The Mysterious 900-Year-Old Medieval Castle Of Bridgnorth | Time Team | Chronicle

this channel is part of the history hit Network [Music] this 70-foot Norman Tower is all that's left of a great castle built exactly 900 years ago and around which grew up the town of Bridge North in Shropshire the castle was occupied for more than 500 years surviving at least four lengthy sieges until at last in the Civil War it fell to cromwell's Army who left it as we see it today leaning at an angle of 15 degrees 10 more than the Tower of Pisa as for the rest of the castle it's long gone either plundered or destroyed along with all the town's early records so what did this castle look like the people of Bridge North have asked us to create a picture of how it was in its Heyday and as usual we've got just three days to do it [Music] thank you there are two parts to the small town of Bridge North the lower town on the valley floor next to the river seven and the upper town which sits on a Promontory overlooking the surrounding Countryside the Northern end of the commentary is built up with houses and shops the southern half a beautifully landscaped public park believed to be where the main Castle once stood All That Remains today is the ruined Tower amid peace and tranquility not for long [Music] over the next three days we're going to try and understand the plan and architecture of the castle from its construction in the early 1100s to its fall in the mid-17th century as usual the team are Keen to get started the geophysics team is already at work in the park this will be ongoing over the next three days because of the Park's size and some difficult rose bushes this though isn't the only problem what's the problem I I we've got a scheduled boundary of The Monuments a scheduling means that you can't dig there well not without a research design and permission which is that way yeah yes and then this area out here is outside the scheduled area so as we could do something but because this line has been drawn on a map it's actually somewhere across this this grass and this tarmac which seems to be completely inadequate to define a legally defined Monument what was actually defined is this boundary that went through here but that bound is gone that still is the legal definition it's just so archaic isn't it so basically we can't come anywhere this side of that yellow line but we can go that side that size five well I mean you can see that it's totally different grass on them clearly not historical grants so we can't dig here no we're going to have trouble over there we can't dig at all and the GFS is going to be difficult for where on Earth can we do well we can dig the other side of this line but let's see she's outside the scheduled area anywhere else uh well though they did an excavation over by the rectory and that's seems to have picked up the ditch that's another area we could look at so the rectory Garden in the shadow of the Magnificent 18th century church is a good place to start a previous excavation in the garden in 1991 uncovered signs of a ditch but had no mention of its size or depth [Music] so where where were you standing when you decided that was how I lived in the park I was under siege by some of the pupils from the local old Bree Wells Secondary School who had their own ideas of what the castle once looked like why didn't you finish because you were talking weren't you show us your pictures who's got the best one yeah yeah sure well do they know something that we don't they seem pretty sure they know what the castle looks like this is a great way of looking at the top of a castle really wonderful place to be Philip Dixon is a specialist on castles who over the next few days is going to be examining every detail of the tower that Groove there is where the lead of the roof was fitted into the wall but isn't that an odd Arrangement because that would have meant that it fill up with water presumably yeah inside the roof without the big V Valley yeah and then it drained out down the middle it's the most sensible way of doing it because you then can put lead all over the top and the water falls down to the bottom and you don't get water coming onto the wall yeah there's a lovely window yeah there with a very nice head to it with the plaster the original plaster still on it and then in the corner the there's a wash basin all right sort of hand base yeah um because this is the private room at the upper level of the tower 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 common Castle design of the time was a number of walls built around a settlement as a means of Defense the outer wall fortification was known as a curtain wall and the enclosure it created was known as a Bailey further walls known as Bailey walls would often be built inside to create additional enclosures called middle and inner Baileys outside the castle there'd often be a moat or ditch as an outer means of Defense which is what was thought to be found in 1991 in the rectory Garden [Music] I've actually got some results which is quite amazing well I'm surprising this is a nightmare to be honest so we're looking at low resistance shown as red so that's what we'd expect with the deck for a ditch where's the black in this instance is high resistance Stone Rubble things like that how does that square up with that earlier trench thing well you see we we