The Roman Town Durobrivae | FULL EPISODE | Time Team

castor is five miles west of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire nearly 2000 years ago it was right next to the important Roman town of dura breva and less than a mile from urban street a major Roman Road that's still visible from the air today [Music] and over the last 400 years antiquarians archeologists and even grave diggers have been discovering nuggets of caster's intriguing past when you've been here before haven't you you're an old friend of William and his gravediggers yes I used to look after the archaeology in this area so yes I know William well why why don't you keep coming here well every time a grave was dug a mass of Roman material would come out so you know it was obviously of interest and something that I ought to be concerned about this kind of stuff absolutely I'm just an enthusiastic amateur but even I can recognize distinctive Rimmer material like this Tegeler it's a Roman Chavez Ridge it's a peel i rims hip across bricks what's this stuff you go here well about a couple of years ago the grave diggers called me to say that they thought they'd gone through a Roman building and digging the grave now obviously I wanted to have a look and they actually lured me into the grave which was which is pretty good nerving and peculiar but in the base of the grave it was obvious that they had in fact got something like a Roman floor and I could just make out this sort of thin band of Roman cement and I would dearly love to know what this was part of are you happy about sticking in your grave absolutely it doesn't seem quite right no this area has not been dug before the no bodies paid here what this this strip along here but even without any graves geophys we'll still need to scan this narrow strip of churchyard before we open any trenches we're also surveying the playing field of the next-door school as this is where an intriguing 19th century antiquarian said he found some Roman Baths he was a man obsessed with past as archaeology and he's buried right here sacred to the memory of Edmund to artists who died the 24th of December 18 vide roaded 40 sir 47 in veil 50 99th year of his age Edmund artists and a remarkable mix of talents a chocolate maker and a budding artist he waggled himself a job working for landed gentry in the castor area he then found he had a passion for archaeology and became a one-man time team digging all over the area and illustrating his efforts with beautiful drawings when there are slack periods during the work on the estate artists borrows labor from the estate and uses it for his excavations into archaeological sites and obviously he's going to have the blessing of the landowner because because he worked he's working for him yes that's right ideal or it absolutely yes yeah they're wonderful stories for example if he makes great him through severe winters where all the workmen clear off because it's too cold but leave Edmund artists digging away to his heart's content so he's really a driven man actually artists also surveyed the whole village and published this map in 1828 it claims to show the location of lots of Roman buildings in and around the churchyard but antiquarians as we know can be a bit unreliable so we're going to test just how much of what artist says is here can actually be found on the ground it's obviously a commonality doing what he mapped and what's still here what's doing guys well what we're trying to do is look at first of all what artists mapped in the early 19th century and we've overlaid them against leave the modern base maps would get some idea of where these features were there are enough common features in there to be able to roughly work out where his buildings were and their orientation and sort of roman building roman builders that's right now the problem comes when you add that this overlay which is where various bits of what he found have been reactivated over years these bits in in yellow trying to match things together when it doesn't and just looking at this I mean it seems to be more well you might have one site the other size out you try and match on this side and this size all out so basically what just doesn't match and this is pretty critical to sort out the orientation and alive into these walls to understand what here so what we gonna do well there's only one way to really do that and that's almost kind of throw away some of this stuff and draw a new map exactly create our own map so you have got quite a big job a new student Henry are going to make their own map of caster and mark on it the precise location of all the known archaeology job made easier by the massive chunks of roman wall still visible in the lanes around the churchyard this another I see another large chunk out the car I that's more like it and this looks be part of a wall that was heading in that direction through thee through the churchyard but the mystery of what lies beneath Castile can only be solved by digging I don't have to pass so ignoring some underwhelming GF is so what are these colored blobs along here then Mick decides it's still worthwhile opening a trench close to where Ben was lowered into that grave and under the watchful eye of Phil and Raksha time out digger gets trench number one see what we're getting is lots of reflections close to the surface with John doesn't