King Of The Anglo-Saxons: The Lost 9th-Century Hideaway Of Alfred The Great | Time Team | Chronicle

[Music] thank you welcome to the hundredth time team by way of Celebration we've come back here to one of the most important historical sites in the country this is atholny in Somerset where King Alfred burned the cakes and saved England from the Vikings last time we were here we found loads of stuff it was so long ago I was the one wearing the stripy jumper and would you believe we did it all without digging we discovered evidence of iron working possibly from the furnaces used to make weapons for Alfred's Army in 878 A.D and GFS stunned us all with the first ever pictures of the Abbey built to celebrate his victory it was frustrating though we weren't allowed to dig even one square inch of Earth now 10 years later we're back armed with permissions shovels and trowels but some things never change we've got just three days to crack the secrets of Alfred's Hideaway in the marshes [Music] thank you foreign why is this site so fantastically important oh I think it's one of those key points in English History really the Danish armies the Vikings have taken over most of the country the only sort of Kingdom left the only leader is Alfred and this is the place he uses his base to fight back so it's like one of those turning points if he if he hadn't been based here and if he hadn't been successful for me uh who knows it might have been part of a Scandinavian Empire by now why did he choose here why not somewhere else I think because of the the local situation we're down here in the somerset levels which floods a lot in fact this aerial photograph which is taken in the 40s you see Athan is this h-shaped island here but all around it is floodable land well all this in this picture is water yeah it was flooded in the 1940s and it would have been flooded in the Anglo-Saxon period so it's actually unnaturally defended by marshes and flood land and Reeds and so on it's very low-lying sight so you could literally hide an army here ten years ago when we were here it was listed it was protected schedule an ancient Monument yeah is that still the case yes yes in fact the area has been extended in within that last 10 years then how come we're now allowed to dig it well because I think there's been a change of attitude in archeology 10 years ago it was very much you know Diggins destruction therefore we don't do it under any circumstances if we can avoid it now in order to manage it properly we think we need a certain amount of small scale excavation to understand it and he did we won't be able to look after it without understanding more about it Tim a long time we've been waiting 10 years to find out what's under the ground here but how long has farmer Tim Morgan been waiting rather longer than that yes I've often wondered because you were born here weren't you so you've been wondering about it all your life always yes in 1993 the GFS results from the Abbey end of the site turned out to be one of the highlights of the three days now you do remember at breakfast this morning last comment was geophysics will be the answer to it all yeah I feel like well you're not going to see a plot that will Astound you this is if the technology works it is pretty amazing it was the first year Fizz plot of this kind ever seen on time team and it still ranks as one of the best well you can see we're getting Church aisles that's fantastic this has never been excavated there's no pictures there's no prints there's no drawings so this is actually the first time anybody's ever seen anybody's ever seen it the layout of the Church of athenny Happy ten years later and both beards and printing times have shortened well what we've done is we've actually used our new software and given it a bit of color and it's enhanced it yeah and we're not going to get any better than that with resistance no I mean there's the monument and all the wall lines but what we're going to do now is radar right we've got a superb plan what the radar can give us in addition is actually depth information history hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans enjoy our Rich library of documentaries covering key events and locations of the medieval period history hits medieval offering features leading historians such as Dan Jones Elena yanega and Cat German not only that but with a rich library of audio documentaries covering every period of History through our network of podcasts 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 at checkout [Music] founded by King Alfred in 893 A.D would have been altered a lot over the years [Music] much of what is showing here relates to how it looks at the time of the dissolution in 1539 A.D this was Mick's idea of how it looked based on the geophys and our brief now from English Heritage is to test this interpretation see how much survives and what condition it's in we're also going to investigate one bit on the geophys that 10 years ago we thought might relate to Alfred's original church it's very clear major alignment along here but in fact it's it's out of out of alignment with this little area over here question could this be the remnants of Alfred's early church geothers have marked out two trenches so we can start the trenches you can start the trenches I think that is the first time in a hundred programs that he's generously said yeah you go ahead and take him with his word let's get tracking before our last visit all anyone knew was that this Monument put up in 1801 was said to roughly Mark the location of Alfred Abbey algae of his plot changed all that and now we're all extremely proud that we've been given the chance to excavate such an important Historic Site this will be the first full-scale