The Ancient Royal Horse Stables in Newmarket | Time Team | Timeline

hi everybody and welcome to this documentary on timeline my name is Dan snow and I will tell you about history hit TV it's like the Netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit TV you can either follow the information below this video or just Google history hit TV and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video this is sacred turf the holiest of the Holies for those who participate in the sport of kings yes we're in Newmarket for a day or three at the races and we're making a wild punt that there'll be some pretty serious archeology lying somewhere underneath this venerable old town we're going to be looking for the remains of the very earliest days of horse-racing because this is the place where the whole shebang got started [Music] [Applause] and the earliest dedicated horse-racing facilities in Britain could still lie buried somewhere beneath Newmarket so ours really give me honest finding the first racing stables in the world will give you four to one that you don't have anything fours yeah somebody just can't lose [Music] it's early morning day 1 in Newmarket our dig sites a couple of miles away from the racecourse in the town's historic heart we'll be looking for a royal palace and some stables that could be pivotal to the story of horse racing and already the archaeologists are making one hell of a racket santini Jackie McKinley is behind all this frenzied activity she's out regular phones expert and is running this week's dig Jackie why are we hammering away at the tarmac already well we've got to get through this in order to be able to get it this building underneath this stables building now if you look across there you'll see the remnants of Charles the second palace that you'd built after the restoration and what we have here is a map that was done in the 1740s showing Charles's Palace but over here this massive building on this side is the scientific stables what we're hoping is that this will still be surviving underneath the tarmac be able to get at massive building and you can see how big it is just in relation to the building across the road this is a palace for horses yeah it is almost literally as big as the yeah you have to remember how important horses were at this time imagine a footballer with his garage full of classic cars and Ferraris and Porsches that's what these horses represented prestige status they're beautiful and they're built for speed the one problem we are gonna have is whether we can tell whether this was just a racing stables or whether it was just an ordinary stables or a sue yeah what we need for that who's the tack the equipment that would have gone with the racing horse which was slightly different to the ordinary riding horse and that's gonna give us the clue and if we can secure that evidence then we've really hit the jackpot this would be the first dedicated racing stables in the world the courtyard may look too crap it now but it was once the focus of royal New Market the small towns position in the rolling Suffolk countryside a fast day's ride from London has made it a convenient rural hideaway for centuries of Royals they were drawn here for a range of country pursuits but above all for horse-racing and to this day Newmarket remains one of the global centres of the sport in fact it's completely horse obsessed [Music] it's already home to the National horse racing museum and on our dig site they'll soon be erecting a huge new complex to house the collection so this is the last chance to dig here we're relying on the geophysics to give us an idea of what's below the ash felt in the stable yard chuck is hoping the radar will pick up some of the features on her 18th century map enabling her to position her trenches with laser guided accuracy but archaeology is really that straightforward and all these lines certainly in the top meter appear to be service pipes and sort of another as you go deeper into the ground though we're getting one or two linear responses that could be more interesting now this one in particular that is on the line of your wall for the stable block yeah but the right angle we've got in the radar doesn't match the end of the building at all it's actually eight meters away so clearly there's something we quite don't understand this series of blobs on John's GF is results will almost certainly be worth investigating but we've still got to pick a location for the first trench so what's the plan of campaign engine well I'm still inclined to go for what I was originally gonna do which is to put it something like a five by two initial fire by two over where we think the entrance is if we can find that entranceway we can work out from it because it's a known point so we're wasting no time in getting stuck in Phil's trenches going in over where we hope the entranceway lies it's a good identifiable target and just as expected it's not long before there's a sniff of archeology it's been cut away this service trench that comes through here I know it is but it's still a wall don't know what it relates to were how old it is but it's a start isn't it well absolutely okay it's too early to know whether this wall is part of a 17th century stables but films suddenly got the bit between his teeth and while the archaeologists push on Mary Ann's beginning her historical investigations into the origins of Newmarket market was such a sleepy little backwater for so long and then James the first comes along and essentially transforms it yes it back I'm about well James first came to new marketing and February 1605 and he stopped here to course hairs and he was very impressed with the local topography in particular the Heath and he decided