know that uh there was a there was a trench here in fact you can see that here you see the ground just drops away very slightly there and the grass is a lot I'm on the end it comes across here yeah and what they picked up was the actual edge of a ditch they had the uh the side of a ditch sloping away so it's going down this way that's right that's right that fits well in which case the obvious thing is presumably to come across a bit this way are they going to mind us mucking the plants up no well no I mean it's either that or the tree and I mean I I'd sooner dig in that [Music] boy no end prehistoric our first trench is open back to the park to see if Chris has got any results from the early geophysics oh that is fantastic well that result is the flower beds that's all I'm afraid well great thanks for your work yeah but hold on hold on there is this area of high resistance in here now so it looks if there might be something there are thrill hold on hold on isn't this the area that's scheduled no it's not the schedule we've done right up the scheduled area and in fact this is outside the schedule so in fact we can put a trench if that's necessary right up against the scheduled area so it looks as if there is perhaps a trace or something and we can dig it wall or a building or I don't know another flower bed let's hope not a few weeks before we arrived and I stressed before we arrived Bridge North was awarded the prestigious title of winner Britain In Bloom we're going to have to do an awful lot of tidying up afterwards if Chris North's going to win next year kind of crushed up Sandstone stuff is that I mean is that your anomaly that could explain the anomaly but the point of the trench being that long was we thought it stopped somewhere here so I think you need to take that out because we want to see whether that goes right the way across the trench I mean this could to hilarious or scalpings brought in to level up the gardens yes it could easily be but that might be explaining our geophysics if it stops oh right so even if it is a load of garden scalpings that could be what's giving us our reading it's not a wall after all I never said it was a wall [Laughter] Robin had set up in the rectory Library where he'd been reading about the early settlers of Bridge North Robin who was the chap who had this castle built in the first place Robert de belem who subsequently became Earl of Shrewsbury and what do we know about him well I have to say I've had many unpleasant characters on time team over the years I think he takes the biscuit as the nastiest I've ever come across why what did he do he tended to take captives and refuse to Ransom them so that he could have the pleasure of torturing them to death he would impale men and women on hooks he starved 300 prisoners to death over lent and the worst thing of all was he had as a hostage his godson a little lad and because the child's father had displeased him he gouged out his eyes with his own bare fingernails that's the kind of person he was what happened to him well the trouble was that when you're that Mighty and hold that much land uh the sky is the limit and of course eventually he rebelled against the king himself Henry the first who took Bridge North by storm uh really by threatening to hang everyone in the place which persuaded them quite a naturally uh you know to surrender and eventually took him prisoner and imprisoned him literally for life and he was kept so close a prisoner that we really don't know exactly when he did die serves him right I agree with you outside the library in the rectory Garden Phil's team were hard at work having to dig the trench by hand but over in the park courtesy of the mechanical Digger life was decidedly easier as long as we don't get an edge there still might be something below it which is the geophysics is that right John that's the theory I'm not getting more worried by the minute are you well this is Chris's area not mine that's definitely been faced isn't it was this a castle wall we'd uncovered it was my my not Christmas take the credit or deny the responsibility yeah oh no it's some pottery we gotta finds straight Chris bang on grief I think they're just loose they're here there's no more in there so that's just those two John if there were just a load of stone sitting the top so I would definitely normally well there were three two others weren't there we've got the two of you lifted now there's another couple so we'd only Unearthed a few stones but we also knew that somewhere in front of the tower there should be a large ditch which would have been the Divide between the inner and outer Baileys and a defense against attack there was a lot more digging to do in this corner of the park it's going to hide a lot of the features again Philip our Castle expert will also work closely with Victor Ambrose the team's illustrator to advise on the architecture and structure of castles and there's also what looks like a Garda Road our incident room has been set up in one of the local houses next to the park there really does seem to be some clues in the layout of the town which might help us understand how the castle worked where the Bailey was and so on I think this town plan actually doesn't seem to have changed very much well they often don't do they I mean it's very persistent the layout of the streets and the properties the