archaeological investigation allowed here even better we've also been given permission to dig the other end of the island traditionally thought to have been the location of Alfred's Fort and where 10 years ago we found evidence of ancient metal working last time we came here Phil Harding was in charge of our field walking operation and discussed the star find with Tim Morgan's dad we found him quite or something in particular which is very interesting um this object here yes well we don't see that sort of thing every day you know well we think it's a piece of metal slag people who did their geophysical survey up here did actually detect strong indications of of metalwork actually in the ground and this bit we've actually found on the surface obviously been dragged up by the plow very interesting unique I should say the find was important enough for an expert to drive 300 miles to see it iron smelting slags come in a variety of shapes and sizes and they can be characteristic of certain periods when Chris described the slag to me it immediately more parallels in my Minds to say either it's Iron Age or possibly Iron Age or possibly Anglo-Saxon so by looking at it now in the hand I'm much more happy that it's probably of anglo-saxon day fantastic you've started digging yeah we have yeah Jerry's back with us and he's circled several Targets on the geophys plot that might relate to Anglo-Saxon metal working we've opened up trenches over these two signals where is it in the ground well it's quite difficult to see isn't it yeah the corn Cherry if we put it onto the uh the sort of the background natural yeah getting readings about 30 or 40. over here nearly 1300. it's really really magnetic that is I think what's happening is it's going to swing around here you can see over here it's really dark again and what the value is there oh oh it's it's actually gone negative yeah that's typical of a huge lumps what was going on here so we can Jerry's sliced through the lump of slag we found last time and in this cross-section we can see that there's some gas bubbles at the top and at the bottom but the rest is very very smooth it's been fully liquid fully Molten presence of these white iron oxide crystals in our lump of slag means that it isn't the waste product of iron smelting but possibly a byproduct of making steel now what exactly is steel compared to ordinary iron right the iron that's in the bulk of artifacts is just pure iron today we'd call it wrought iron but Steel's got carbon in it and it makes a very good Cutting Edge it keeps The Cutting Edge and it's very very sharp the Saxons were masters of Steel making probably unparalleled until the 18th century well that's all doesn't it because yield as an industrial revolution material not a sax ophone no the Saxons have a very very finely developed art it's extremely technologically demanding and extremely expensive so the people the status that we're looking at is high status the top so what you're saying is that if we can prove that this is the result of Steel making then it's more likely to be to do with Alfred than anyone else absolutely yeah we have to hope that one of our two trenches here at the Fort End will turn up dating evidence to prove the soil stains and slag waste are Saxon Jerry also wants more iron slag and ideally bits of waste metal to help improve steel was being worked here well that's like that's definitely fans like the sort of thing you should be looking for okay Paul let's dig for some more of it at the Abbey end of the site we're opening up a third Trench this will be a really long one to examine the remains across the width of the monastery but the first signs aren't good with this mortar spread it just shows how shallow it all is well yes it's obviously been plowed to death it's got onto the top of where the plows just cracking it on the top surface okay then Gary yeah carry on further down the hill in trench two we're looking for evidence of a wall that could be part of Alfred's original Saxon monastery all right then Dave oh hi where's this wall in well it's supposed to be about here I think well I know where it's supposed to be but this is a trench distinguished by a lack of wall it's early days yet but what we're finding in this trench are bits of human bone at the moment Mick thinks this may be the result of burials being washed downhill or perhaps disturbed by plowing at the fourth end in trench 2 Phil's digging this geophys signal and we had to go down through all this uh plow soil to get down onto the edge of what looks like a ditch running off in this direction here the ditch has produced more metal slag for Jerry to examine what do you do just check it with a magnet see if there's metal in it oh there's a magnet in here yes yeah it just keeps the magnet clean so I don't get contaminated with and is there no it's similar to the the big lump that was found 10 years ago but that's definitely slack oh absolutely no doubt at all no doubt at all what's worrying me is that Phil's also finding what looks like Iron Age pottery that would date to something like a thousand years before Alfred have we made a mistake could all the metal waste be Iron Age it could but I'd like to see I mean as I said this this slag seemed a little bit different to the other material now there's no reason why we couldn't have continuous occupation and so that what we're seeing is actually two phases of activity so I wouldn't I wouldn't go off and until we can actually work out the archaeological relationship of these to be able to say it's all Iron Age or it's all Saxon if I'm honest I don't want to hear about the Iron Age I want to find evidence of the man I heard so much about last time we were here King Alfred the Great at one point