The Lost Villa | FULL EPISODE | Time Team

[Music] why is there a suspiciously pagan looking Roman figure buried in the wall of this nice Christian Church [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we're in the heart of the Wiltshire countryside land has been plowed for at least 2,000 years token ham is a pretty little village about twelve miles from Swindon but it is on the flight path of RAF Lynam the village church of San Giles was built about six hundred years ago in the wall is a small pagan Roman statue time team are here to solve a riddle there are no Roman remains in Tottenham so where on earth has this come from the team are already scattered around the site while Victor the team artist is concentrating on the statue itself calling for this little bat thing which was in the church typical piece of Church of England it says that this statue outside the porch embedded in the wall is probably a Roman god that may be the oldest possession that any Church in ancient Wiltshire has pevsner's the thing I was go to first of these things this is the book on the buildings of England if you look up the bit on the church it tells us for example that in the south wall West before a Roman figure of Aesculapius are then from Homer the doctor Greek Greek god of Health something like that he was that he was the chap that Socrates raised these cup of Hemlock to before he finally expired a to e scue late pious I remember that for my school days and this thing is presumably the sign of doctors the stick with a snake round it I'd like to hear an expert on that I liked the ice cream cone top right though oh this sitting up here we'll get an expert to come and look at e-tech Joe get dr. Martin Henning from from offices to come down look at it but from from the archaeological point of view one of the things we we have to think of is is is the church on an earlier pagan site you know that was Christianized later on is does this belong to some sort of temple complex or something like that so we've started to work in the field next door to come over here and have a look we've got spring reconstructed modern pond actually but there is a spring under it there are lots of Springs around here and you know there's this association with Springs and and pagan sites and religious sites and all the rest of it so we're gonna be doing some coring out there they see fill with with Mike and Julia there and then see what we get out of us but because of the possibility there might be an early structure on the site as well we've got the geophysics laid out here but what's a geophysics or geophys Hollywood was it mean well in this case we're going to be using resistance a resistivity meet oh thanks this is a gadget with two prongs that you put in the ground and you pass an electric current between the two if there's a wall in the ground the current hits that those resistance if there's a pit or a ditch then the current goes straight through so the Machine measures how much resistance Rees and then all those information can be processed later on and give us an underground picture of whether the walls there or pits or whatever so the Romans might have built something on a site which was an earlier holy Springs yeah and the Romans merely put their interpretation and applied their particular God to that particular spring Maria or whatever so the u.s. eats it's a romanization of a prehistoric setup and what we might have here of course is then the Christianization of something pagan if this had been a sacred spring then the locals would have chapped in offerings to the gods and these may turn up in the cause there could be 2,000 years of ritual history buried in the mud of the pond for the pond so maybe this place has been holy as long as there have been people around this Christian Church has incorporated the Roman icon into it and always there's this same idea the spirit of place this concept that there's something essentially spiritual here it's different from anywhere else and this chap he'd have been in some shrine or temple here originally wouldn't he be nice to see what that would have looked like go back to the incident room and find out meanwhile carrenza has dug out the official sites and monuments record where she finds some very useful evidence it's it's her off in a new direction but you know it's gone off the SMR to see if there really was any Roman stuff around here look you actually look in the record we found something that is a Roman settlement probably in this in the village should be able to link this in with a statue at some way they would both have come from quite important sites hands great never seen you this excited oh so laid-back about oh there's nothing I can't see anything that I can certainly see no Roman arches or anything but I can't see what the land surface is like is it grass is it powered so if we can investigate see if it's really I could have just been dumped from somewhere but I think you know I think this is great I'll see later so maybe our attention will shift away from the church to a field on the outskirts of the village it was there according to the sites and monuments record that Roman tiles and mosaic fragments have been discovered could our temple be in that field and what might it have looked like right when you go to show me well Victor's been drawing some of the types of temple we could find this is probably the simplest looks a bit like you know the Blue Peter toilet roll holder that there are interesting one from Hayling Island and although it's a very basic little design they probably tarted it up a bit short and this is Sydney Park in Gloucestershire where you've got a major colonnaded temple but in association with it a massive bath block and also substantial guest house accommodation for those coming into worship or coming basically to be healed carrenza has called in David Barnes the landowner who found some Roman fragments while plowing one winter survey across this field to try and find out more about the context at least fines might have come from not at all I'm actually thinking of applying the field art it badly needs time would it be useful for you to know more about about before you plow it if