shape that strikes you immediately when you look at the maps is this shape marked in Orange which seems to indicate to me where the Bailey lion would have been with the castle at this end what I didn't intend to do next armed with this map in effect is to walk these lines around and see if there's any evidence for the Bailey wall where slopes break off that kind of thing and just see if there's any any clue still out there I'm not sure if you're written you've taken out well I recently shifted about 10 ton of dirt in a day yeah I finally got away you were asking for me yeah yeah well we're just complimenting ourselves on having dug an enormous Hole by hand today yeah fantastic wait till he tells you what was in it oh yes yes first of all we got we got quite a few finds including these these clay paintballs are rather nice the 17th century so we're looking at the Civil War just after that status on them as well yeah they're stamped they're nice little bowls yeah but as for the archeology you see that hole down there yeah that back edge of the hole yeah as far as I can see from the drawing is supposed to represent the back edge of the ditch oh in other words you should be able to see it coming across there I can't see it so you think they misinterpreted it I think they've misinterpreted it I don't think that there is a major Castle ditch here now so basically there's nothing here we don't think so so we should shut this down really and and move on to something I would rather leave a skeleton crew just to test it in the morning I don't want to dig a side of it yeah yeah rise okay end of day one and we've shifted skip loads of Earth today 10 tons in Phil's trench alone but we still haven't found the big castle ditch so where the heck is it it's got to be here somewhere tomorrow we're going to Dig Down Deeper we're going to scour through the old maps and we're going to push our search out into the town in our search for the Norman Castle which means a lot more back Gardens are going to get trashed tomorrow join us after the break of day two in our search for our missing castle and you can clearly see from this funicular Railway the bridge North is built on a valuable strategic Point High over the river seven so it's clearly a good place to build a castle up here we're right on the edge of our Promontory so these back Gardens are the furthest out we can dig in our search for the Colossal wall in the garden of number 23 East Castle Street Mark and carenza already have a plan for the next trench hey you see what you're up to hi Tony what we think we've got archeology here there's all sorts of things going on different heights and different levels you can see the roof height there going down here going down to each Garden seems to at a different level which might mean that might mean that we're on the edge of the castle Bailey as it were and we're sort of inside it here and then dropping out of it immediately Over the Garden Wall and Mark thinks there's another possibility over here we think that this is where the castle wall might have been yeah and look look it's straight in that direction and turns around in that direction so what's more we're over the top of the bridge so this will be a classic place to put a defensive Tower of some description or other excellent It's hard to imagine that the Leaning Tower in the park is all that's left of this once great Castle in its Heyday it would have occupied the whole of the Promontory so Stuart Meyer set off into the town to look for any other remains they found a big Gateway which was more or less here you're still separate that's where the Bailey would be Maya one of the time team graphic designers will take digital photographs of whatever they find in the hope of piecing together a picture of the castle think of it as above ground archeology okay okay so unfortunately it's all covered in this this wash so it's a bit difficult to work out what the bonding's like but keep keep looking and see what else we we find are you both skiving don't think of this as archeology this is research Jane Griffiths has lived in Bridge North all her life and we've been told she's a Fountain of Knowledge on the town There's a fascinating piece of wall I don't know if you've seen it it's at the back of this building it's not very far away I think it's probably part of the the outer Bailey of the castle I'm still standing just just around the corner around the back of this building yes would you have to finish the two would you mind we'll see the geophysics team is still in the park now using radar to penetrate deeper into the ground in the hope of locating a ditch could this provide the answer see that you can see that the straw at the beginning to pull up now that seems to be the key point and what I'm hoping is that this is the fill of the of the ditch if that's right then if we were to put a trench in somewhere in this region we might just pick up the Northern end of the ditch the new trench Chris is suggesting is an extension at a right angle to the trench already begun on day one here it could be two meters down it should cut across the ditch I don't think that is what we're looking for and hopefully reveal its width there's a flow pipe stem back in the town Jane has led Stuart and Maya to a huge freestanding piece of the castle wall this is super I mean look if you look at the the bonding