in the time that we're discussing this weekend in in 878 uh Alfred's Kingdom had shrunk to the few Acres that surround atholny the particular reason why we know so much about Alfred is from the fact that a chap called Assa who was a Welsh friend of his and became one of his Bishops wrote a very detailed life about him it's the only life of a Saxon King that we have of that kind but he had a horrendous situation to face because the Danes had literally split England in two they'd uh cruelly slaughtered most of the kings of places like northumbria and East Anglia and were obviously intent on taking the rest of England for themselves were the weapons for Alfred's fight back being made on this hill at the Fort site we've just turned up our first bit of metal any idea what it might be kind yeah it looks very much like a knife at this end you've got the Tang what's that the bit that went into the handle and on one of these sides is going to be the back and one of them is going to be the blade The Cutting Edge I've got my fingers crossed but it could still turn out to be medieval how long will it take before you can tell us well we're going to excavate it a bit longer a few minutes yeah and yeah come back to us what are you doing out here you're normally beavering away indoors I'm allowed to be curious just like everybody else Robbins brought me a map that includes a drawing of guthrum leader of the Vikings but really it's just an excuse for a historian to do a bit more storytelling so the Vikings are sweeping down this way yes and also Landing it on the coast of Devon so that effectively Alfred is cut off he's isolated and yet he feels safe before he Sally's forth around about Easter of 878 to finally defeat guthrum at Eddington and that's the Turning Point that's the moment at which Alfred is is coming back to establish his Wessex and eventually in the hands of his son and grandsons England itself won't tell what it is yeah but it is in fact an Anglo-Saxon scrammer sacks just a small curved backed knife it is actually saxophone does that mean that we can date some of this slag working to the sax Imperial yeah yeah it looks like it's in association with the slag so it's really exciting and could it be associated with Alfred conceivably yeah don't see why not astonishingly even the horn handle has survived oh look at that lovely at the Abbey end the news isn't so good what we've discovered in trench one is that all the building Stone has been thoroughly robbed away to be used in other buildings but there are still some great finds among the rubble it's the Three Lions it's the arms of the king it's England you can just see the bottom edge of the lion there all right Shield would have come up and then the two other Lions above it so so one of the Abbey floors would have looked like this around 1290 but we've got tiles from three different floors here how often would they have been renewed it was probably a constant thing it's like mending the fourth bridge and you know you're you're laying new tiles in different parts of the church as different things are happening one of the things that the stone is suggesting is you've got fairly constant building going on concerned by with the amount of bone that's coming out of this in our trench furthest down the hill trench two our jumble of human bone and rubbles become even more puzzling there's bits everywhere there's bits of skull bits of long bone there's more in the trays yeah and then there's this Blooming Thing which um I mean David decided what whether it's actually a complete body now or I think it looks like it is complete but whether it's sort of in situ I'm still not sure it almost looks like it's sort of uh almost pushed together and re-buried or something like that because it's such a jumble in here I was gonna say it doesn't look like a proper architiculated skeleton today it looks like a bundle of bones in a bag basically and somewhere in there should be the wall gear Fizz detected sorting this out it's clearly going to be a challenge tomorrow but for me the exciting story today has been at the other end of the island where we're digging up a site that in Alfred's time could have looked like this what Victor's showing us is the iron working process the intense activity but what we've been Excavating today is what's gone into the ditch debris that's been swept out from the Smithy to fill the ditch and what we want to do tomorrow is to go and look for the rest of this activity so what are the things here might we actually still be able to find into things like the post holes the the hole for the post for the for the Anvil and the debris that will be scattered around so you're confident we might get something tomorrow I'm confident the geophysics showed us the iron working today not just the knife and there's more to come from that for tomorrow metal survived really well who'd have thought it end of day one and already we've proved this area of metal working is Saxon the question is can we prove a link with King Alfred in the 9th century could we be Excavating Alfred the Great's weapon Factory join us after the break welcome back and out there it's going to be a really hot and a really critical day too when I first got here I knew that this end of the site was going to be really important to our understanding of the island of athlonee and Saxon times because here King Alfred's Abbey is located but now over here where we'd already discovered evidence of iron working we've found this lovely little knife which puts the far end of the site well and truly into the Saxon period too could we be lucky enough in our hundredth program to have found evidence of Saxon metalworking connected with King Alfred's Army today our expert in ancient technology