really confuse us to his radar was showing there could be that but this is reality this will tell us whether there is anything there is that roman in ready pieces of roman mosaic flooring called Tessera are turning up yeah Williams said you get a story and the graves here finally John figures out where his GF is has gone wrong we've got the Roman filter on what you fill or the Roman oh yeah that imaginary filter would have to be pretty effective because when artists first came to castor he claimed to have found staggering amounts of Roman archaeology granade band artists comes here in the 1820s he refers to all standing in considerable hive if we look at this which is a newspaper report from Edmund artists a 7th of December 1821 that's the local paper that's the local paper gray card Stamford news and the report says on the north side of the church five rooms have been discovered the walls of which are beautifully painted and from 10 to 11 feet high but the floors are all destroyed that's massively high isn't it so that's as high as the walls in here actually yeah back outside it's now raining cats and dogs on our archeologists in trench one but despite the weather and the geophys results this trench is turning into something of a gold mine we got supplies we're getting loads of finds out already this is just a so actually there's this stuff which is kind of sack so norman dates the 11th early 12th century rent at the time the church was built so they're quite possibly robbing out the roman buildings for stone to build the church and we've got our first bit of early middle saxon handmade pottery five six seventh century something like that what about this chunky stuff well we've got roman as well there's some bits of roman color coated pottery which is late third fourth bit of a mosaic tester as well possibly crackin selection finds already but it looks like there's something coming out of the trench field yeah this is the crucial thing Tony as Paul says we are beginning to get Saxon pottery these are the first levels that we're actually coming down on to they could improve Saxon buildings here this is really rather extraordinary for us we always have a problem finding Saxon on time team to find it great but they define it on the site when we're looking for Roman is a little bit more difficult what do we find next probably snow afternoon of day one here at the fabulous castor parish church in Cambridgeshire where we're looking for what could be some very intriguing Roman buildings already fields put in a trench over there on the far side of the graveyard and has come up with some Roman stuff but now we've moved on to the Old Rectory Stuart why are we here well it's clear that when artists produce the plan the site there were Roman buildings under the rectory garden and some excavations were conducted in the 1970s which confirmed little bits of wall through keyhole trenches so we know this stuff under here but the problem is these are all the tiny little bits we don't know whether this range extended further that way or further that way and if you look at this lovely droid that was done by artists at the time this is what we found down here you see the church in the background yeah I can see that just just through those trees there yeah so you can see it's quite a long way down if we can find some of these features we can then get the orientation we can map them and we can add them to that map that we're creating the site to find out if this is one building or a series of buildings so we're going to open our second trench here in the Old Rectory garden and after some promising GF fears we've decided to put a third trench in this corner of the school field this is another spot that our antiquarian artists and later archeologists have explored and it seems to have been an artist favorite because he drew the remains of this impressive Roman bathhouse he reckoned he'd found here one thing about excavating here is that there's something very identifiable we can tweak and latch onto we know exactly where we are but it's never actually been excavated at all in that direction so we like to get to any Roman remains as we start to get to grips with this site I'm getting a feeling that there's something special about caster goodies for archaeologists seem almost guaranteed here this is an amazingly impressive group of finds isn't it and all from Peter Brook Museum and all founder caster that's right yeah all from garden the caster area what's particularly interesting is the collection of pottery here there's a wonderful hunt cup for example so cool because it has greyhounds or dogs chasing you it comes up the hair there's not a lovely senior it's wonderful than that yes but it's finds like this painted wall plaster that may be the key to unlocking the secrets of caster or this one which appears to have some sort of image of foliage on it we've maps leaves being painted the whole impression is of a really really opulent building really on Leland building yeah artist marks lots of structures to the north of the church could this be a complex of swanky Roman buildings if so our trench in the Old Rectory garden could be right on top of one but if artists this plan is accurate it's the North graveyard where we really need to focus our efforts so Jim is now geophysical he's latched on to something and you've turned up just