original estimate still looks pretty good he was just a few yards too far south and now he's got all this information Steve's been able to reconstruct how the privy lodgings would have looked in Queen Elizabeth's Reign everything we've uncovered suggests this was a brick building with only the ornamentation like window frames and door arches in stone much of it was rebuilt or renovated in The Tudor style by Henry VII including the extension we found in trench one and the blue decorative freeze was added by his son Henry VIII it would have been surrounded by water with a moat on three sides and the Thames then much wider to the South from there it would have dominated the surrounding Countryside an opulent Monument to the Tudor dynasty but good as it looked it would have smelt pretty strange judging by the results of corenza's alchemy oh yeah that's nice actually I mean what's it supposed to do if I had one what would I do with it you carry it around with you to stop you getting played oh thank you this is what the men would have worn it's a joke this is at the men's put some of that on on yes yes what do you reckon no no I'm not sure I wanna know what is it from anal glands of a Civic cat we may have made a bit of a mess of this lawn but don't worry because it's going to be put back good as new first thing tomorrow fingers crossed but it's been worth it because now for the first time we know precisely where Queen Elizabeth's Royal Palace at Richmond stood and I'm here right slap bang in the middle of it [Music]

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 242,362

Keywords: 14th century, British monarchs, Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, Elizabethan era, Queen Elizabeth I, Richmond Palace, architectural remains, aristocratic residences, castle history study, educational documentaries, heritage conservation efforts, history channel episodes, history enthusiasts, lost palace, medieval structures, opulent monument, palace discovery, palace excavation, royal family history, royal palace, time travel adventures

Id: FkSgPXyN_6I

Length: 50min 26sec (3026 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2023