this would make excellent terrain for his many sporting activities James Athos wasn't a particularly good rider he was never renowned for his horsemanship no he had thin spindly legs and you know you look rather unprepossessing in the saddle but charles ii was a real keen superb horseman when he raced in the horse races himself yes I think he won a race in 16 m71 although one does wonder whether his coaches were tactful in letting him win sometimes but you know even so you know the king was a great horse man 100 percent Horseman so from these humble but noble beginnings grow the sport and the industry that we've got now the sixth largest in the UK yes it transform Newmarket from a mere wood hot hamlet to the metropolis of the turf [Music] back in the courtyard Phil's been making good progress it's really sticky muggy afternoon lots of flying ants around that kind of thing and we're all pretty sweaty but the archaeology looks like it's been pretty successful isn't jaiz brilliant I mean the once we've managed to put the trench exactly where we wanted it it's over the entranceway the front entranceway into the stables so we've got the main south wall here we've got a turning there with one side of the corridor and then the wall continuing the other side but the interesting thing is that the construction of this wall because you can see what it's like gray material behind which is the clench the chalk which is forming the inside of the wall and then on the outside you've got the brick so the crunch is this stuff here richard jesse chalk edge and it's quite posh brick as well you feel that it weighs a ton what would you give to that I would put them like 17th quite happily if Richards intuition is correct then we're probably on to a building dating from the time of charles ii so it looks like a good start to our three day archeological steeplechase and perhaps our historic documents hunt can help us edge even further ahead of the pack around the corner from the yard tucked into new markets high street is the current site of the national horse racing museum museum director Chris Garibaldi is showing Marianne around this treasure trove of eggwin related gems this archive is bursting we've got some interesting stuff I mean of what one of the most important things relating to what we're doing with the dig is copy Johnny villains Diaries from the 1670s where he describes coming to New Market we went to see the stables and fine horses of which many were here kept at a vast expense with all the art and tenderness imaginable this echoes this idea that these horses are incredibly prized possessions and absolutely invested in the the the building itself would have had high status it's a major building de pierres on the plans when you compare it to the palace itself do we have dates for when these stables were built yes we think they were built in 1671 with the rest of the palace but there is some indication that they may have been earlier they may have been rebuilds and if that were to be true it means that they're not 1670s there right the way back to pre Civil War structures from the 1620s which would be hugely exciting it's not very likely but it's a possibility and whether these stables were simply the stables of the king or whether they were special stables for his racehorses yes there's there's an entry in the archive that relates to payments made to craftsmen for work done for the King in Newmarket and this is a copy of the Kings account yes Henry blows carpenter for work done in and about the King stables where the running horses stand and at the ice well etc etc at Newmarket so that specifically tells us that these were running horses race horses and not just any horse stables so the documents are suggesting we may well have a dedicated racing stables but only the archaeology can determine this for sure we've had a fantastic day here in Phil's trench where we seem to have found some early stables which if the dating of the bricks is right could be 17th century but that's only part of the size over here thank you very much guys is where king charles ii had his palace not a bad place is a research genuine bit of late 17th century palace what more do you want would it have looked just like this well now it's only a fragment and it's also been quite heavily restored recently so it nice to get to the nuts and bolts of it really do you think we'll have a chance to find lot well I hope so cuz it's not every day you get the chance to excavate in the 17th century Palace is it according to the plan being this courtyard area here we have a whole range of buildings here which I mean it's not clear what they were there may have been offices there may have been the kitchen areas so we could have a look at those do you foresee any problems here only the impending problems that John hasn't got any geophysics and there will be undoubtedly a mass of services but going on what we've had in here it really has paid up trumps so I see no reason at all well we shouldn't have a 17th century palace here yeah we mustn't be defeatist must be you've shown impressive form on day one but can you keep up the pace will you be able to find king charles's holiday home or will we be flogging a dead horse beginning of day two here at Newmarket and we've already come down on some very nice 17th century royal stables where this morning I've climbed a little hill above the town to check out the gallops where the centuries stable lads have brought their horses every morning to give them their exercise this area of open heathland lies conveniently close to the town thanks to its chalky soils it's the ideal surface for training horses it's one reason why Newmarket became the home of British horse racing royal patronage