at the right time look at this we've got a really strong reflector here and it's at least five meters across well that's nothing like anything else in the churchyard is it no no up until now I mean there's been the odd reflection but they've looked like they could just be stone casket or a slab lined grave but I mean this is much much bigger and it's about half way up the slope just beyond where this messes well this is where the one building was meant to be from antiquarian records where they got this early mosaic it's possible Jim is detected this striking Roman mosaic floor that artists drew in his book of illustrations and if our antiquarian site plan is to be trusted it makes sense that GFS are getting a strong signal here it's slow-going yeah a bit of a challenge I'll leave you to it thanks but over in trench - at the Old Rectory there's already good Roman evidence turning up you got loads of Roman pottery you've got Roman tile you've got a tiny bit a vessel glass it's coming as well yeah yo yeah it's all Roman as far as I can tell and there's couple of Roman coins as well which is a late first century of they're about I mean most of the pottery is kind of late 3rd to 4th century I mean any time within that span really I mean it looks like a primary deposit it's stuff it you know it's found where he was dropped sort of thing it may not traveled far but I've got inkling that we might be looking at backfill down here yeah because the pottery is very well distributed through it the top of it is very loose it's very homogenous thick deposit so where I think we may be looking at where artists died one of these holes really so Matt could be on to a posh artist building but once again it's chucking it down nevertheless traces battling on in the school field searching for the Roman Baths just a pipe you've got in your trench or is it a wall it's neither Tony I mean this trench is turning into a bit of a nightmare why's that well we've got these little pockets of upstanding Roman archaeology all these little yellowy orange two patches down there this stretch here everywhere else Asus is just dug into it it doesn't look like I expected it to look to be honest I thought we've more full of walls and it is that's what I was hoping for it doesn't not yet no no sign of horses yeah but if he isn't a wall what is it this is looking like demolition material it may be that this is over the top of something it certainly has painted wall plaster in it but if we've got that painted plaster then we know it's Roman oh yeah and we've got these tiles and stuff so it looks like it's the batter's box blue tiles yeah it may be a mess but at least it's a Roman myth none of that nasty anglo-saxon stuff oh I like Saxon a day not as much as the Venerable Bede end of day one and as the rain at last gives way to sunshine something's going on behind the church that must mean something here than to rob and raid to use yeah what are you guys doing here all the excitement's on the far side of the church you're stuck around the back yeah but we've been looking all the Roman stuff built into the church the tile and the stonework and so on and the idea that comes from a huge Roman building that somewhere around here the back of the church artist had a theory that all the Roman buildings to the north of the church were one giant structure and Stephen thinks this is how it might have looked well it's a pretty enormous building Tony I mean from where we're standing to the far side he's a hundred and ten metres thank you well if it's that big it would absolutely dwarfed the church wouldn't it yeah it would it would be 3 or 2 or 3 times bigger than the church so what could something that size actually be let's go back to artists he called it a priori what's a Praetorian well in artists its terms he were used to digging villas of fairly modest size and this was the biggest thing that he ever saw and ever dug and he gave the term Praetorian implying its size what does it move probably means the headquarters for some state or military function have you Jeff is this area yeah Jimmy's done over half of the graveyard and the punished it's been a nightmare absolute nightmare with all the graves it's been one of the most difficult surveys he's done the problem I've got is what we're not seeing in these results are massive Roman walls foundations or rooms the same way we didn't this morning you know in Phil's trench if modern technology doesn't see the archaeology that you think maybe they're an artist much thought maybe they're the one thing to do is to put a trench in have a look can we dig the church' we can dig in this church one day one day the dass has given a permission very excited we need to grab the charm that's what one day only one day only so we've got just a single day to find this mysterious Roman Praetorian and not much evidence to go on you need some luck tomorrow beginning of day two here at the Church of San keine burger in castor and today we're faced with a big challenge we're looking for something that's been called a Praetorian which is a massive Roman building thought to lie somewhere in this graveyard but we've only been allowed one day to dig it and the second problem and hopefully our osteo archaeologist Jackie's going to be able to help us with this one is that nowadays a lot of people feel far more sensitive about the issue