Jerry McDonald wants to investigate the magnetic signals he's found here just a short distance away from the trench where we found the knife it was on top of what we think is a ditch filled with metal slag from a forge we're actually Excavating this large anomaly here but it extends further in that direction right so I think if we extend about two meters that would Encompass the whole thing and then we can take that off and we'll actually see the relationship of this black to the other material that's in here and actually get a good Edge to it on that side okay and we can potentially look at these alternative strong anomalies as possible smithies last time we were here Victor conjured up a picture of Athol knee in Alfred's time an island surrounded by swamp with only a Causeway linking it to the Saxon settlement at East Ling 10 years on and surveyor Henry has created a more scientific view of this landscape the blue areas show those areas which have been flooded seasonally so it's taken from the geology map as you'll be aware really space Farmers that's right yes um but what this shows in terms of uh Alfred's time is although athamy's an island on three sides it's actually got relatively dry access from Ling along the peninsula and the green areas coming up here showed those areas which are low enough to have been wet enough to have the sorts of vegetation you get so the sort of scrubby really sort of landscape which effectively cuts off utterly as as an island from from the Dryland access you won't be able to see it Henry even thinks that the swamp would have been too thick to easily get a boat through which is more or less what I thought 10 years ago this is what it must have been like for Alfred I can't even move let alone run away from any Vikings the only way in would have been across the causeway and Stewart's been studying aerial photos looking for traces of Alfred's defenses at that end of the island fortifications that are mentioned in the documents according to Assa who was Alfred's friend and biographer he wrote about atholny which is surrounded by swampy impassable and extensive Marshland and groundwater on every side it cannot be reached in any way except by punts or by a Causeway which has been built by protracted labor between two fortresses and then he goes on a formidable Fortress of elegant workmanship was set up by the command of the king at the Western end of the causeway this is sort of Swampy Reedy stuff yeah very much so yeah Victor's going to draw the defenses and Stewart's going to be looking for any evidence of them at the causeway end of the island and he won't be getting any help from Phil because he's been moved from the fort end over to The Abbey site where we've got a complicated jumble of human bones mixed up with the ruins of Alfred's Abbey we got a real problem here in in trying to understand whether you know these are burials intact whether there's derived bits of skull or whatever but we need his fill to sort out what quite where how this wall fitted into it that's on the geophysics well I think I've shorted it actually right can I go back over there but you've got a burial in it yeah no but the point is John told me this morning the war is going to be about here yeah and look we've got a perfectly good front edge that almost looks like a morted edge that's right that's right I've actually got the back Edge I'm still working that way but more importantly like you say look I've got this pelvis in there with two vertebrae there and what looks like probably the part of a forearm so it looks like they're buried like that the point is that we've got an articulated skeleton here and the most important thing about it is that it's articulated and it's on top of the wall the wall must have been knocked down when that body was put in so what does that tell us about what might have been going on here well I I think it's it's actually very important because it means that this building which you can see on the geophysics and this is the one that's sort of skewed angle our mystery one that's early um it's actually gone out of use and been demolished presumably down to ground level before these burials have been put in what we've got to tell is when the bodies were put in and when that building was knocked down yeah so this is the medieval church and this is the Saxon church that William of malmesbury described in the 12th century yeah could our building be the Saxon ship I don't think so because this has got circular absence around all the sides whereas this as far as we can see on the geophysics and what we see in the ground is straight I think that building's probably up on the top of the hill Beyond The Monument so we haven't got the Saxon church here yeah this could be because there could be another one or another building they often had more than one Church on the same on the same side it's it's probably more likely that it is if it's been got rid of in a new rebuilding phone like that stay here for a bit yeah see you later meanwhile it fills old trench at the other end of the island Stewart's got some news he's desperate to tell me about for 10 years I've been running across sites looking for you so that you can interpret them for me which kept you slim anyway tell me all that running now this big ditch coming through here Stuart's interested in this Red Bank and the makeup of the ditch we're digging here he thinks this trench put in in search of some more metal waste has Unearthed something much more interesting don't don't get confused by all this lovely data he's been reading a report about some boreholes put in during work on the flood defenses last year which resulted in the discovery of a ditch identical to the one we're digging we're standing just