if we're to avoid hitting anything yes show me exactly where they actually came from about 50 yards from the fan oh okay then what have you got well we got one a core in your making we're gonna try yeah and this is a fine silty deposit which was actually formed when this area here was under under water under the pond yeah we can now do is describe this we've actually only got about 40 or 50 centimetres of pond deposit which the a to which we don't know yeah we can sample this now and can actually try and see what their any plant remains in here and we can see if those out here in the field oh right so you'll be able to tell us something about that later today probably wasn't yeah yeah that's the aim yes bye now carrenza is convinced there's something big worth investigating in David Barnes field she rushes back to find the geophys team they've got to hurry up and finish working round the church we've got to tie this in this area very quickly and get on to the next field I mean it is such a large you know it could be a good two days work in there this is the token um tithe map 1866 original field names and boundaries might give us a clue as to what's buried in that field that date and here's the field in which currents is interested number 61 and also the field next door to it where we're going to be doing some field walking that's the real McCoy but we can go one step further back to 1764 to absolute magnificent estate map of the manor and here's a carrenza field Pat Mead next to Knighton's Pat me this is the one where they found the Roman booze that's right and this is clearly a later boundary you see by its regularity these two fields were one field original that's right immediately south of widow pin Agurs drawn which i think is absolutely superb and finally we've arranged for the the digitizing of the Ordnance Survey the modern Melton Ordnance Survey map of the area and plotting all the information that people have formerly come up with and what hopefully we're going to come up with this weekend so that we can compile a master plan of everything in this immediate area round the church to hand on to future generations [Music] finally the geophys team gets started in Barmes field if we start from a hundred meters from where they are yeah just do five groups initially rather they go to the top end of the field another NASA time I'll let them run with it okay I think if we if we try and get it right and go out on this one [Music] meanwhile Martin Hennig from Oxford University turns up to take a look at our statues I don't think it is aesculapius it's a genius and local God but why can why can't it be a skill OPA San Martin because first of all he is cool a pious never had perished the horn of plenty that we see there and Aesculapius always wears greek dress and not a Roman toga like that what sort of temple would you imagine that this character might have come out oh it could it would have it could have come from really from any sort of temple but it could also have come from a domestic side so a house a house worth around a villa Rufus ah so maybe we're not looking for a religious site after all we're just looking for some Roman soldiers gasps I think we'd better go away and think about the implications that and then we might be looking for a Roman villa and stare at them for yeah funny how things change on time team whether villa or temple there's certainly something in the field the first geophys readings seem amazing it's going up to 10 nano Tesla in places yeah but there does seem to be some slightly cooler and almost which could be there's about going deeper feet we think that the fish and fur is running basically going costs us here east-west yet east-west who will actually pull our grid times against us because we spent so long around the church it's now obvious that this is where we should concentrate so what exactly were the Roman objects found here that have God everyone's so excited about the field david barnes and another local collector bill giles have brought in their finds so where did these come from the main site several fields away well this is all the classic indications there even down to the test sir i've is it'll squared up bits of stone and tile from some sort of mosaic floor yes plus the heating flue tiles all suggest a villa rather than an ordinary roman building though you've got the potter and stuff with it and then on over here we've bills brought in a number of the fines from the same site from the same site the surrounding fields around the main site including a number of coins martin which you there are coins of the House of Constantine the first Christian Emperor so this is 4th century is a 4th century is this the right sort of context for our our sculpture in the church then if you know we've got fines indicating a villa as we talked about well my eye has just lighted on this piece of stone here which is in fact a piece of sculpture it's only Cotswolds limestone exactly the same material which are us sculpture in the church he's made and it would suggest that that is not the only carving that was to be found on this so a Roman villa with statuary neat does that tell us it's it's a higher status building that it possibly does soil then and yes there was a fair spread all that stuff was first shown by bond to local archaeologist Bryn Walters and I've kept an interest in the site since especially there has been some threat to it by continuation of modern agricultural activity were very worried about obviously declaring these days yes and there was at one time a threat for a new sewage system coming through this field so we've kept an open watch on what might be happening here there's a strong possibility on the evidence which we found laying on the surface of the field that we've got quite a substantial building across and who knows we may very well be standing in the middle of a nice room here sooner we get the geophysics results the better that's what I'm looking forward to so we all against fading light and the threat of rain the geophys team pushes on to cover the field they'll carry on working until nightfall but for us it's time to take stock he thinks it's a really exciting site he's really