of human bones than at almost any other time in history so how we going to respond to those sensitivities well the first thing obvious thing is that there's so many gray stones around here we're not gonna be able to dig this to the Machine we're going to have to do everything by hand now there's no modern graves here the other thing we can see is either late 18th or 19th century so presumably there's gonna be bones under bones under bone exactly a lot of unmarked graves here and the other thing is that there will be an awful lot of material that sort of loose in the soil because in the past it's been disturbed when they've dug a grave they will have hit graves that weren't marked and bones would have been disturbed disarticulated this articulated bones they were far more robust about these things in the past as long as they didn't leave the consecrated ground of the graveyard and that's one of the things we have to make sure happens here that everything that we dig out goes back in the ground our efforts will be concentrated north of the church because that's where antiquarian Edmond artists marked a series of mysterious structures if we can confirm key parts of his plan then we could be on the way to getting our Praetorian a very special and building we've only got one day Ben what do you think our overall strategy should be well I think artists very good archaeologists for his time but I'm not so confident about this sort of floating building here is it attached to the other buildings around it what alignment is it on we need a trench across there to try and tie it to the other buildings and sort out the alignment yeah then I think we need to do something similar in the west part of the churchyard just here you know few years you can see that wall in the path yeah well a few years ago I cleaned up a bit of wall there and there's definitely something there but I didn't get much of a look at it it's that a big building range as artists depict it to this spot just north of the church to help jack eating a new trench in the graveyard [Music] and rakshasas opening a trench as well in the area that Ben's interested in but why though might the Romans have chosen this corner of Britain to build a Praetorian from everything we know about this site it seems to have been in use in the second third and fourth centuries ad what else was going on around here in that time an awful lot and there's very important place in Roman Britain is it oh yeah definitely and then let the local roman town dear Abreva which is had a kilometer from here is immensely important it's 44 acres within the walled area but the significance of dura breezes got up 480 because if suburbs were it caster was right on the edge of dura provides vast industrial suburbs an area the size of Rome and London and of course here we're very close to erm in Street aren't we that that very important north-south roadway that's become the a1 it's along that route that some of the significant characters have Roman written with a par speaking like Hadrian and constant time and that hatreds particularly important yes or the family exactly I mean Hadrian was very keen on draining places and we think that he actually oversaw the improvement of the fens the drainage of parts of the fence or at least works to make it economically productive so he might actually have come here sure yes oh absolutely it's not somewhere that's insignificant or sort of tucked away this is somewhere that sort of at the hub of of Roman Bryn by the 3rd century caster was perfectly placed with dura breve I on one side and the Imperial Fenland estates on the other it may have become the center of an economic boom area and that could be the reason why Praetorian was built here since yesterday evening we've been using this word Praetorian but quite honestly I still have no idea what it means well in a sense to anyway lumbered by what artists or how artists used the term praetorium and if we look at his book he shows for example all the villas that he excavated the ones here and here and here as comparatively small structures but look at the size of that structure which is the Praetorian this building it's much much bigger so is he just using it to mean a big building he's that's exactly right he's simply saying this is a walloping big building I don't understand but it's clearly significant and probably more significant than the surrounding villas but there are things called Pretoria around the Roman Empire of course there are yeah I mean they're normally associated with the residences of state officials or even military officials the truth is though we still haven't a clue what's here we have to admit that that's the case we know we've got something very big we know it's surrounded by other Roman buildings but I suppose a bit like artists we're still struggling to put it in a sort of context a framework we're still eating good clues still looking for clues meanwhile down in the school field what measurement do we have Stuart has mysteriously changed into period costume six meters 60 Stuart you look magnificent look at this lovely that the Colin Firth of time see what exactly is it though that you're doing what we're trying to do is get back into the mindset of artists when we map the site in the early 19th century so you are our artist that's me absolutely and what I'm going to do is to