was the other key factor from Charles the seconds reign onwards racing gradually evolved into something like the organized sport that we'd recognize today Charles's imposing Newmarket Palace shows the scale of his commitment to the town the portion that survives is impressive enough but it's only a fraction of the huge structure that once stood here in the 17th century it would have extended right down to the high street covering an area of several thousand square feet this was a full-scale grand royal palace and our archaeologists are eager to find some of the missing rooms hopefully still buried beneath this gravel carpark services and not a lot else I mean this you can see the radar plot with the buildings on top we're not really seeing much at all now I'm just wondering whether below these chippings as a sort of makeup that we're not seeing through yeah you know that might explain the results or it's been totally trashed because this was a really really busy area I mean if we if we look at this this is this is the the plan of the palace that's the mansion house building we've got there the green bit is where the current courtyard is where the gravel is and these ibly too have been state offices that kind of thing whereabouts do you want to actually put the trench right well okay we go back to the palace building what I think we're gonna do is but small trench over that cross wall because it's either cross wall would be able to orientate ourselves there so you're basically mute rich that possibly may be trashed made ground no geophysics and later phasing a building great [Laughter] [Music] but raksha's trench soon proves to be even more of a challenge than any of us could've foreseen before long she's on to a serious layer of concrete Ian can't seem to smash his way through with the mechanical digger so we need to find another solution I think the only thing we can do is get some tools or something try make a hole in it so we get underneath it pick it up I mean maybe it rode on and a pickaxe something like that much more scrape along that country okay let's do that because while our two stoical archaeologists prepare to hammer through the concrete I've been someone to the horse racing Museum for so-called important experiment what's all this thing this is Alfie he is racing royalty he's had a lifetime in racing and he's next rocky with a race named after him it's a bit of a stretch impressive how much you have to wait to be a jockey Alfie you can wait what wait you like long as you can do the weight that the horse is set to carry all mine used to carry seven stones so could I race Alfred ten last oh you could do but you'd be carrying a bit of overweight on the flat you'd be a lot over the jumps but not on the flat we'll find you a nice solid mount okay like that one over there this joke hot to trot what is this thing this is legless but um I'll show you you won't fall off him and put that leg on there just drove your over leg over I put my foot in the stirrup there's only Cowboys did that I'm gonna set him off now okay I can't wait okay and slightly down stand up stand up couch forward now I'm gonna go on a stride you're doing perfect at the moment don't lose it now don't lose it let's tighten it down looking straight between these zeros I'm going on a strike you're doing great you're doing great okay you've got another four races today today well I ain't nothing nearest you're ever gonna get to seeing me write professionally oh four miles five heaps that's what King Charles used to do it may have been painful but at least this exercise has given me a bit of an insight into why professional jockeys came into being it takes serious skill and it's this story of the professionalization of the sports that we're hoping will become apparent in Phil's trench if all goes to plan we'll soon be able to identify this structure as a dedicated racing stables all right walk in here and yeah anywhere in here Tony this trench now looks twice as big and three times as complicated it's absolutely spot-on everything we could have hoped for Tony and it is exactly as the plans show us the nice thing about it is of course to actually see what the plans are showing if we look at look at it like that there's our entranceway and it shows that we come in through a main corridor and that at the back end of the stalls you come into a flight of stairs this is the flight of stairs and on this brick floor in may well be the the under floor cupboard if you like angle is aware of the stairs themselves there's stairs the stairs are probably going to start here yeah and they're gonna walk up here up here up here to a landing turned and then you would carry on it probably to those the storerooms above yeah yeah and then in here we actually are at the back of the stalls and you can actually see us get a sense of that because in here where Traci was actually digging she said she said it felt very very organic is to felt like would probably we're actually looking at the shuttering at the back of the stalls and so we're you and I are we would have the Kings Pro stallion and the pros mayor eating their oats preparing for the next great event the stairs are an important clue unlike most stable stairways they've got a turn in them this is an unusual and rather fine feature suggesting the upper floor was quite grand rather more than the usual hayloft it indicates a very smart building but it's not yet decisive evidence of erasing stables now what we do know is that we should be able to pick up the wall that divided the front half of stables from the back half the stables and what I wanted to do is extend the trench that way a little bit so we can see the stalls on both sides and see if there's any difference between