Time Team S11-E01 Syon.-House,.London

we're on the trail of a medieval mystery this is Zion house one of the most lavish stately homes in the country owned by the Dukes of Northumberland and somewhere under this beautiful parkland lies the remains of an enormous and equally lavish monastery founded by henry v zion abbey home to an obscure order of swedish nuns became one of the wealthiest and most powerful religious establishments in medieval england a hotbed of political intrigue and dissent then although it survived Henry the eighth's dissolution shortly afterwards the building's just vanished everything even is internationally famous library seems to have disappeared all we know is that whatever remains of this once fabulous establishment lies hidden somewhere under here and we've got just three days to find it we know that Sion was a rich and powerful ABI and most Abbey's conformed to a basic layout a large church where monks or nuns worshipped surrounded by cloisters where they lived what we don't know is exactly where the monastic buildings were or what they look like I'm told that the best way to sort out this monastery is to try and locate the abbey church where the Great and the good are buried and that gia fears are going to help but look just have a look at this for a minute geophysical pus and there's three of them all sitting down have you seen me about a park land that there is out there we've been waiting four years for you to come here what do you mean I actually did the survey for the estate four years ago you've got it already further cheese no look we've got fantastic results look at this archaeology all around the house it is fantastic but what does it actually mean well I've tried to simplify it we've got all these formal garden features and I've tried to ignore these and if we look at this plot here I've got all the war remains and I'm sure these are monastic he's very smug isn't he it looks like we're not going to need any surveyors at all he's done it all it just goes to show wrong you couldn't be I'm not so sure we can ignore the garden remains got lots of maps and planter which might help us sort out what some of this stuff is and we're sure we pull it all together and share the others miles I have to say there's a part of me that's a bit skeptical about this dig we've excavated so many monasteries and stately homes over the years and really found very little are we gonna turn up much well I would hope so I mean John's geophysical results here are fantastic should be very pleased with a miss some amazing structural details yeah well you could just be robbed out walls couldn't look even if the walls have all gone we'll find the remains of things that stained glass and bits of stonework and stuff in the fabric so we should turn up a lot anyway I'm still optimistic that we may actually get the foundations let's hope we do Jonathan can you see anything there that could be the foundations of the Abbey Church well what pretty much where we're standing this side of the house there's a whole series of what looks like walls here that's either the abbey church or a look-alike you see two side walls down there inside when they're all lined up they look like you see little bits coming off and like buttresses it's not far too vivid imagination do I just can't be what I think the dimensions are too big oh yeah I was John on this one if you look at this planet 1739 shows the layout of rectangular Gardens here behind the house John's exactly matches that so these features your pointer too could easily be golden John if that is the church how big is it - 100 foot it's very big it is very big with it stands up there are churches of a hundred feet Oh Bret they mostly cathedrals it must be said but Henry the six the wealthy man and his foundations were enormous this is a debate that's gonna run and run isn't it miles how are we going to solve all this well the obviously the key to understanding the site trying to locate the The Cloisters chapters all the other sort of associated buildings is trying to find the church on the ground so I think if we can put a trench across here see this wall will see straightaway whether it is a church whether it is part of garden feature so trench one goes in and the battle begins between Jonathan architectural historian who thinks there's a big church here and John GF is who thinks it's all too big to be a building and must be a garden feature instead this disagreement has its roots in the site's history syan Abbey was founded by Henry v but it was his son Henry the sixth hsihu began construction here Zion was destroyed shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries when work began on a new house in the early 1600s the elaborate and fashionable gardens were added but 150 years later capability Brown totally changed the whole landscape so the features on the geophys could just as easily be horticultural as ecclesiastical John thinks the church could be these features over here and trench two and three are going in to investigate but it's trench one that delivers the first clue all right Phil yeah go ahead and look we're just going straight through the topsoil straight down onto this wide spot lots of bits of toil and what have you cook it on gassing me we've no idea what's been left in the ground if the foundations weren't picked clean to build sign house then capability Brown probably carted the rest away when he landscaped the grounds that store