about here and one of the boreholes in particular which was taken there showed evidence of a red clay bank which sealed the deposit which was 7th Century in day wow this it was radiocarbon data but was cut by a ditch which was late eighth Century in day so we know that there is a ditch and Bank there in the sort of early Saxon period around there so I think what we're looking at potentially is this here being part of a fortification round this end of the the island here with the causeway leading off to East Ling if you look over on the other side of there's eastling there there's our site with the causeway in between so we're looking something which is fortified across the end here simply to stop invade is actually getting on the island when you say fortification would it have had Stakes it would be built of a big ditch with a wood a wooden a palisade on top of it Victor's already started working on the drawing be worth having a look at foreign between Stewart believes the ditch we're digging was part of Alfred's defenses on what's more the latest geophys plot may be showing the ditch running around this end of the island I just think there's this General sort of hint of settlement or I don't know if it's a ditch I don't know if it's defense the geophysics has given us some nice interesting hints but it isn't necessarily giving us the full story but there's one intriguing feature showing on the geofiz that surely we've got to dig and basically there may be some sort of break in the in the in the possible ditch oh not an entrance I don't know I don't know I don't know if it's an entrance I don't I've got no idea it's a ritual entrance and we'll find a small Saxon sacrificial brooch in the side of it today only you'd be hanging around archaeologists too long I think I am getting a bit carried away but wouldn't it be fantastic if this new trench did find evidence connected with the story of King Alfred and from what I remember about guthrum leader of the Vikings I'd expect the ditch to be extremely deep to keep him out they practiced what was known as the blood eagle which was peculiarly nasty form of death in which they they kind of slip the victim down the front while living peeled back the ribs and then flung back on either side the lungs to form a living blood eagle it is absolutely revolting you you are talking about rather brutal ruthless men for our return to athlete we've decided to bring Alfred and guthrum to life as two men of high status they'd have been dressed roughly the same Alfred himself was very keen that his armies were quite professional and as such that meant that he stated they must have a helmet they must have a shield for example of a very particular size a sword such as this thing this is also an opportunity to see what weapons edged with steel actually looked like now this would have been tool steel this is what all the cutting's done I'm not sure a pregnant karenza should be wielding a viking ax but certainly handling real weapons helps us imagine Alfred's predicament there are only two other Saxon metal working sites discovered in Britain and the connection with King Alfred here makes the evidence we're digging up at the fourth end all the more important Jerry is interested in collecting even the tiniest bits of evidence so these are bits that have come from this process here that's right we call it Hammer scale they're flakes of metal flakes of rust that has come off and we know that's very characteristic of blacksmithing not a vast amount I just pop it in there right and then all we're doing is just using more 9th century technology we're trying to cook some cakes like the ones Alfred famously burnt to pick up some of that grain but first we've got to make them and karenza's grinding the flour that's just 100th program I've been told I've got to get my hands dirty so this seems as good a way as any this would have been uh griddle cake so they would have been milky and eggy and um very like sort of like crumpets milk egg butter Honey Salt and of course corenza's flour are all you need to make authentic Saxon griddle cakes maybe you should have a look at some of the trenches while you're waiting at the Abbey side Phil spent the day untangling the skeleton that was mixed up with the rubble in trench 2 and now has a tale to tell somebody's actually placed the body of a juvenile in there after the collapse that's after it because it's sitting on top of the rubble or the demolition building but at a later stage uh again somebody's dug away this hole that I'm standing in probably to get the stone demolition stone look at these bits and in so doing they've chopped through the skull of that child that's that's extremely interesting because I've come across a major demolition work carried out in 1674 by the laborers of Captain John hucker who owned this site at that time and there's a letter in the bodilian library describing it and he says uh there they continue digging up the ruins and foundations of that sometimes famous and ancient Monastery they took up the bases of the pillars of the church lately and nearby found some Graves one among the rest near eight feet long as the Workman guest with the bones answerable they found graves in 1670. that's right and then they go on to talk about further work that they did south of the East part of the church which has to be over in that direction so that would fit with that wouldn't it it's just fascinating who actually gets some historical detail that ties in with the archeology that's good stuff thanks a lot not at all glad I could be a service at the Fort site we've been waiting for a pottery specialist to look at the fines that crucially might help to date this ditch and now the Moment of Truth has arrived I must admit my