excited about it looking forward with Jeff physics results I mean trying to get Chris the Telus was actually looking really pleased with himself we just had a session in the incident no weed bits and pieces have been picked up from this field before and I got very excited about this because if I found this collection of stuff on a piece of field what I was doing I wouldn't have any hesitation we've got hypocaust heating flue tiles of a central heating system they got roofing tiles we've got bits of masonry and so on and we've got wall plaster still with the paint on it that to me adds up to a Roman villa you know I would have no hesitation in saying he's and you still got nothing to say the way that colors at the end of day one and everyone seems to be excited MIT reckons we might have a veil but we got to wait until Chris is prepared to spill the beans before we know exactly what it is hope we'll know tomorrow this day - apparently the results of the geophys have come through so we're hurtling over to have a look at them it's embarrassing isn't it time to Vika but it's not escalade pious in this church will always worse than that well the church is now called some Giles but it turns out that's a name that only goes back to the early 20th century because he was a saint of healing and right away back to the 1200 s it wasn't John the Evangelist so they've got the name of the church so this is the moment of truth is it look at this quick you are believing these are 20 meter squares so it's a massive complex 100 meters or so that's all foundations no we think these are ditches whether they're robber ditches or whether they're actual enclosures associated with the villa is quite often structural Excite relying on it just know there's something happening in here so you're definitely saying villain is the other one coming up let's we're now looking for the stone walls there's no foundations though it's just he's got a tower yeah that's the plan snaps are you keep saying it's very exciting and it's very mind-blowing why I mean there's an awful lot of Roman stuff lying around in southern Britain because it's completely unknown and there's no sign of it on the ground with a geophysics there are many pillars around this is roundin and Chippenham so this bit the bit where the actual villa is where's this on the field I think we come the key point is this peg here over here right on the edge of the the villa building itself and the villa buildings going both directions jolly sight younger and fitter in here now okay it's a big place get over there hair off in the opposite direction everything going that way over in this direction small that way we're talking about the the villa complex we're on the orientation and now this other extremity here we're down here look at the flags that's the orientation of the of the the villa building as we've seen it yet on this wing or whatever it is well that's very impressive in there and we're only at the beginning of day two films missed all the excitement he's been organizing the villagers to do a field walk in the plowed field across the road the site looks so big it's possible it might spread into the neighboring land so our field walkers will scour the surface for any evidence [Music] Robin shows the geophys results to Victor who's starting on an impression of what the thing might have looked like but to be certain we have to start digging the site itself [Music] however carrenza decides to throw a massive spanner in the works she's telling us and County archaeologist Roy Cannon that we shouldn't dig at all until we've got the okay from the highest authority English heritage and that could take another day until we've spoken to Amanda from English Heritage Mike this is my show it's not why because why should we it's it's a site about static it's an outstanding site we're gonna dig a little hole in it it's not gonna tell us if it's our voyeuristic desire to have a look at it is why we want to dig it that seems to me just sickening archaeological political correctness we drain all the excitement and interest and passion out of it because oh no we don't want to dig it up here interesting non passionate conversations so it's question when do we if this is a nationally important site we should be making decisions at that sort of level we are too short a time scale at the moment we've got to make sure that we make decisions in the same way that we make decisions we weren't tied to the present sort of timescale that responsibility is it to make a decision about this it seems to me that's Roy's responsibility but is leaning on it's broader than mine I mean it's an ethical issue with archaeology as to whether intervention in the form of trench he should take place on the site of this apparent value if if it's going to happen it's going to be under high professional control and a minimum damage to the site was zero I mean is minimum interference minimum interference absolutely microsurgery into the side the farmer he wants to plow it and reseeded it will be useful to say in one part of the site the stuffs only six inches down nine inches down whatever we've gone through the topsoil not any archaeological material but through the top sort and that's how deep it is that might then affect whether these once he's allowed to reseed it because it's cher daughter wants to reseal it or whatever the other point is is we're basing this whole discussion on what the geophysics have produced for us these fantastic plans but the geophysics chaps themselves say that they would like to know what their actual anomalies mean in terms of what's in the ground it seems to me that some carefully controlled exercise that that went through the topsoil and stopped at the archeology and which was open for Amanda to look at tomorrow would be a minimalist approach if we are going into it I think it should be away from the main complex of activity shown by the geophysics because I wouldn't like to I wouldn't like to prod that at this moment look I know you would like to keep away for that's fine because the geophysics chaps have already pointed to various anomalies on those long side boundaries the base they said that would be a good place