features we go garden features in here I know is what makes Stewart tick because he looks to have a man with a garden feature on Odin one it I want happen well ah they want the depth that you got the Alby fill are no but it is a submit more like it oh oh oh look oh ha oh we'll have that we'll have that so n watered in but ash demolition I reckon but we'll have that that's our level can you get bit more back here Pat place way down at all you might as well take that on as well hello here he comes come on our look at it we got our garden feature for here look at that much great garden feature is it at demolition rubble yeah but but is it church well it in and nothing else is it hey I know Pat Oh look at that gorgeous floor tile it's closed it is beautiful on it our first clue there might be a building here but is it monastic Sian Abby was home to a most unusual holy order dedicated to a 14th century Swedish mystic after a visitation from Christ Saint Brigid built a monastery at vadstena in Sweden and then traveled around the Royal Courts of Europe offering kings and queens a fast track to heaven if they supported her order by founding even more monasteries Brigid was a saint she was canonized in 3091 Christ spoke to her in person so she said and effectively dictated a brand new rule for a house of monks and nuns so what was the new rule different the old rules it was far more enclosed and far more prescribed and specific about what the the duties of the monks and nuns should be so it was a brand new late medieval evolution of monasticism why on earth was it the Brigid in order that was founded here well there were two reasons Henry the fourth his sister married the king of Sweden and they came across vadstena which is the mother house and sent all the monks and some of the nuns over here secondly henry v wanted to surround his new palace a team with a great monastic landscape lots of monasteries and new monasteries worshipping god properly as it were the community at vadstena was a blueprint for subsequent bridge 18 foundations these would double houses were both nuns and monks lived and the abbey churches were huge the vadstena church was nearly a hundred metres long so our church should be similar if we can find it they are bitter molding but no spitter concave mold in on that so it's spilling down the middle and then another another concave there so he was a better window mold and window dressing probably tracery or semi yeah but when another that's a tall surface there look Jonathan alike that supposed to been a gorgeous building you know in trench - they're finding similar stuff they've got a floor surface and lumps of stonework that also look a bit Church like over here is where the 18th century garden features would have been and where John thinks that the abbey churches but beyond here is where Jonathan thinks the Abbey Church is sure it can't just be on the basis of some rather thin lines on the GF is one of the main reasons is because this big broad feature is on an east-west axis what you'd expect of a church why would it have been that big you can take nothing here is typical it's a royal foundation and when you look at some of Henry the six other work there's Eton College as intended by comparison it's exactly comparable width for 70 students so it's not to do with numbers and would it have been one of those perpendicular or gothic flying buttress types of things again we don't know whether it follows a Swedish Mother Church in being like a big barn or whether it's something much much more typically English in comparison but bear in mind King's College Chapel Cambridge Eton Henry the six making a statement of dynasty in it because its father was the first founder here so it could be something very very English looking at the time of building Sian Henry the six was a young King and highly influenced by modern contemporary architecture in Europe he wanted to make his statement in England he founded Eton College in 1440 followed by King's College Cambridge in 1441 their chapels were the showpieces high Johnny got any results was it John's extended his survey and look what he's got gone I mean just look that's our returning they well that's interesting is it so we've made our trench across there and you've got a neat new returning walls not far away but where the cloisters well we're still at these these structures coming out down this end so that's probably our best bet for the finding the cloisters initially that's where I've targeted trenches are going in our next priority target is to put a trench over that that corner that is a buttress there yeah certainly just getting that at 90 degree turn we just confirmed where that is an independent building or weather is still part of a garden feature but I think it's looking for more church now on that well that'll be fun Gooden if it is a church it's the East window cutting masonry stained-glass yep that's where the action is could be a lot so Dan gets our fourth trench underway to locate the end of this mysteriously large structure if we find a buttress it may give us a clue as to how big these walls really were there are robbed out walls emerging from the demolition rubble at either end of trench one and there are over a hundred feet apart if these are the walls of a building it would have been absolutely enormous and it's this very scale that's worrying John but there might just be an answer to that Phil's discovered a large feature in the middle of