them in the flooring or anything else which may give it more of a clue to what's going on it's possible that only one half of the stables was dedicated to race horses so we may find some differences between the two halves that will demonstrate this but the odds are long and have we got the stamina you sure that we're not gonna start biting off more than we can chew it is quite a complex training it is quite complex but I think you know we can G things along a little bit and maybe speed things up from a trot to a canter maybe he's ignoring me completely afternoon of day two in new market and the archeologists have really got their work cut out the mercury is rising and they're building up a sweat in this Asheville cupboard heat trap of the stables yard as you can see already this trench is pretty big and just before lunch Jackie said she wanted to extend it and open up a little bit here which as you can see she has done but not only that she's extended to here here here here and right the way to here Jackie this is trench madness no it's not quite as bad as it looks really remember when we decided where to put the trench and what we did when we looked at the 1740s plan and we also looked at the GF isn't quite agree with each other now we found that the 1740 span is correct we need to work out what this mysterious blob is so is you're thinking that that blob probably isn't the same phase the same date as the stuff we've already found so it could be earlier and it could be much earlier than exactly we need to extend the trench at that end in order to be able to investigate that what are these funny things here what those funny little things are there in the big post that would have stood at the end of the individual stalls when I say large I mean you know we're talking about something that would've been that big that could hold the post that a large horse could go up behind a sort of rabbits bottom up against when it had a niche so there's a very full afternoons work ahead of us and no shade for a weary archaeologist to shelter from the full heat of the Sun Alex and Richard meanwhile think they could now be on the trail of the earliest royal remains in Newmarket according to our historic documents Charles the second grandfather James the first built his palace just off the present-day High Street Alex is hoping that fragments of it may still be visible oh is this just an excuse to visit new markets toy shop you want to see something really old take a look at that well all right we're not going back quite as far as the Jurassic but you are looking for something that's earlier than charles the second's palace where we are we know that James the first had a palace here yeah and according to this map it should be somewhere on this spot believe it or not so excuse me I'm looking for a palace wall could you give me directions to the back of the shop just do that okay well let's oh well that's definitely old isn't it it's oh it's all over the front anyway look very nice bit of brickwork but I'm afraid I don't think it's Jacobean palace why do you say that you've got things like these round arched headed windows brick mouldings the bricks are fairly large as well right so I'm not convinced take a closer look oh I'm take a closer look yeah I mean my my eyes are drawn here Oh certainly the lower courses here because these bricks are very much thinner aren't they than the bricks it was certainly that we've got up there yes you're certainly right they're so thin the bricks earlier period is that possible it's possible and it's really a question of whether this is the remnant of the plinth of an earlier building or whether just reusing right low down in the plump Alex I think you're being slightly desperate uncommitted is clearly saying this is not a very release the straw unless admit that we had a lovely time in the toy shop very interesting on balance the toy shop building seems to date from the early 1700s at least 70 years after the time of James the first so it seems our trenches remained the best bet for gaining a glimpse into new markets royal past but in raksha's palace trench the goings not been good we've been looking for walls from a demolished section of charles ii palace but they're still proving elusive but you do seem to have walls here well we do so we have a wall coming through there and something here which is probably a floor or a wall but this trench has been really trashed around when we place this it was supposed to be over a t-junction on the 17th century Palace building but these balls both appear to be going in that direction there's no tea they do they don't really match the plans that we looted earlier and no dating evidence presumably so far no not not yet obviously nothing in situ even if we did find anything so I think the best thing that we have to do is give it a really good clean see where this is going don't know then hopefully we'd be able to give you a much sought after dating evidence that you need given the lack of dateable finds from rakshasas trench we're going to have a second stab elsewhere in the palace grounds we're going into the gardens where an intriguing feature showed up on the GF is Jimmy's got some nice results from here I mean we've got this curving feature now I'm just wondering whether it's a sort of pond mark where do you want it then Jackie yep well that's yeah somewhere about here I reckon starting about here and going straight out this way about a metre Metreon two meters okay so we've now got a definite target in the Royal back garden potentially it's another direct connection to the new market of Charles the second and with a bit of luck we may even get some high status dateable finds out of here Jacky's next port of call is the