from their point of view to look at those you know to see if they are ditches as one thing they've suggested or rubbed out walls and we're not gonna be investigating we're not gonna be able to show anyone and then we we got this compromised and suddenly we're all mates again I'm gonna go then have a live sighting it's a serious responsibility [Laughter] at last the diggers are allowed on site [Music] it's only gonna be one small trench and in a corner of the site with david barnes approval we could get on with it okay then mark pick a start start line each edge started northwest corner plus the grid point the work round the digital map makers from the Royal Commission help us decide exactly where the trench should go on their electronic map we're now able to place it precisely across this bit away from the main buildings [Music] over in the plowed field next door the villagers are turning up dozens of new finds Oh Chris sharp-edged their mommy's back you should put it in again anything don't put it in the bag that's what Phil said yeah this is this is great I mean this is rhomin piece of pottery is exactly what we wanted and it ties in perfectly with the site on the other side of the road and no it couldn't be better by the time Phyllis got across to our fields the trench is being carefully excavated until the first sign of some archeology certainly we're through top soil so I mean we're through modern plowing we're only eight inches down and already we've hit our first piece of evidence how about this for a piece of archaeology the man who owns the field were digging in his name's David Barnes said to us all by the way I found this old stone fish at the bottom of a pond maybe you'd like to have a look at it Thanks probably 18th century so while the rest of them were digging we sent Martin along and you don't think it is 18th century at all did no indeed it's an absolutely splendid example of a Roman fountain heading in the form of a fish it's a massive thing and it's certainly the finest work of art of this type that I've seen from the home in Britain it's really just a pipe isn't it just like it's it's a it would have had water gushing through it at an enormous rate it's it's the sort of thing that we know that was very popular in the late Roman period so if this was a big fountain then does that imply that the building that we've got was actually a very big building of high status so it has to be absolutely top-notch this this is not something from it from any ordinary villa this is something that comes from it effectively from a palace we had by now the results from the cooling from the spring are ready could they prove that it had been used as a sacred site and maybe that was the reason the Romans had come here in the field this is when you were really really sort of hopeful then just just don't without one after that one small sample of soil and from there it is absolutely full of charcoal carton carbonized grain and some of these black blobs here are cereal grains that have been processed how can you tell they've been processed there is no chaff no other bits of straw or their ears but also there are so many grain so much grain in this single sample is only so very small that something very special all very odd is happening here or there using the the pond as a dustbin that's right you tell me and it could be Roman it could easily be Roman because hyper coarse tiles have been found in the field we know that our site had some form of heating so how did Roman heating actually work the hot air and inevitably the smoke was funneled into an under the floor and also at a later stage up through the flues in the walls so that you got almost an all-round type of heating it's a fascinating system that the idea that the Romans 2,000 years ago could invent central heating and then the secret be lost for so many hundreds of years afterwards it's beginning to look as though the Romans weren't the only people to farm at Tottenham a whole yeah that's the sort of classic context it could be late it could be sex and now it's starting to get butter as well thought crosses my mind perhaps that we will to be doing the same sort of thing on the other side if that's where those similar sort of anomalies come up you know so littles coming out of the first trench we're digging another [Music] but that too turns up absolutely nothing we still seem to be nibbling around the edges from a grandstand view of the field our site looks like this with the main complex of buildings in the background the first trench was dug here while the second is going in a hundred yards to the west at this spot yet we still don't have the full extent of the site so the geophys team decide to extend their survey into the next field we know that some of the rooms in our building would have had mosaic floors this is how they'd have been made we're reproducing a classical design and even using some original Tessar I found on our site so is this is this how they did it there Martin putting these mosaics together this is one of the methods it's what's called the indirect method yeah lay it out on a table glueing them into position and then the thing can be taken to the site and turned over and laid into prepared cement but I mean the the word schools of these people is that not right and yes Indian style there was there was one school based on cirencester itself and this is a typical example of the Cirencester or cranium gr and we would be within that area we'd be in that we'd be in that area but what's how would a villa owner or a major unknown of go about getting one of these would probably we've got some ditch come out and look and what they would they would have brought with them were probably a series of sheets of of patterns what we call a so it's almost like picking the wallpaper or the curtains yesterday sort of look through and say well you know I like that one but what I really like is something like this in the middle or my favorite God is known so that what you do yes in the meantime Victor's getting on with his drawing of what the buildings might have looked like about working out the buildings from the ground plant that we got to the geophysics boys it's got a