eye goes to that right because not evil more recently no no no well it's handmade isn't it it's got this these nice and sized lines around it when I would have I would have thought that was late Saxon really frankly yeah um the problem is you'll realize that we haven't got much late Saxon pop from around well I know I've been saying that for the last couple of days yeah it's rare to find Saxon Pottery in Somerset there simply isn't any from Alfred's time in the 9th century and it's assumed they were using wooden or leather vessels and those don't survive no this is later than Alfred the latest it could Poss possibly possibly be would be what 12th century because I would put it somewhere around about 10 or something right it means the ditch was here a hundred years after Alfred but could it have been here a long time before him we think the pottery from the lower part of the ditch might be Iron Age I think it could be well it will be late Saxon Iron Age I mean they're unbalanced I have to say I think I probably Iron Age rather than eight Saxon and is it the fabric maker you think that yeah yeah I mean could we be looking at something then that's uh that's an Iron Age ditch that's you know what Alfred picks it because it's already there you can see you can revamp it you've got anything else that would help with I mean presumably a ditch like this is going to run around this Hillside we think we can see about half the circuit yeah right yeah but on the Geo so we're getting a new prehistoric site out of this aren't we rather good yeah yeah so it looks like Alfred was reusing Iron Age defenses that's brilliant we didn't know that before what everyone does know is that Alfred burnt the cakes because he was worrying about the Vikings my excuse well there's got to be that my mind's already racing ahead to tomorrow ideally we need a big lump of waste metal for Jerry to analyze we've got the entrance through the defenses to excavate and wouldn't it be great if Phil could find a bit of Alfred's early monastery so do you think Alfred's been a bit hard done by then allowing them to burn I do know I didn't before I thought he was an idiot but I now realize how difficult it is Phil how do you feel about being back here after 10 years absolutely incredible Tony I mean when you consider that this is the only site in 100 programs we've never actually put a hole in before now it's unbelievable but to do it when we've actually got such a historical relationship with Alfred it's unbelievable yeah I've got something for you by way of Celebration [Laughter] celebrate their 100th program with a half a mug of warm white wine that join us after the break in fact you're not too bad is you welcome back beginning of day three on the Isle of athlete I'm driving across to the far end of the site where people thinking Alfred the Great was once holed up when he was fighting his Guerrilla campaign against the Vikings 1300 years ago now we've already got evidence of anglo-saxon metal working over here and we've got the beginnings of a big defensive ditch because they really have anything to do with King Alfred the Great we've got just one day left on its own yesterday Stewart was saying that he thought that the ditch along here could be part of some kind of anglo-saxon defense yeah I think that's likely if you come back here and look at the profile you can see the hill here look he's dropping down the ditch we've discovered here runs off at an angle like this and today we're hoping to find more evidence of it in this trench where Jeff is think we might find the entrance what we're hoping to prove is that this was an Iron Age ditch that outfit the great reused in the 9th century so he could have been using something that was already over a thousand years ago and why not you know if you're looking for somewhere to defend and you've already got a defense on an island put a new fence up you know refurbish it in a way Ian's task today is to reach the bottom to prove it was first dug in the Iron Age Alfred's defenses would have been designed to prevent access onto the island along the causeway from East Ling the causeway is still in use today really stands out now that it's been reinforced with white concrete so Alfred himself would probably have ridden across that Causeway on exactly the same line yeah as that white light that we see today picking his way through the bargain each side across the bridge seeing that big defensive Bank in France up through the doorway all that industrial activity on top with furnaces going and spits working away uh you know as you come up that slope through there for the surprises that anybody's bothered to do this in the Iron Age can I just interrupt you ten years ago corenza believed she discovered evidence of Alfred's Fort this is the Terror that we're looking at can you actually see those those sort of black lines coming around here other intermittent messed around then they're coming right around there you could also almost see a circular structure going right round there that could be the side of the Fall Mick wasn't convinced it's exciting we've actually found something that could be the right it's roughly the right shape it's roughly the right size it's the shape and the size and the shape of it though also worries me I mean I I mean here's Alfred presumably with his back to the wall he's coming in you know retreating to this I do I feel skeptical eventually after transcribing the soil pattern showing on the aerial photo a different conclusion was reached it does come up in other words it does look remarkably prehistoric it does it does yeah it's like some sort of Iron Age Farms it does yeah now 10 years on it looks like we're proving athenny was occupied in the Iron Age that's at least 