on this Stone it's quite crude Rubble it's not shaved very well but it's very well bonded very thick in in layers and at the bottom can you see how the whole thing slopes out downwards yes well that's that's what we call a batter it's designed to stop people undermining the wall to break to break in the Bailey what makes this really exciting is that this Orange Line around here is where we're predicting the Bailey line ought to be from map evidence and the bit you've brought meter is exactly on that line oh that's a good confirmation that we've got you know where the first piece in the jigsaw here last night Phil had decided to leave a skeleton crew to finish the trench in the rectory Garden today call it Instinct and for reasons only he knows it's getting deeper [Music] foreign [Music] Castle we can see there yeah is that actually the key well I think it is although of course you do get very big gate houses built at this time as well yeah but I don't think this is well I think it is actually a blown up key so between where the keep is on the end of the Promontory you've still got a very large space yeah now well you've got to fit in so that you've got to put a whole uh private Apartments Chapel uh Stables barns lodgings for visitors all that sort of stuff yeah there's a lot of a lot of builders in fact it's it's the castle the key and this is all Castle the trouble is when we say castle we have our attention focuses on the defenses whereas they are of course primarily a residents yeah to the southwest of Bridge North Promontory is another well-known Landmark pan pudding Hill this is a Siege Castle a man-made Hill built by attacking armies to position their war machines whilst besieging the castle just about there now the unfortunate troop of men about to follow Phil up and pudding Hill are a group of enthusiasts who are going to reconstruct a 12th century catapult known as a Perrier now don't wear be alarmed it's been done before that really is a Siege Castle first Siege of Bridge North happened in 1101 Henry the first laid Siege to the castle shortly after its completion when Robert de belem was accused of conspiring against the monarchy and refused to answer summonses relating to 45 charges of Cruelty I'd say that on this occasion lugging a wooden catapult and sacks of ammunition up a hill would test anyone's enthusiasm and borders on being cruel itself makes you blow a bit doesn't it it's just a wonderful view you can understand why it is they've built these quite impressive Sage Works yes to actually throw stuff over there but it does seem a hell of a long way I think it's about 250 yards the machine that you've got is that going to get the 250 yards a lot smaller it only gets about 150 200 yards that's that's going to put us down in this this Bottom Road but that way look we got plain view straight into that field does that does that seem like a good idea yeah it would go that way it's much better we get a nice shot straight into the field only hurt a few sheep hopefully right well let's get it started let's give it a tap of course we've got to get it over there [Music] so what would life have been like for people who visited the castle well you've got to remember that a castle in those days was first and foremost a power base which enabled people like Robert to wreak his evil way around the countryside but it was a combination also of of manor house where someone would stay and be entertained with their large following and it was also a law court and people would be brought here for justice to be imposed on them and of course he was also a prison uh in between visits from royalty and other important people in the realm uh I think life here would have been pretty tame and quiet other than you know the various trials that went on periodically but then there would be the hustle and bustle the orders for uh we've got detailed accounts for the supply of hogs of cheese and salt on those occasions they the whole place must have come alive with feasting and celebrating until the king moved on to his next appointment are there any remnants of it left standing now apart from that we're very fortunate in that one of the castle Gates survived built into a local pub called the hole in the wall and when they pulled that Pub down in 1821 they discovered the Poston or Northgate to Robert's castle and this is a one of the one of several Engravings that we have of it and what happened to it um as we know with all town improvers they decided it would have struck the traffic if they kept it so they blew it up with gunpowder in 1821. typical back in the park our search for the defensive ditch has intensified we need to uncover its location to understand the plan and defenses of the castle but we've done as much damage to the park as we dare without result so we've had to change tactic it's dirty like you're getting out of the ditch right with a drilling machine rather than a digger geologists have sunk three boreholes in front of the Tower this is to help them understand how deep the level of natural Bedrock is below the top soil the results suggest that the level is sloping away from the tower in two directions towards the edge of the Promontory and towards the houses in front of the tower what's what's likely to be happening well behind us over here we've got the Gatehouse it must have been the Gateway here yeah and in