horse racing museum as a bone specialist and a horse lover she can't resist the opportunity to learn more about race horse skeletons while here in Newmarket and this is the skeleton of one of the greatest thoroughbreds that ever lived it's a wonderful skeletons beautifully formed fantastic isn't it it's Hyperion who's a 1933 Derby winner but he's also an incredibly important sawhorse because he sired a number of very important winners after his racing career himself you finished but what we were hoping is that what you might be able to tell us from the bones first thing to do is always check that you've got what you think you should have because it's got Kate it's got a cane canine teeth which I'm it's smaller in females are absolutely all together I believe but of course ways you can tell you have a race horse he's really really cuz they have these really quite chiseled faces comparatively speaking so you know he's got quite a sharp angle to his jaw that's quite narrow and and this this area here which is you'll be pleased to know it's called zygomatic arch but basically it's a bit beyond the eyes and is really quite narrow as well so you've got this fine chiseled face but even though he's small he's obviously been a very powerful creature if you look at the muscle attachments on his back legs particularly here they're really big and he's also got strong muscle attachments on his four limbs on these on his radii which here and unlike often with humans who have very powerful muscle attachments they are equal on both sides he's obviously very well balanced this is that sort of compact body shape people often remark on how small he is relatively to what they imagine a big racehorse would be but it's all about lean agility at this stage so maybe small but perfectly formed absolutely [Music] the skeleton shows us just how distinctive the physical attributes of a racehorse are question is have we found anything in the trenches to show an equally distinctive racing stables hi we think somewhat meagre but hopefully informative collection of finds here so need me get down his end is a bit meager we've got one piece of pottery which is this this is probably late 16th into 17th century and it's probably a drinking cup but that's the only bit of pot we've got the time about that date isn't that we've cuz I can match that with one single metal fine from the 17th century it's a bottom but it's quite a big quite nice yeah I mean this it all domestic waste there's nothing here I could say came from a horse stable with any confidence it's the problem of distinguishing when you do have a finds of whether they were use on buildings or have they were used in horses you'd think you'd be able to tell the tube now that looks ever so much like a hoof pick particularly when you're thinking about how nice it fits in the hand but then when you hold it like that it also does that ever so much like a door catch or a gate catch and of course you need loads of those and stables huh don't you need them anywhere and it's the same with with these things because at first when these were found somebody said oh that looks like a thing that's known as a manger Bob or a hitching wait that you you tie it to a rope that then goes up through a ring and to a horse's head collar so when it's in a loose box it can move around it's got almost like a stretchy rope because this comes up and down holding the loop talk very taut so that it doesn't get tangles I don't know what you think of the house very heavy the poor old horse would have a trouble moving his head anywhere with that no I think I think you're right and and I think actually the true answer is probably again they're connected with doors or gates therefore automatically closing you can open them you let them go this fall pulls down on a chain or a rope and it shuts it so so again not necessarily horses buildings and having said it was quite clean why have we got a dead rat on the table [Laughter] with the end of day fast approaching perhaps Phil's trench will it produce structural finds that can tell us more about the stables function casa has been working on the extension at the back end where she's been looking for stores last time I saw this machine well it's cleaned up as as well as rubble with trench with service treads you've cut for it cleans up we've got home later bricks sitting on these really shallow prints of more more than water and there really isn't an awful lot of stable going on back here well that is a disappointment I mean one of the reasons we extended into this this area was actually to see whether we could get any evidence of the stalls in the stable and particularly the spaces on them to see whether or not they were similar to what we've got over there we haven't got it here Bert's fortunately my evidence is a lot better have a look at this because you see you've got that wall over there yep and then we've got this slot here now according to the mapping and the measurements that's one point knowing meters fluid going to say a horse would but anyway that's one point nine meters wood now we've extended this way and look what we've got here a groove with red bricks in it and what you reckon the spaces are between those two grooves could it possibly be 1.9 a bang on the money absolutely so I mean it really really is good because now we can we can reconstruct the design and a stable completely along this side of the stable we know that we've confirmed of all the spaces for all stores of 1.9 meters so in film section of the trench there's irrefutable evidence of horse stalls they're exactly the dimensions we'd expect and there's clearly a whole row of them running the length of the trench it's a good place to be at the end of day two so