get myself back into his mindset and the problems he would have had linking all together all these bits of Roman finds and trenches into an existing map so I'm good to try and do exactly the same with a modern-day existing map but using the equipment that he would have available something like a plain table the site rule probably was magnifying glass I start going a bit and various bits about to surveil equipment to see how or easy or how difficult or what problems he would have encountered doing it but you're not on your own are you hang on a minute here is Matt your long suffering servant sir park with which I empathize somewhat what are you gonna be well all the measuring was done with these chains because we had to use these to measure across the fields there's lots of running around cross the bogs and stuff so we're basically doing whatever Stuart tells me to but he's officially might shame and that is the term would have been used for for the role that matt has around and you're gonna do with a I'm gonna be legging it around the fields as Stuart and Matt go to work antiquarian style and the other corner please hello Phil how's it going Phil and Jackie are searching for a structure with a mosaic floor that artist claimed was under the graveyard we do actually have a piece of the floor itself if you turn that over you can see that Matt is actually made of one two three four five individual Tesori all mortar together that's the surface that they would have walked on looks a nice nice piece but we've also got the walls as well because we glass the wall plaster and put in red and a sort of gray green as well so with a bit of luck if we carry on down we should get the floor and there'll be the walls without disturbing the grace that'll be a great relief to all of us with over 20,000 burials in this churchyard it's not gonna be easy finding any evidence for our Praetorian but in the rectory garden trench which phase now taken over from Matt we may be on to something what you got going on over there Tim well I seem to have this surface it's got a few tesserae in it but it's very peppery and not very good but you've got archaeology oh yes definitely I think I feel with you now that's what's interesting cuz where I am I've got nothing I've got a great big rectangular hole with no archaeology in it and my only explanation for that can be that this is where artists shoved his trench and he basically took everything away with him and therefore that's why we've got this line along here which I think so knocked out wall but what I need to do is find a depth for this because I'm hoping that he may have left something at the bottom like a hyper core system or something that would be good I think it's a fair bit more today yeah serve some good news faze trench may have a Roman structure but there's still no sign of these massive walls we're hoping for [Music] everywhere on this site we seem to be following in the footsteps of this chat artists some of us quite literally I think some measurements from this line now so I can put them on the drawing oh excuse me excuse me beg your pardon yeah time yeah I think the pegs come out who put the peg in Matthew sorry sir were nothing again that's your wages docked here's my stranger let's the rectory garden next Matthew and then you say mr. Ainsworth down at Tracy's trench we're working in an area where artists drew this illustration of his Roman bathhouse excavation so have you got on then Tracy well we're getting there and they've got war something's showing there which you didn't have before and we have actually that's lovely we've got herringbone wool they're forming one side and another one on this side and it's it's forming a channel running up here to the remnants of this larger wall here this has been roped off for this thing okay well that all ties in nicely with bath house this doesn't it yeah I mean he doesn't quite look like arches she's drawing does it there's a lot more stonework and stuff there I think the problem is we don't know how long this was open after artists excavated it out so you think people care and nicked it basically houses it yeah yeah yeah but I probably didn't look quite like that when artists discovered it anyway I mean I I doubt very much whether all the walls with this uniform height for example apply again with this uniform height I think he got large chunks of this and has just helped us to sort of visualize the hole and I think it I think there's a slight amount of embellishment going on here sizable bathhouse but we don't yet know the relationship between it and what's up behind the church back in the graveyard Phill and Jackie are up against the clock digging carefully around lots of human bones they've now only a few hours left to get down to the floor of a potentially massive Roman structure we're definitely on the site of a building but of course what we're encountering as we go down is lots of human remains these individual burials are are they lots of bones on top of each other well we've had a lot of loose bones spread about turning up all the way across here but the difference here is you can see we've got about five skulls all dumped in together in one place so you think that that could be a gravedigger who's cleared earlier graves dug a pit shut these in so that more people can be very yeah I mean basically it looks like a charnel