the trench yeah see we got that stone in there and that is still more or stone in there so what do you think it is Phil though it's not a wall you're talking about it being a appear spell what it is is is right midpoint between the wall at that end and the inner wall on the other end to extract measured in between this wall here and this middle thing and and the inner one on the other side is 54 feet that's here for 54 - Jonathan's under in under an 8 feet that he started with okay I just work in linkage you've been saying that you you can't believe that that's a building because it's too worried there's nothing to support it that with with masonry like this you could support it okay maybe it is a church how come in the Middle Ages a religious house that comprised of women could become so powerful and rich well it was under royal patronage it was an incredibly important place to be from the woman's point of view and it was incredibly important for the King to demonstrate his piety its Henry the physics expiating really the sins of his father by setting up not just one but actually three big religious houses around here so in a sense it's part of the status of the king that the house that he founds here should be very very successful and well endowed so what kind of women would come here and be nuns well the women who have a vocation to start off with so you would have people who had a genuine religious vocation the women who were perhaps determined to be Spencer's didn't want to marry the women who were unmarriageable for one reason or another perhaps just awkwardness perhaps widows and anyone who wanted not to be part of the marriage market of the porns of the way that women are used in history but wanted to take in a sense a sidestep and control their own destiny a bit more this could be a career move it could be a very sensible career move for a scholarly ambitious power-hungry woman who could see herself joining the nunnery as a as a young novice and then working her way up to run what is actually a very big business if trench ones looking more church-like then trench two at the side of the house is now looking a bit different and is this where those ambitious and power-hungry nuns would have paced up and down I mean it could still be that illusive boys the passageway that we've been looking for that's one of our best structures outside of the church the moment all day the two John's have been at loggerheads about whether or not we found our monastic Church on John GF is aside he thinks the walls we found are too far apart it's simply too big on John architectural historians side we seem to have three walls of a large building in a monastic complex so what else could it be humph aliy the resolution will emerge right here trench for which we're putting in bang on top of the corner of whatever this mysterious structure turns out to be beginning of day 2 and our archaeologists are still rowing about exactly what we've got in this trench is it the largest undiscovered monastic Church in Greater London or is it just a load of old garden features Barney when Johnson said he thought it was a church you're just laughed why are you so skeptical well between the two walls it's about 35 meters that is enormous that's longer than some churches in width and I don't see anything yet that says to me Church what would you need to see in order to be convinced that it was a church well I think substantial masonry Institute we've got to have more evidence we've got no floor levels from inside the church no graves or anything why do you still think it's a church well Tony it does seem to me that all this could be an accident of survival that one would expect with a huge house being built on the site of a church they'd Rob it pretty cleanly and having Gardens superimposed on the church means we might expect the floor level to be gone so what I'd like to see is the corner that John's geophysics seems to be coming up with because to me this is a massive building you've got very excited yesterday about this feature over here why I did this came a very late and of course what we wanted to find between these two shocking parallel sidewalls we need some evidence for support of a structure to carry the roof because it can't possibly span 100-foot yeah and with the roof now exactly between those two walls is this massive foundation screw I mean look at that look at the edge there and that could be a massive peer base this is what's missing from the geophysics because it's too deep so I've not had anything in the middle at all that's why I've been writing it off that's why I need imagination okay look before the two of you start getting too yesterday evening we dug a trench over there in order to establish what this feature was that's really important because at the east end of a church you'd expect that that big cliff of masonry on the gables the biggest weight of masonry has to be taken by a substantial corner feature a buttress typically okay just sustain it stay here for a minute come and tell us you can't go a bit further for than that come and tell us before they comment what exactly you've found here so far well what we got is a whacking great big wall coming right the way down through the trench you can see the contrast between the mortar here of the wall and the brown soil the natural which is just outside the wall and this wall comes all the way down here it turns a right angle where Dan's digging it's shooting off up