where should we start Tori well I mean obviously we've got to finish cleaning this up we've got to finish cleaning this up then I've got to get all out spoil move because underneath there is our geophysical anomaly that might indicate we're finally ready to dig the anomaly that showed up on John's initial geophys survey right back on day one with 24 hours to go could this hold the key to explaining the stables function or are we varying wildly off course all that's left of king charles ii palace so we're putting in the trench over there to see if we can find any more of it meanwhile on this side of the road our trench just gets bigger and bigger and bigger we're over king charles's stables although whether it was a stables just for his hacks or whether it was a racing stables we haven't yet managed to ascertain hopefully by the end of the day we'll find something diagnostic because there's an awful lot of metal fines starting to come up having settled that field there's a heck of a lot of archaeology here there is a heck of a lot of archaeology and there's a list of things that we still feel are unresolved firstly we don't want to forget that we've we've got this area over here although a lot of that has been trashed when they put this building up here but there is still a chance we might be able to trace some idea of King Charles II the layout of his stalls so we want to do something in there secondly we don't want to give up on our search for the look those posts that Jackie so ably destroyed they're there their young use of we still want to look at those so we will clean up and really really look into their thirdly you can see that we've actually started to strip out the last quarter of the trench that is to try and find that back that geophysical blob thing that they that they find well normally I'd say to you remember we've only got one day left but it's far less than that because you and I go into the race afternoon oh wait we are we certainly are so you better get moving Geo Matt certainly not been hanging back in his trench in the palace gardens but has he yet got any dating evidence I've basically talked out I'm what we're looking for is bits of iron with holes in it bits of it loops yeah they just wonder if it's worth in the shell on the comms yeah will do hi Ellen we've got something which we think might be a bit of a bit so if you've got five minutes you want to turn over I'm in trench for well this may be just lovely and undoubtedly does have a hole in it but I don't think it's anything horse really what is what it's saying to me actually is it's some it's to make a bucket out of something wooden if you see her to me oh it's a handle man yeah it's not saying horse it's all to kind of flats and I mean I'll go and check but I think what you've got there lads is an old bucket and around the other side of the palace in rack Charles trench we've been hoping for great things why do we always joke that rat shark gets the loudest trench of all have you done do you know I'm absolutely overjoyed gone because you know we've been battling for a couple of days through this concrete and really hard gravel and sand and all these massive services running through everything and that there believe it or not is a palace that's the palace that's the palace have we any idea what bits of the palace that might be yes I do this is so exciting so our trench is here yeah over this t-junction yeah and we actually have that so this is the team running in that direction this is going across can you see this gap just there yeah lo and behold gap in the trench it is a bit of a triumph given that we were so despondent about finding anything yesterday well I'm pretty pleased the two palace trenches have added to our understanding of the Royal complex and confirmed that the historic plans were accurate Alex and Richard are still pondering the much broader picture of 17th century Newmarket they're investigating the route of the town's racetrack at that time could this give us any further clue to the function of our stables Alex yeah taking me away from a nice 17th century Palace I have indeed you've brought me out in the middle of nowhere it's about to rain yes what we're doing here well we've got this fantastic account from Cosimo de'medici he was a duke of tuscany in 1669 by invite of the king he came here to watch one of the races and he describes in great detail the race now I presume that this race is the Dukes course and let's say it is because it's a full mile course and that's what radhika medici tells us now it was started on this side of the dike it would have been two horse race the king and his retinue were stationed two kings gap okay right so the race starts out they started quite slowly and then start to work the horses up they then would have come through running gap at the very far end of the dike they would have come on - Roli mile that's this part of the course here that we see that runs into the main grandstand now at this point Medici tells us that the king and his retinue would have then started riding with the race horse yeah they would have been giing up the other riders and they would have followed them all the way in essentially to the grandstand not where it is today but right on the edge of new market town so not far from the palace they've not far from the palace at all so the old racetrack ran much closer to Charles's Palace and our stables than the present-day track it's another piece of evidence suggesting the stables were built for racehorses at the end of the race what happens is the King wraps himself in his cloak and retires immediately to his palace that sounds like a great idea to wrap yourself in so I think we should head back immediately Alex and Richard are