pit but we do have a problem don't we that we've got lots of bones and lots of smashed mosaic but no structures whatsoever what we can be certain of is that in places the grave diggers have been through the Roman floor otherwise we wouldn't have this sort of material what we've got to hope is that they didn't destroy it all and that they've left some of it for us and that means digging deeper that means of digging deeper thankfully rakshasas trench at the western end of the graveyard looks to have got something more substantial but this trench in here to find what we thought was a wall coming through there and lo and behold we have a huge offal that was actually poking out the ground so we've got one wall here he's in running in that direction and then where Jonah is we have the return and that's running in this direction so they should actually come out and converge around about here it's amazing isn't it this is the first time that we have seen anything like the kind of monumental wall so Edmund artists thought yeah this is that this is the only trench where we actually have huge wall mhmmm and it's our failure so far to find other big walls that's becoming a major concern for all the wonderful Roman buildings artists said were here we hadn't actually found much yet map this is a turn-up for the books we usually put you through about 24 hours of Hell in these reenactments but it's only been three and you're practically finished I mean once we got a system going between us rolling out the chains and back again it really really would didn't take very long at all and what have you found out well we've got what one two three four five trenches open got some bits of war line exposed where the roads cut through what we actually found out is that we haven't got very many walls at all and if you look at what we've what we actually know about this site from modern methods these excavations and the seventies and so on these are the only in black where bits of wall have been found so you know how do you how do you join all those together it's actually extremely difficult learn to rely an awful lot on what artists put on his plans on what he drew I imagined that very soon we would be able to paint this incredibly large Roman building just behind us but I'm starting to have my doubts mhmmm beginning to disappear the trouble is on our Praetorian diagram we're only certain that the black bits all the other colors depend on our antiquarians observations so how reliable do we now city is well very interesting thing to point out here with this wall line the artifact it's completely in different orientation to everything else which raises a doubt about the orientation of some of these theoretical stuff what about geophys of these lines been knocked out yeah well John this team of done geophys and radar in all the failure in here and there's no other additional what lines to add to that yeah I can be extremely skeptical about the work of antiquarians it's not always what it's cracked up to be I don't think that's fair in the case of artists I will defend him to the hilt in some places I mean look he's a fantastic draftsman his plans are in some cases backed up provide beautiful general views and the details of where the walls go you always match the relevant plan especially as these red artists walls have often been confirmed by more modern activation hadiza okay I'd endorse that as well having mapped this village where he shows them on here in the similar techniques and you come up with similar answers in where he's positioned yeah we've got it down in the bath house at the bottom we've got his plan and we've beginning to find the walls all right I'd say this red stuff is right Ben but there's still a lot of other colors here well I saw a wall fragment here as well and okay was only part of a wall but it was a whacking great wall and the Romans didn't build bits of whacking great walls for no reason this substantial wall must be part of a bigger building so on one hand we've got this mega building which should be casting its long shadow over us right now and on the other hand as far as things that we can actually 100% guarantee we've got there and we've got just one day left I've got some work tomorrow guys beginning of our final day here at castor in Cambridgeshire and we've just had some fantastic news the diocese have given us permission to dig in the graveyard down there for one final day although whether we'll find our big Roman building the praetorium is a huge question [Music] so we're spreading our bets today in the Old Rectory garden where we're looking for what could be the East Wing of our Praetorian we now have two trenches but our main hopes lie with these trenches in the graveyard rat showers at the western edge and films just north of the church beneath these bones we're trying to find this roman structure marked as f on the plan that artist drew it's here that he said he found a brightly colored mosaic floor so you know how I said I was getting a lot more building material and big blocks of Tessera or Wow now I'm getting lots of P grit which is coming this fine grit and look what it's coming down on to the floor it looks very like a floor and this is an institute burial that's myung directly on top of it rather look at all that is good stuff blimey we could be just inches away from finally getting