front of the gate to get from the castle into the town yeah you've got to have a bridge of something of the sort and perhaps a Causeway so you think we might have a Causeway there and that it might explain why it's getting deeper as it goes down yeah new approach seems to have worked it suggests we've got a Causeway crossing the ditch we can now excavate a section without digging the whole park up I suppose in the garden of number 23 corenza's uncovered a wall everything we've had that's been lying on top of here has been sort of 17th century so it looks as if this narrow wall had come down by the 17th century but it seems too narrow to be the castle wall and it's far too narrow for that so what we're thinking is that it's a garden wall built probably on top of the castle wall and that this huge mortar spread that's coming right back across here and we haven't really got the other edge of it yet so that could be medieval well I I think that looks a much better candidate for being the medieval wall and it's also at a better depth because we're still really quite shallow yeah if this is the curtain wall it'll be an enormous help as Stewart's already found a big piece on the other side of the Promontory we'd now be able to work out the exact width of the outer Bailey well maybe the Civil War could have got musket ball oh from the um classic sequence on the spoil heat was there a skirmish here in the Civil War well the seeds lasted a long time and musket balls must have been flying everywhere well that's clearly well there's one of them now we're pretty sure there's a big defensive ditch here the face of this corner of the park seems inevitable in equipment we've got rid of these flower beds there's a trench over there the Rose Garden has completely gone we got another big French down here and as you can see the Cheeks is packing into the tarmac with this door thing we've got another trench way down there because somewhere around here must be the rest of this castle and Mick seems to be prepared to go to any lengths to find it Mick where's the castle it's over in front of us over here no it's not what have we got in terms of structure nothing what have we got yes people live nothing what have we got in terms of the plan of the place absolutely yes we have one and a half days yes so you bring in the heavy machinery no but there's reasons for doing that we know a hell of a lot more about you because of the structural analysis of the keep right but that's been there for a thousand yeah but he's looked at it you make the mistake like a lot of them are thinking it's only going to be holes in the ground and pottery that produces the information now come on what do we know that we didn't know when we first came here these these Lads have looked at it and we've got a totally different story haven't we yeah we now know that here there must be a huge great ditch probably 30 40 foot deep something like that if you were standing on the hill over there looking this way there would be a great trench through this hill we know the Washington or the ditch down there because we haven't got it in the garden that's useful the far one coming into the Bailey is is right down the end and there would have been another big trench cross there so it's it's all coming together this is just because there's been so much leveling and dumping in here as far as we can see come on look at this trench in here look according to the radar results and Coring machine this is where our ditch should be running across the Promontory in front of the Tower with a Causeway Crossing into the castle over on pan pudding Hill Victor's joined Phil and his team to see what the 1101 Siege of the castle would have looked like ah Tony just in time what on Earth did they used to fire out of this thing all sorts of things obviously rocks were one of the main weapons but you can find almost anything oh some quick lime piece of diseased animal well walnuts nests hornets nest bursts outcome a lot of very angry yeah you go around the battlefield chop off the heads but probably if people are new kind of put them over the wall just to say here's your leaving army do you want to surrender now couldn't sometimes the people in the castle hit the operators yes but they had a way of dealing with that as well they'd go around round up local children uh people they knew as well strap them to The Siege engines well I don't think we're gonna do that and I don't think we're gonna fire human body parts what are we going to fire grapefruit great fruit flaming [Music] grapefruiting Beauty hey this is real science it's a real waste of good fruit actually [Music] hey pretty good persistence pays off back in the Park after four and a half hours of digging we finally uncover our 12-foot defensive ditch at last we seem to be getting somewhere add the defensive ditch and Causeway to our other finds the Poston or Northern gate that was demolished in 1821 and the large section of curtain walls Stuart found earlier this morning and we can begin to piece together a picture of our Castle having virtually demolished the corner of the park in our pursuit of the ditch and having once again quite literally moved tons of Earth everyone deserves a nightcap in the pub where Mick has plans for tomorrow we've got to carry on the electric Garden because we're getting medieval Pottery out of it but we're also