700 years before the earliest documentary evidence which tells us about A hermits and Ethel wind who lived on the island in the 7th Century now this saint Ethel wind was the son and the brother of kings of the West Saxons in the late 7th Century 670s 80s 90s that is the exact time at which the Saxons first conquered this part of Somerset and from that point you get the feeling that this is a special place a royal place because certainly at Alfred's time it was known as the island of the athelings or the princes and there's no reason to suppose that this isn't the kind of area that Alfred as a king of the West Saxons wouldn't have visited regularly possibly as a child possibly as a hunting area and so that it would occur to him naturally as a place that he knew to seek refuge in when he came here in 878 this would have been the perfect place to be a Hermit wouldn't it you'd have been surrounded on all sides by the marsh so you've been protected from the people close to God the quiet contemplative life yeah and in fact that's exactly what Victor's drawing here it could be because this had been a religious site that Alfred founded a monastery at athenny in the 9th century and Phil's still hoping to find some dating evidence that might prove we've located a bit of that early church he's opening up one last trench at the Abbey end so we've got the what we think is the early building here on this alignment yeah and up here the main body of the church on a slightly skewed alignment and where we've got the trench is where this building and the main Abbey intersect in other words there try and take this Eastern lady Chapel the square extension and put it over there we're also trying to make sense of the medieval Monastery and the excavated plan of much only Abbey 15 miles away is being compared against Algeria Fizz plot both monasteries were of a similar size and history and the interesting thing one of one of the interesting things here is that The Farmhouse itself is actually orientated exactly along the line of the The Abbey The Abbey of course isn't on the same orientation as the hill so it's as if the Farmhouse is respecting The Abbey rather than respecting the hill itself as if the Farmhouse or its foundations have been put in at a time when the Abbey is still standing we'd established the extent of the medieval Monastery but now we're beginning to appreciate the details within it The Cloister for instance is in exactly the same position with visiting experts looking at all the fines we're learning about the history of Alfred's Monastery across the centuries the monks here at athenny would have walked across a floor like this around 1500 A.D with a whole mass of these similar pattern designs all together and half tiles along the edge you'll see these slightly darker color tiles they're overcooked quite different compared to that yeah that's a good one you see that to have a cup turn it inside it's gone almost black and there are lots of those I think that the atomy monks were buying a whole lot of seconds doing it on the cheap ten years ago I'd never have guessed that we'd be back here with the chance to dig such an important site and it's the Saxon evidence we're finding at the 410 that's got me going especially now it looks like we've just made another cracking find Cedric I hear you've got some metal work yeah can I come down there certainly oh crikey yeah I tell you what it looks like it looks like the sort of thing where you fit this end into a wooden handle and it's like a size yep I mean you would have to be broken wouldn't it because normally they are quite a length that's right what's it actually in um well all this black stuff is appears to be metal working debris perhaps smithing debris or something like that so it could be a bit of scrap or something that's broken or something that's going to be reworked I suppose couldn't it definitely yeah yeah I mean if that's the Saxon Scythe I mean how many of those are there well that's right very few it's going to be quite rare isn't it it is we'll need to bring in a specialist conservator to excavate it unfortunately the Saxon knife we discovered on day one was badly worn and can only be Loosely dated between the 6th and 12th century now this is my personal knife it's my everyday knife I'd use for eating doing small carving jobs and things now if I just orientate this the correct way you can see that you've got this classic sort of humpback CX blade shape the shape of the blade is very similar it is I mean obviously this has got a an antler handle on a carved Handler handle whereas this one might have had this bone one finding Saxon evidence at the Abbey end of the site has been made all the more difficult by the discovery of a medieval graveyard put on top of earlier archeology nevertheless the dig in this area has produced some special fines one possibility with things like this is it could be for marking out on documents you know because any document has got lines to set out where the text's going so on parchment or Vellum and Lead would Mark well it would and either a point or perhaps uh so are you saying these this this item is is an item of grave Goods that is gone with with a monk to to his way it might have done but what is much more important for it I think is probably that it's shown us literacy a scriptorium manuscript compilation that sort of thing so that's a cracking thing and it's not just our fines that'll go on the record presumably being that size you're either grinding up pigment soil or medicines or something like that pregnancy or medicines all the fragments Tim and his family have discovered over the years have been under scrutiny mix favorite being this chunk of monastic Bell and they lift it because he's Plumbing