evidence of a big Roman structure and crucially it's slap-bang in the middle of our Praetorian plan back in the Old Rectory garden phase getting really stuck in and the sweat and graft is starting to pay off hi there Fay cool this looks a bit different than yesterday your well down but fantastically we've got a huge great big section of the big Roman walls man yeah without a shadow and we're a bit worried yesterday about the sort of relative heights of all this I mean there's a there's a surface very much higher than the Roman wall you can see where artists put his trench which is basically this lying down in this section here and I actually think that level there is working this staggering which is why it's so complete footprints roots to the earth this is a wonderfully complex trench isn't it you can see where artist was actually digging for the first time and try and sort of understand how we unpicked the site and how he's he saw it yeah so this is actually a fascinating trail and it's also a very significant chunk of walling on the east and side of what we think is one single building phase discovery of this massive Roman wall previously dug by artists is a really good sign maybe we can rely on our antiquarian after all meanwhile there's breaking news from the graveyard we've spent the last 36 hours poking around in this graveyard trying to get permissions to dig it getting permissions to dig it then finding nothing but Roman rubble and a tumble of old bones but a laugh feel we've got something exciting and we we have got articies floor look if you look down between that pair of legs you can see a mosaic floor actually in sit you you're smiling with him I've really excited about this if artists are right about this he might be right about the praetorium yesterday I think you were a little bit disappointed with the attitude of some of our archaeologists who were slightly rubbishing the eyes when I was cause proton means a lot to a pass I mean I've got my Greek New Testament here the word is used Joey here we are they took Jesus from the house of Caiaphas estou praetorium to the praetorium and asks his day he would have heard the word Pytor and when he went to church because that word used to describe him where Jesus was arraigned in front of Pontius Pilate so he was tried in Pretoria but God are we going to say this is so important to what we're trying to do we've now got the floor you can actually begin to see some sort of an alignment on the tannery we might be able to actually say exactly what the alignment of my building was but it tells us more than just the alignment as they were the scale of the thing which he insisted was a plate or a big official palatial type of building finally our efforts in the graveyard are being rewarded if you take off the more conjectural parts the working outside is nearly done to everything we've looked at so far has been on that on a flat plan hasn't it you know I can see here you've had a new dimension what you're trying to do well what I thought is still partly based on conjecture there's one feature that stands out we're on the edge of a valley slope here aren't with a bit the building the structures are on the skyline up there and the bath sit down on the lower slopes towards the river below and if you were approaching the site from from down here then whatever was up on the hill whether it be one big structure or lots of other structures it's actually on the skyline are actually quite impressive wouldn't it feeling whatever some there's gonna be really visually it's stunning back outside in our outlet graveyard trench rat shell has found something stunning as well Raksha this is awesome I love this this is fantastic it looks a lot different than it did yesterday it's a lot different raksha's revealed a huge section of wall and a step foundation the classic herringbone style shows that this is definitely Roman people were bit skeptical yesterday I talked about finding this big herringbone wall and I suspect that people didn't quite believe we did kind of think that you're going slightly crazy but just to prove that you were right as always we carried on down and know behold here it is as you can see there's this huge wall coming through we have this step foundation so what does this tell us been about the significance for Hill building does it add to our picture of the building well this looks remarkably similar to what was found on the other side of the church in the 50s yes I remember that I've seen photographs yet it's on a similar line and he found step foundations like this this is a photo of those step foundations excavated at castor in the 1950s they're more than a hundred metres away from our trench but they're virtually identical to those found by raksha so I think we're looking at something that was constructed at the same time basic and probably the same building one large building rather than settles well you have to say same construction techniques on a similar sort of living dimensions exactly so suddenly we've got two bits of building both of which have steps and both of which we think a line on this Stoke slope so again that's pretty exciting stuff I think we've been walking across the floor of a room and buildings been here for nearly 2,000 years just astonishing and as the last few hours of our diggit cast to tick by the news just gets better and