huge hole in the center but that's only one theory as usual there's at least two others looking at the expanse of evidence that we've already turned up yeah both Martin and Brin reckon that this is in the top three or four houses villas and palaces that we've got anywhere in England right in terms of size yeah yeah yeah scale going on he reckons we're talking provincial governor right end of day two and quite frankly I don't know what the hell's going on we know that there's a massive structure under here and because of that fish we know that it must have been a pretty high status but is it a villa or could it be the administrative centre for the whole of roman southwest England well we dug two ditches and clown is now dinner what Carranza was going on about because we found virtually nothing in the mat all Phil says that they're embarrassing in their nakedness but because there was no domestic refuse or anything in them no sign of habitation maybe and this is the current hypothesis it's a temple and we're back to that original idea of this area as being a special holy place or maybe it's not that at all how we get a clearer picture zamora keep your fingers crossed [Music] I wondered if you could just tell me a little bit about where we are and what progress you've made day three and Amanda Chadbourne from English Heritage turns out she'll decide how important the site is and whether it should be scheduled which means legally protected when it's put two trenches in one across here to look at what this feature is on this side and that turns out to be a large ditch and we also looked at this area here which is got the same sort of signals as where the buildings are and there we found more very little but we were actually very concerned about what to do about the main major buildings but because we may be digging a hole and going through a lot of stage we couldn't cope with me thought we may be doing more harm than good so he rather held off that until we could have a chat with yours you see because at the moment what you seem to have is the geophysical and not a lot of other information yes I kind of go with it if there is to be a case made for preservation it would help to know how the modern and the medieval playing her damaged if it has the remains underneath I would be suggesting is that you peel off just the top and see what there is without going into it without destroying it but just seeing what kind of information there is underneath well I think another important thing would be to actually know what it is yes yeah well we we've sort of recognized about that as well it's gone from everything from a temple through a governor's palace right back to a Roman villa rain and all shades between well I don't want to terminate this prematurely but we've only got the rest of the crack shouldn't somebody say that we allowed to start digging yeah I think that's a 10 by 2 train to cross the top here perhaps where this this major thing is can I be the one who tells carrenza that we're allowed to dig a hole I should take your tena hat for you though if you do [Music] it's a bit better than that hang on a second here someone is painted oh wow playing the pastor a major concern is to discover how much damage has been done to the site from both the medieval and modern plow this is a reconstruction of a mosaic destroyed by modern plowing scheduling would protect our site from any further damage diggings continuing in the third trench four times against us so everyone's brought in to lend a hand and this is this is amazing survival rate only for this to actually not be disturbed by all the later plowing it's extraordinary that this little cluster errs has remained like that my lads pick it up fell yeah I guess let's treat you this is all been photographed and recorded in the film we're all clear no I mean it's trained very carefully yeah no Tony case it's got all the stuff stuck to it you know okay okay that's good yeah no snowball anything that lasts some of these features here might be robber trenches what did what sir what is wrought a robber trench I don't understand because in that geophysics thing yeah you kept referring to robber trenches and they were straight and then they turned a corner straight well if I was wrong I just dig little pits and no no no no stuff like that now this is a way of people in the past knew there was stone that they could use for their buildings and so once they'd found it in the ground they would just follow it along take a doll usable store it in a cart take it away with them and that would leave a trench which is it like a ghost of where the wall is beam I see right so what if that what you're calling robbers were stones robbers room ecologically sound people reciting the priest cyclist oh that's presumably stone would have been valuable I mean why bother quarry it when you can't pinch what somebody else has got the question of scheduling is still in doubt Amanda is studying 3d geophysical images of the site to help her decide at the trench the finds are beginning to throw light on the structure of our site that's pretty fine there's absolute very fine mosaic well you're here and have a look at that bit of glass think of that it's it's edge of a windowpane yes so he might have looked out through that very window a bit foggy as Phil presses on against the light to reach an outline of walls or the floor level carrenza is putting together a picture of all the possible Roman roads in the area we do seem to have a network of roads centering on the site we've got this this track that comes out from the middle of the villa here which lines up with this route right across the parish here and out beyond it Mick and I went to look at a place where there's a local tradition that was a Roman Road which comes down here it looks as if this was using the pre-existing line of track ways which line up with a Roman site so you've got a sort of estate of arable fields and woodland all linked together by roads with a rope major road that centers on the the villa of the temple or whatever we might think it is what is it temple villa we still don't know by the afternoon the first outlines of walls are beginning to appear at the