going to look at this tongue a lot we all of 80 feet long is that the one that we think might have undermined the original Castle you better believe it well the tunnel is great now I want to see some solid stuff coming out of the ground all right join us after the break tomorrow we're going to go down a secret tunnel Robin you can go in first oh boy and hopefully at last we'll discover our Norman Castle beginning of day three and we've only found about this much of the huge Norman castle that we've been looking for and yet we're still working on this huge empty trench which I thought would close down 48 hours ago why are we still here why are you settling away you said the day before yesterday we're closing this trench but I'll just have a little fiddle I said we were going to leave a skeleton crew to sort it out Tony that's what we've had we had a skeleton crew in there yesterday it the whole thing was bugging me I just couldn't understand I didn't understand what was going on in there so we carried on down in that material we took out on the first day we had 17th century clay pipes we've gone on there we've now got earlier material if we go right down to the farm we could get down to some sort of a land surface that relates when they actually built the castle something that the people actually walked on that's right so we don't actually know just where that level is so we've brought the machine in we're going to core on down see whether we can actually find the natural Bedrock but if it goes on down from meters and meters and meters I accept it we're not going to finish it today and then we will we'll close it down and I'll go and find something else to do how long give us a Time we're waiting for the results of this it could be an hour it could be two hours no more all right okay yeah so the rectory trench is going to get even deeper is this a desperate move or will Phil's instincts and experience pay off in the garden of number 23 we may have our first glimpse of Some solid medieval archeology but here we've got our medieval wall there with the facade of it going straight down we've got about two or three courses there if that's the inner face you're thinking that the outer face is out here that's what I think at the moment that we've got a really big thick wall two or three meters wide and it's like a wall walk on top of it yeah but to prove that we really need to extend the trench because the other possibility is that there are two narrower walls and a small room in between here which would mean something more like a tower so the patio has to go [Music] the fines are beginning to come up aren't they but these aren't ours where did you get this lot Jane you could say I inherited these these were collected in the 1950s by a local historian um he watched well Workman were putting drainage dishes into the Castle Gardens where you're digging now and all these bits of broken pottery and Bones started to come to the surface so he he scooped them up and saved them and gave them to you he did how old would he have been oh he'd have been in his 60s I was about eight so ask these fines to a little girl because he knew from her enthusiasm that's right Survivor Stephanie what have we been getting so we've got these from the Retro Garden what might they've come from well they've come from jugs so they're table wires effectively and we've got some coins yes we have um this one is a short cross penny with a cross and crosslits Motif it dates to the reign of Henry II why is it cut in half uh these were clipped uh clipped coins were quite common and then it became a hate me so you could actually buy a new do with that yes yes you could and what about this one uh we have a buckle here the design of the Buckle I'd suggest it's a sort of 16 to 17th century date and it might have been used on the end of a strap or as on a purse to secure a purse at the waist now Stuart what can you tell us about our best find this is a late 12th to 13th century hunting Arrowhead and would this have been for killing people it was more for hunting deer and things like that but I think in a sea situation you'd use anything to hand really it's our first bit of luck in these three days The crucial mix interested to know why Phil thinks it's necessary to continue in the rectory Garden if you see where that toolbox is yeah we put a an auger hole down here yeah yeah we've got natural at three meters 80. well I mean so if we got natural up here at about what one and a half meters we've got it down there at 3 meters 80. it is diving away incredibly quickly so the ditch that we thought we had at the beginning as a result of the early excavation and then we thought we didn't have because we couldn't see he's now back on again it looks like it's very much back on again Mick so now we have a second ditch I'm hoping stewards also come up with some results from his town exploration what's been really exciting about Bridge North is that still surviving in the bits of the town are elements of this 12th century castle and it's Bailey that we've been looking for I've been round and photographed and looked at all the walls around the edge and all around here there are bits and bats of original Castle Fabric and wall fabric surviving there are other things which also are very very exciting the this line of cottages on West Castle Street can you see how it heads