better so what's the story of this trance info basically we have a room in building and actually down there we've got a room with what looks like hyper core system so is this stuff that artists film that we've confirmed well artists did Mac on some walls he did suggest there is a hyper core system there but the locations of the walls and the size of the walls aren't entirely right right so this is new in fact yeah it is and what's also news we've got that that higher level up there we've actually got a two level building so what did they do fill it in or cover each Opperman build something on top or they had stairs that took you up to another really hard right right right a building on two levels makes sense because the Romans had to factor in the slope of the hill here in the Old Rectory garden and on the western side of the church [Music] down at Tracy's trench to the South our excavation of the Roman Baths is coming to an end and the finds are telling a good story well I've got a couple the selection of finds here this one's from Tracy's trench right down the south end of this site and this is some of the stuff that's been coming out a face trench which is right over the north end of the site now the stuff from Tracy strange I'm afraid to me looks like generic issue Roman pottery so I think Steve probably electors Committee on this subject I think he's gonna kick you out well there are differences having quite marked differences actually the bulk of the material in this trench comes from an earlier period and second into third like this large shirt here and these assured tsar beakers very typically local beakers and it makes the real contrast from the southern part of the site to the northern part of the site where you've got essentially a third and fourth century assemblage so caster has to clear roman phases which means the baths south end of the site will almost certainly build an earlier date than the big building up on the hill where fills now finished in the graveyard you got to be pleased with that mosaic Yankee I am Tony but I think I'm pretty more pleased about the probable wall well we have another wolf now you know you can't actually see the wall but she looks disarticulated pieces of bone down there well when we actually got down to the edge here I totally missed I wonder if it could be a robb war so I thought it may sound ah I'll get Henry to plot out the position artis is building on the ground from the mapping so that's what he's done one corner of the building probable building is obvious yet red pegs over there here yeah that's one corner there yeah and then you see those red pegs there between the other two grave stones over there it's truth all the way over here Adam run yeah what all this is is one building know that when you Lowen up over there give or take a meet or allowing for the scale it puts the wall Loing straight through here not only that the alignment of the attesa is just slightly skewed round to the alignment of the church and that's exactly what the tesserae and the plan do exactly the show so regardless of what might be elsewhere we know that there was a massive construction here so it looks as though artist was right after all well it looks like he doesn't it from what we can see yeah yeah after a roller coaster three days here at castor just what have we learned then how do you think the Praetorian theory is holding up now pretty well it's not a villa villas are surrounded by farming estates they've got ancillary buildings have got farm buildings barns workers housing there's nothing like that here what else it's a grand grand building what do we think this building was for well again let's just return to admin artists he first termed it a Praetorian which would mean to him an official residence perhaps of an official linked with the state and that's exactly what it is how do you feel about artists now well artists and his plans still live yeah that's absolutely the way we have tested his plans we found them to be right and the other wonderful thing is of course they're very very beautiful it is his impressions his general views are gorgeous they're pretty as well as being informative everybody likes something to be pretty as well as functional like my hat [Music] the massive roman wall that Bradshaw found at the western end of the graveyard nearly 2 meters wide was built to support a building possibly 3 stories high and at an extrordinary a hundred and ten meters in length this is the largest roman building time team has ever excavated it would have had a vast red tiled roof bright whitewashed walls a truly astonishing structure Mick I can't remember another dig quite like this one it's been fantastic to be able to dig in the church other than it absolutely fantastic three days ago I don't think any of us could have dreamt of what we got absolutely you know and this is so exciting to find this mosaic here underneath these bodies we've got artists telling the truth it's a real thing the praetorium exists in my mind quite wonderful wonderful absolutely [Music]

Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 151,728

Rating: 4.9405203 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, Durobrivae, Castor, Peterborough, Romans, Roman Empire, Blackadder

Id: z_CCsWf1c9w

Length: 46min 34sec (2794 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 04 2020