in that direction and then there's an immense buttress where Phylis cleaning discipline to up going way out the trench so quite a huge structure what we're finding now is really interesting because it could suggest on that central Pia base that we've got two churches side-by-side and that's why it's so wide one for the nuns one for the brothers I wonder if Jonathan's proposals are roof too far but then this would have been a fabulous complex and the clues just keep on coming up ah Stan what got piece of window glass Oh champion it's only a small segment look it's the only one we've got the early Wow we've actually got definite evidence of Windows and at the East End hmm don't know what rich don't think there's none transparent anymore is it no I'm just looking to see whether there's any decoration on it wait a bit that is that a pattern on it could that be you see that you look with a sort of yellow line could be a bit of milk shinik your battery or shoveling most of the skeptics have been won over but you can tell Stewart is still not happy John's got some new results and it looks good for Jonathan as you can see we've got acres of parkland here that our archaeologists can investigate so where have they decided to put their next trench right here in the driveway slap-bang in front of the house why are you being so disruptive look this is where we are on the map this is the corner of the church with the wall coming down here now we appear to have a junction at that point if so that's absolutely fascinating because yesterday while we found these two walls side-by-side and we put Eton College Chapel on top of it and it's it's not just one of these but it's two side-by-side let's have a look let's let's put that in place and you can see there these are the pillars we found running along the middle of it so it's double the width of Eton well if that's the case you see Eaton's got a nave here as well and John's geophysics shows that it bulges out at the same kind of point now if that's just the chancel and at this point is its junction with the nave and it broadens out what we've got is Sian house just occupying the nave of the church well although so that means that your church would not only go all the way past the digger in that direction yeah but all the way under this house respecting the outside walls of the house it does and this is the critical point because this is the junction between what we're saying is the nave and the chancel so we need to see if we're right if we've got something that big how significant is that I think it's the most extraordinary discovery of late medieval London and the region within living memory that's my as my feeling it's something the size of Salisbury Cathedral that history has forgotten about are you thought it was a garden so even the driveway goes in the pursuit of archaeology in trench for the foundations of wonderfully wide and crisp Jonathan can you spare me a minute but something's worrying Phil why done is I dug down and the outside of the foundation to actually find out how deep the foundation trench is yeah didn't want to go inside the building so I thought I'd go outside look the bomber foundation trench is just come around here and it's the same level all the way around that's a bit shallow in it it's not very deep is it it's certainly not as deep as I I would have thought we're about what four foot four and a half a below ground level I mean it any-any sitting on this dark grey material which goes all the way around here yeah it is shallower than I would have imagined Phil okay well well thanks for thanks for that thank you an interesting maybe a spanner in the works at one it certainly is foundations this shallow couldn't hold up a building this big and what's more in the new trench five they found a modern drain not the nave of the church garden drain huh I've got my garden then but underneath the wall of the medieval buildings charging off under tsiyon house it still chugs straight on yeah while we've all been concentrating on the church Matt's been excavating the structure in trench two on the lawn it looks much more like a proper building but Matt needs to go decock to the side of the house trench three this was opened first thing yesterday morning but has produced very little so we'll shut it down once it be recorded in the incident room Carender and Barney are looking at details of other bridge Atene houses in mainland Europe to see if there's any similarity in their plans from these in may be possible to work out what Sian looked like and how big the church was in trench five miles has come up with an astonishing find it looks like a human skull so where did this actually come from well boys we're just sitting here up against the edge of this section just underneath all this big hardcore bubble right because is it absolutely fantastic there are bronze pins which have rotted and decayed next to the photo tearing tear and the only other place that I know of in is another nunnery medieval nunnery in Clement Thorpe in York where they found ten of these so this is some kind of head it's it's probably a headdress and therefore this might be part of a nun finding a grave here by a wall would be even stronger evidence of this being a church this is the only piece of the sign a B buildings to survive it was saved by the fleeing nuns in 1539 and is now a sacred relic kept by the sisters in the modern Bridget II monastery in Devon to get a glimpse of the kind