straight towards where we think there's a Causeway across the ditch up here oh yes this bit is called New Road isn't it so obviously the original did go down that's that's right so that's allowed us to actually confirm that initial idea of the shape that was obvious on the plan that that is the shape and extent of the castle in its Bailey what we've actually been looking for below grounded effect is is sitting there staring Us in the face the different types of stone work have given us our biggest clue to the castle architecture at the Northern end of the Promontory the pieces of curtain wall are all course brickwork whereas at the southern end where the castle buildings would have been the stones all large dressed blocks we now have a clear picture of the curtain wall in the garden of number 23 the trench has been widened and extended Phil's taking a break from his own dig to see what corenza's found this morning we we'd only got the trench for this far and we didn't know whether it was enormous thick wall that was going to go all the way to go to the castle wall and be a huge great big sort of wall walk thing but as you can see it looks like we've got the other side now so it looks like it's a narrower wall but what we're thinking now because of that is we've got a wall here another one there so that where I'm standing now could actually be our Tower so you would be actually inside a tower I think so yes yeah but what are the Leaning Tower in the park Philip Dixon's now had over two days to analyze the ruin this is the remains of a wall yeah slurping down there and here this is the first bit of the castle how do you know that's the first bit because of the way in which this which is the keep has been built over the top of it that's that line I can see going right though that's right so this is the first phase this is second because it's butted up again because it's busted up and the cape runs all the way over the top and that's second and then we've got a third stage yeah and the third stage is the wall here and that's not butted up against the keep it's just standing beside it and it's the four building the staircase that got you into the tower can you put any sort of dates on these phases from what you can see well that could be Robert of Belen what what could be this wall this is Henry the first the very thin joints here are typical of work from about 11 20 onwards with this very thin water between the stones that's right so we have 1100 1120 1160. so Robert de belem built the original castle of stone but the tower didn't exist until about 11 20 and was built over the existing inner Bailey wall the original staircase into the tower would have been wooden and removable until 1160 when the final phase of the tower was complete with a fixed stairway and Gatehouse so we're right around the other side now that's right and here's a bit of wall the same date as the keep yeah coming out how do we know it's the same date as a cake because all the stone lines run through it's bonded in it's bonded into the coop itself right that's right and here we've got a Groove coming right up and that support color screw so this is where the The Grille would have come down over an entrance that's right a great Arch coming out this way right right it's very narrow though it is narrow because it's a metal port colors which is the most expensive sort and iron watercolors so which way is it defending then well this is the outside and this is the inside so this is the area where the Royal Apartments are there in here in this area over here but why is the entrance the keep on the outside that's a very good point and I think the answer is that the keep isn't for the king at all the keep is for the Constable of the castle who looks after the gate and the King doesn't need a tower because he's got his Palace over here behind us the concert was a man who looks after the castle when the king's not there that's right he's living in here looking after defending the guy yeah that's right that's fantastic isn't it yeah through Philips analysis we now know the area where the King's house would have been and that a wall with an ironed Port callus Gateway would have protected it hi corenza can the excavation in karenza's trench finally be concluded and added to the overall picture of the castle well the good news is we've got a wall coming along here and another wall coming along here just like a tower and even better we've got a date for it and the bad news well the bad news is the fact that both this wall and this will are no older than 17th century maybe this is a tower it's just Civil War refurbishment um but you know we thought we'd lost our medieval wall because middle of the afternoon we thought this was medieval but we thought this line of stones was the the back of this wall when we first found them but in fact they're very ragged here as you can see there's no straight face along here absolutely dead flat straight face line there so I think this is the nice straight front of it coming up here so what a relief we have found a piece of the wall that would have gone around the original Castle if we're at last beginning to piece together what this Norman Castle once looked like one big question in my mind is how did it get into the condition we find it today the answer lies in the Civil War and once again fills in the thick of it on pan