taking cover just in the nick of time after two days of glorious sunshine the great British summer behaves in the usual manner unleashing a sudden downfall it's the last thing our archaeologists need in their immaculately clean trenches terrible it's all negative or negative is it was looking so good and then looking only in a few minutes look so let's dig a bucket load of muck to stop that from flowing in but I'm gonna make a Marshall a difference and that water is just going in there there's only good for frogs at the minute luckily it turns out to be a passing shower so the archaeologists are soon back at work sponging up rainwater oh no rain didn't do you a lot of good it looks a lot better now than it did a boat I don't know quarter of an hour ago it was a swimming pool but it is no Suns coming out and we've got the mops on and I think we're we're we're back to work again yes you've spotted that that is the blob that appeared on John's geophysics and it was the it was the wall we were wondering was it an earlier phase of war it didn't tie him with anything else now we've exposed it you can see just how big it really really is we've got it coming through there we can trace it there is that ah butting up against absolutely Wow I mean the thing of it is though what on earth is it well let's hope that this rain holds off because otherwise you're gonna be in a pond again going is not good - he may finally be uncovered but our mystery blob is still something of a mystery we've now got less than a half a day to work out whether or not it's part of a much earlier building [Music] at least the sun shining again just as well as it's time for us to pay our quick visit to the racetrack today isn't just any old day of the gee-gees but one of the highlights of the racing calendar new markets ladies day some of us are keen to have a flutter but were determined to find an archaeologically linked horse we have found a connection number seven is owned by say even to Rothschild who was actually brought up at Palace House where we're doing the deed so John's after way just some hard-earned fluorines on crystal capela will his geophysical abilities give him an edge an insight into running conditions on the track they raise awareness just rearing a little bit it appears not as his favoured filly struggles at the back a feather is just ahead of my place later whose deep but then just as soon seems lost crystal capela comes surging through right to the front of the pack [Music] [Applause] and crystal capela runs home [Applause] [Music] [Music] so by some miracle our wager has paid off can the same be said for our archeological efforts back on-site sadly we never found evidence of the large posts that Jackie was hoping for but what about the mysterious wall section the geophys anomaly that's had a scratching our head since day one this is the mysterious John GF his blob isn't it it is indeed that is a foundation wall it's the same width of the foundation wall for the south south wall that was standing on and for the cross wall at the top so it's not what we hoped for a pre Cromwellian wall no no not at all so I think what's happened is they've got the foundations in the architect arrived or the king himself and they looked at it up no guys it's just it's not gonna work we'll go for the outline of the building oh it's below ground level let's just leave it and you think that's a plausible explanation I think it's the only reasonable explanation for what we can see here the geophys blood wasn't older than the rest of the stables as it abuts the other walls it's a foundation wall that was never built on there was a matching wall on the other side of the stairway so the stable block would have had a symmetry to its design until somebody changed their mind what about the other big question that you've been asking really since the beginning of day one was this justice stables for the Kings hacks or could it have been a high-class racing stable we have a massive stable building they're stapling for 24 horses here which is a lot of horses we have a very grand structure so the the archeology and the architecture that we can see that we have here answers for us I think that question it is I think fairly conclusive that this would have been where the king would have kept his racehorses his favorite horses he could see them from his garden when they were walking around in the yard it's got to have been that where he had so our gigantic royal stables truly were a palace for horses this was an impressive structure far more grand than most of the houses in Newmarket at the time this magnificent building was almost certainly the first dedicated racing stables anywhere in the world but there's only one way to really understand the layout of this place let's call in the stable lads fortunately we have one of the famous Newmarket horses which is going to come in and show you how it works so what we're doing is we're coming in through the main entrance I'm glad Jon's got that bucket in case there's a accident you're then gonna turn in and come in through one of the doors into this Eastern Block and he might be a little bit frisky because he's sort of going back and forth a little bit being a bit difficult then leading him up into his stall they fastened him up and he has a jolly good feed and possibly a poo fill I didn't realize you were so good with animals I know I was born to be a horse lover

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 40,659

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, tony robinson, time team, newmarket, horse stables, archaeology documentary, british history, blackadder

Id: L1G6j0j2HT8

Length: 46min 52sec (2812 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2020