of skill and craftsmanship used to build Sian ABI Alex our stonemason is going to reproduce a detail from this original pinnacle on an average day in the late 15th century 30 stonemasons would have been working at Sian the place was a building site for over a hundred years and Henry the six spared no expense the abbey church alone cost over twenty thousand pounds a staggering figure when you think that the fine parish church at that time would have cost only four hundred and fifty pounds there was a library of over 1400 books that attracted scholars from all over Europe including Erasmus and Sir Thomas More by the time of the dissolution in 1539 the abbey was one of the wealthiest and most influential in Europe but Henry the eighth was no friend of this place when it came to his divorce this was a great theological thinking place and they had said we can't justify no it isn't justified it's against the law of God it's against all the papal laws it can't be justified Zion had Richard Reynolds who was an outstanding theologian and thinker and Richard Reynolds had said in confession that he was absolutely opposed to the king and Henry and Thomas Cromwell his chief adviser now absolutely target this place as a place they've got to bring down because this is where this is the powerhouse of opposition everything that's being argued against the king is coming from here and they succeeded in bringing it down they had an inquiry here in which there was all sorts of fraudulent charges brought against the nun the monks nothing ever stuck they took Richard Reynolds and charged him with treason and he went to a martyr's death with immense courage and told the people who were executed with him that they were having a sharp breakfast but they were dying in heaven it's a most wonderful story of Catholic martyrdom in England in trench for Jonathan's Church theory is in huge trouble John gyah fears and Stewart have found out about the inadequate foundations but Jonathan's fighting back now look at the area here of this buttress it's about 12 feet long now that's enormous and it could well be that because we're near a river on a fairly you know marshy ground we're looking at a big raft foundation and then when the and the weight is being distributed across these enormous buttresses what diagnostic ecclesiastical features are here say if this is Church no argument the nun would the pins on her skull no we know it's an ecclesiastical site you'd expect that there's no doubt about that we're just having doubts about this being a church like at the moment all we've got is a superb geophysics plan with the buttress in the corner but the only thing linking this wall and this wall is one central peer base that gives us a sort of roof between the two yeah that's one trench I mean if you take the bottom line of this this plan could you explain to me what in blue blazes it is if it isn't a church I'd oh oh yeah I've got a real feeling of deja vu here I'm gonna have to ask you the question I asked you exactly this time yesterday where can we put a trench in to establish whether we've got this monastic Church or not what do you want to to do I would like another Central Pier because you've manufactured the whole division on the church based on one pier which is absolutely central to these two walls what a blazer that's I feel like I I think I think I think we're talking finest semantics here we note we can see this is the church we confirmed it more trains you just find more walls on here which we can see on your dear physics which is very nice by the way and we can see on that what we need to do is resolve the cloisters if it's the church yeah okay what what what okay look put a trench across this away from the church will we see what that is put the digger in now yep with just an hour left definitely let's get on with it home so trench six goes in if there is a buttress among this tangle of GF is anomalies then miles is confident that should silence the cynics once and for all but of course there's still the problem of the shallow foundations to support such a large structure Jonathan's worked out that at least eight foot would be needed below ground trench five the one in the path has got that but the foundations of the buttress nearly a hundred feet away appear to be only half that deep Henry has been called in to resolve the issue they look to be deeper down here can you take a level on this trench here I will go up there and do the same if I think about so see whether or not the foundation trench is cut to the same level exhibition if here's the thing got that yep and got that one well if you stop here than Jonathan I'll give you a wave and I'll try and shape the result and give out a whale if if there's if it happened like that hey my boy hack now then plug your machine down on there right it should be similar if it's the same foundation yeah right oh so you're talking about 10 centimeters or so different this is what tension meters lower here without a peanut that's nothing is it Jonathan 10 centimeters I'll do for me so really it is pretty much a low-level foundation so Phil and Jonathan are back in business capability Brown built a slope into this garden personally I'm now convinced this is a church so all we need to win over the skeptics is another buttress in trench six and a pillar base in the middle race an got to work making a 3d reconstruction of the nones skull that was found in trench five showing how the pins would