pudding Hill that's on yeah that's lovely put up your powder how many guns do you reckon you can actually get up here to cover a Siege depending on the size they'd probably be larger than this they would have five to six guns on this plateau peace ready characters before I just want for me thank you very much I'd love to prepare to get fire have a cow give fire oh I think we've missed I'm a cat good father the last Siege at Bridge North in 1646 lasted for three weeks with the royalists returning as much Firepower from within the castle as they received this brought the battle to a stalemate which led the parliamentarians to come up with a ruse to ensure surrender of the castle to explain what this plan was Robin took me to lavington's Hall a small cave hidden away at the foot of a cliff on the far side of the Promontory but in the end they decided to dig this tunnel to sap up underneath the church pack it full of gum powder and blow the whole thing Sky High well it sounds a more effective use of gunpowder do you need a hand Rob oh no no I'm not going any further Mike Crouch has decided they're higher than yours you're kidding all right well how far did they get 67 feet if you want to be absolutely accurate well it says a long way do you think they could have drilled all the way or do you think they were just packing up because it was too hard oh no I mean we can see that they were digging on average about six feet a day so a week or two would have seen them into position without any trouble at all if you look carefully you can see the pick marks on the walls because it was all dug out laboriously by hand yeah I can see those oh yeah I can see that they didn't make it to the end they didn't need to you see it's psychological warfare what do you mean up in the castle the royalists could hear the noise of the tunneling and they got the message that unless they surrendered the gunpowder will be packed in and all the all the Munitions stored in the church above along with all the Cavaliers will get blown Sky High that was enough that was enough to be to Bluff them into surrendering so how did the tower get like this if it wasn't blasted from here ah well we'll go up top side and I'll show you once the Cavaliers had surrendered The Roundheads couldn't leave the castle here as a kind of symbol of royalty as I focus for further Uprising so you stay here they dug a big hole underneath underneath this Tower and they they packed it absolutely full of gunpowder and laid kegs all around it and then well let me show you let's do please someone's completely mad mind you even the explosion didn't actually bring the keep down and it still stands there at this crazy angle today as a tribute to the Fantastic Norman Masons who made it in the first place true Phil what have you been doing I told you we shouldn't have shut it down remember the trench in the rectory Garden the one we were going to close at the end of day one it's now over three meters deep we've confirmed what we thought was happening we've got this enormous ditch where Katie is we're beginning to think that he's bottoming out now but more importantly we're actually at a corner of it and it's turning around and it's going back under you so it's coming this way onto me and then it's turning turn and round so what I mean what's what's that what's happening about that's a very strange thing for you to do I had hoped that you might be able to tell me something about that you've been touring around yeah tell me what date you think it might be well here are the pot here's here's my evidence 12th to 13th century from the bottom from the bottom wow so we're looking at a pretty early date looks like it so this ain't Civil War refurbishment no this is an original part of the castle so the second ditch is also part of the original Castle the Northerly turn in the ditch is unusual but the most likely explanations are either that there was a defensive ditch running along the back of the outer Bailey properties creating an area of common ground or it could be the junction of a defense system protecting the original Church but what of the bigger picture the castle itself what we know is that coming in through the north gate there would have been a road leading up to a Causeway which crossed possibly two defense ditches in front of the castle we know that the tower was a gate Tower where the Constable lived and that the Royal household was protected within the inner Bailey and would have been surrounded by Stables kitchens and stores for the Kings and Lords when they were in Residence outside the inner Bailey there would have been a small town in the outer Bailey also protected by the curtain wall [Music] come and have a look at this look this is your Castle we've had an amazing and sometimes pretty explosive three days but in some of our biggest trenches we haven't come across a single lump of the original Castle it's as though the entire Hilltop was swept clean what this has meant is that we've had to re-examine the castle remains and try to work out the original layout of the site and using this material we've written a whole new chapter in Bridge North history foreign

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 80,435

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

Id: Br5rdp0su_0

Length: 49min 3sec (2943 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023