bottom of trench number three this is Victor's reconstruction of how the walls are dissected by our trench the interior might have had a mosaic floor and the walls would probably have been painted this color Pompeii red the exterior walls would have had glass in the windows to come to a decision Amanda Chadbourne needs to see everything including our starting point a statue in the church meanwhile Victor is recreating what the statue would have looked like fifteen hundred years ago the Romans would have painted it in bright colors and if it had stood in the room dissected by our trench it would have looked like this whereabouts in the building will that probably have stood Martin well it could have stood in there in the dining room as you can see here or it could have stood in the entrance hall of the building it's it's after all the protective deity that ticking local deity of the place and how did they they use it in everyday life very much as you see here the man is bringing fruit and perhaps some wine so you can thing it was it supposed to eat about the same time as the family said Amanda Chadbourne and Roy cannon make their way down to see the latest work on the trench soon we'll know if it's going to be legally protected meanwhile the church seems like a good place to look for any recycled Roman masonry you can see the most of the stonework the church is made out of these little roughly hewn clumps because it's got a low status Church there wasn't that much money to spend on it but occasionally you get a big bit like that one up there that's really scraped by obviously much more sophisticated tools that's a Roman theatre stone around here you've not only got these occasional big pieces of dress stone but you've also got bits of Roman tile stuck in as we go further along there's some Roman tile there it's mostly looks like medieval stuff but look you've got sent this one here and this one here much bigger than anything around it one in there and here this is fantastic it got a stone that's not us here and goes all the way around severe massive thing colossal about this kind of size which obviously must have come from our villa and you can see that it's not flat like all the rest of the stones it's got this channel built into it here and built into it there as well dunno what it's for but it obviously wasn't created over here presumably it reflects its original use in Roman times yeah sure whoa remember the first trench over there that one was pretty much wound up and then the other trench over there with just finishing there as well and they were back into this third trench which is the one you got set to this morning and I think we're getting some results now we've stripped off the place oil remember you saw earlier on there was at the group of pottery yes well that appears to be in a linear feature right which is aligned through there right we've now got another edge through there now I'm wondering whether or not we've not got some sort of feature there cut into natural subsoil with the line of the wall running through there I think we may have a back edge to it on here right you see here thee this is particularly stony I think that could be inside it and then maybe running through there so I think we've got a something running through here the wall line through here an interest in there nerf it's awesome same parallel as this trench running through there so I think now we might have actually have it's both sides of the structure so I think it's coming I think we need some good I think a good cleanup so that we can see the edges and everything that should really show yeah we're we're you know we're we're pulling out all the stops no we ain't got too much time but have we done enough in three days to satisfy English heritage okay we're gonna get it scheduled then well I mean from what I've seen it looks to be a pretty important complex of Roman buildings but whatever it finally turns out to be and the geophysics looks very impressive and obviously this has been confirmed with the trench so I think probably the answer is yes although it may not necessarily be tomorrow I think what we'll probably do is we've got this program called the monuments protection program we'll be taking all of say the Roman villas and the Roman temples within the next say 12 months and looking at them as a whole so this will be considered with the others and being compared with the others and but it looks pretty good to me I think there's a jolly good chance of it being scheduled well the archaeology is over but there's still one more job to do well I'll sharpen a paving slabs for a living [Laughter] do you realize that the mosaic floors that we found in the villa would probably originally have looked very much like this because this pattern here comes from somewhere near Cirencester up just a little to the north and the corner pieces are modeled on examples from the school of in Dorset to the southwest the words English for so you can have this question it's been an amazing three days at talking him time team have located and mapped a major roman site of national importance the dual is this vast complex of buildings made up of two separate structures and they are big a hundred and fifty feet across and 65 feet deep on the left is a hall with a semicircular end called an apse at the back is a tower and next to it this large structure that looks like it could have been some kind of colossal banqueting-hall the whole thing stood in ground surrounded by walls and ditches but what is it there are two distinct opinions either it's a very grand farming villa or it's a ritual shrine and temple complex but it'll take a lot more than three days to settle that question [Music]

Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 114,609

Rating: 4.9272728 out of 5

Keywords: Team Team, Archaeology, History, Education, Educational, British TV, British History, Tony Robinson, Phil Harding, John Gater, Stewart Ainsworth, Mick Aston, archeological dig, Channel 4, Time Team Full Episodes, Full Episode, roman, roman statue, roman history, villa, roman villa

Id: a5BOojQOJz4

Length: 46min 58sec (2818 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 19 2019