every now the bronze you can see the sound bow that's the bottom end of the Bell Graphics have gone to town reconstructing it but it's unbelievable in a way that so little is left of this famous monastery which we know once extended across this hill and looked something like this at the time of the dissolution in 1539 when the bell of Athol and the Abbey would have rung out across the marshes for the last time foreign as for finding evidence of the early Saxon Church the complex of rubbed out walls proved in the end too difficult to interpret despite the encouragement of finding some early pottery and this is possibly what we call Saxon Norman type stuff maybe 11th century 11th floor that sort of day so late Saxon it's all that transition so this is the first link that we've got at this end of the hill with Alfred's Monastery this South average somebody who was in that Abbey in the 11th century was here and they dropped this pot what we've done is we've taken an area from the resistance plot it's no wonder Phil had a difficult time the geophys radar survey shows the remains don't survive to any great depth these are 10 meters slices through the ground and so we're at this ground surface here so nothing's showing we move along and here at about 40 centimeters we're just starting to see wall lines and as we go deeper here they are showing quite clearly and then as we continue to look into the ground we're disappearing below the actual Foundation level it was a real technological Leap Forward in the 10 years since we were here last isn't it you won't need to dig in a few years time so it's not surprising we didn't find evidence of Alfred's original Saxon church that looked something like this according to William of malmesbury who visited atholny in the 12th century but the thrill for me is that we found so much Saxon archeology at the fourth end of the island in Alfred the Great's Guerrilla base in the marshes as Jerry predicted we think we found evidence of a Saxon Workshop this but ton would have supported one of the posts and the conservator agrees with us this could be part of a Saxon scythe so do you think you're going to be able to get it back to looking something well reasonably like a single blade rather than just a lump of metal yes I think so I think so we won't take it back to Bare Metal because a lot of it has corroded away but you will get a good a good idea of the original shape it's a fantastically exciting find isn't it I mean there's virtually none of these known at all for me I've never heard of it I've never heard of a parallel no there's a nice strong Edge still there and that's The Cutting Edge that side yes would have been in use this way up smooth would have come somehow off of here not quite sure because there are no parallels to this and that would have been cutting it went through there after examination in the lab Jerry's opinion was that this was either a side or a draw knife used for woodworking tests showed that it may have had a carbon steel cutting edge although we haven't yet been able to prove the metal working dates to Alfred the Great in the 9th century our experts still think it most likely sadly this trench didn't find evidence at the entrance into Alfred's defenses that must be elsewhere but look at this what we have found is stunning evidence of the defensive ditch continuing around the island it's much deeper here but crucially it contains the same Pottery sequence 10th Century sacks and fragments in the top of the ditch and Iron Age Pottery in the bottom that's pretty well the same sequences over there ditch dug in the Iron Age presumably some sort of Iron Age Fort or something here certain amount of silthing Alfred comes in no Pottery in Alfred's time and then lots of stuff dumped in which gets the late sex and pottery in both in this trench and the other one it's gone out of use by then so the sequence is very clear and we know that it's an Iron Age site open with the defenses in in Alfred's time as a result of that I'm sure I thought this is a theory ten years ago she did you've got to give it not with this ditch you're only 20 yards I think 20 yards and 10 years is too much oh criker look at that that's a colorful trench that is Ian in Ian's trench where we originally discovered the ditch the surprise is that it's much shallower than expected it's this green clay that's the base of the ditch there I mean one possibility at the moment I think is that this is a big Quarry ditch that yeah digging this ditch out to get material to stack up up here yeah the ditch on this side of the Hill wouldn't have needed to be deep because it was protected by impassable Marsh but it would be much deeper here where the fortifications would have been at their strongest to stop anyone getting in from the causeway a precaution just in case guthrum and his Vikings managed to find this island hidden away in the somerset marshes we came here looking for King Alfred we didn't find him over at the Abbey but what we did find was much more important evidence right here of why he's known as the great because when he was on the run from the Danes he didn't just wander around in the marshes he came here to the island of princes a defensive site he already knew and which had been in existence for over a thousand years in order to regroup make weapons and plot the downfall of the Invaders it's nice to know that even after 100 programs time team can still come up with the unexpected Cheers Cheers thank you

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 26,629

Keywords: history documentary, medieval history documentary, middle ages, medieval history, the middle ages

Id: kcdGVKZeZT8

Length: 49min 6sec (2946 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023