have fixed her headdress the veil still worn today by the few sisters who live at the modern Abbey in Devon it has a white cross decorated with red points representing the five wounds of Christ five hundred years ago the nuns at Sian would have been singing this Brigid enchant quite possibly on this very spot beginning of day three in our search for the monastic complex here at Sian Park and today we're shifting our focus we think we've already nailed down where the monastery churches but now we're going to look over here for the cloisters why should I get excited about cloisters and they just fall corridors in a bit of grass in the middle technically yes it's an open courtyard with a passageway around it but the key thing about the cloisters is beyond the church is the main focus for the abbey building so if we're looking for the chapter house there affect all the other key structures they're going to be set around the cloister so once we find that we should start locking down other buildings and start interpreting John's dear physics plan by the corner of the house the plan clearly shows two parallel walls miles is opening trench 7 and there's already something there it's nice bit masonry some of the best you've seen outside the church actually I could very well be the cloisters this is our first clue that we found the cloister all range but of course there's still some unfinished business on the church what John needs is another pillar base and he's brought in his radar if there's a feature here John should be persuaded this was a building with a huge roof Phil's been chasing a huge jumble of geophysical anomalies in trench six miles hopes that it'll be the buttress but Jonathan suggested it could be a bell tower or Phil's found so far is some of the Tudor garden well we'll have that Pat sign Abbey was a huge medieval pilgrimage center almost as popular as Canterbury and Walsingham thousands of pilgrims a year visited Sian what made it such a magnet that people wanted to come here I think there are three factors one was the proximity of the Royal Court so as a right in the center of the political world in a way but probably more important than that was the fact that the Abbey had papal indulgences so the people who came on pilgrimage got real spiritual benefits immediately just becoming to the to the shrine a papal indulgences is when you're given a bit of time off in purgatory fast track through purgatory to get to heaven quick if you come to the Abbey and make an offering to for the upkeep of the Abbey and to the betterment of the the Saint then you will get something back in return and it worked on a quid pro quo and then the third thing was this was an absolute sort of spiritual powerhouse in Britain and the library of fourteen hundred books books actually being written devotional literature which would have been known the length and breadth of the country so it was a well advertised pilgrimage site this sides also produce some really juicy small fines I think several of these contemporary was the monastery there are fragments of Tudor green appearing this came from near the church that's the sort of classic late medieval word yes that's right it's quite the old name for its two degree in its southern white where sixteenth century a rather attractive little jar they very finely made probably Surrey Hampshire area would be where the kilns were from but honestly the most exciting one and what I've never found anything like this before it's absolutely brilliant and that's this it doesn't look very much does it no at these part of spectacles that's right incredibly rare are they yes it would have been a folding set so it would have been quite small but held at the waist perhaps on a chain and there are fewer than a dozen examples in England would have been expensive probably they were imported from Italy I never really thought of Victor as a medieval fashion victim but they are very fetching Jeffy's have put down their mark and with less than two hours left Kerry and Ian have opened our last trench to find another pillar base the final piece of evidence needed to convince the most skeptical of skeptics John has been wavering over the church for three days but he won't accept Jonathan's theory until he's found another pillar base over the side of the house The Cloisters are taking shape in trench - we've got the only standing structure we found at Sian and must have been part of the accommodation for the monks or nuns but what exactly this building was we're not sure yet entrench seven on the corner of the house they now think they found the cloister arranged a monk or nun would have lived in a cell on one side of the cloister and they were often laid to rest under the passageway we think we're digging here is that normally where they bury people in The Cloisters the monks and the nuns can get buried in the cloisters and the chapter in malaria's it not in the church no invades our highest latest ones get buried in the church the benefactors just under the tutor garden features in trench six there's a huge corner foundation similar to the one on the other side in trench for the skeptics have nothing to doubt especially now that carries found the demolition rattle in trench eight associated with another pillar base this is one of four features on the GF is so there's enough evidence to suggest that these were columns supporting a huge roof and that this must have been a big building miles Tony here I tell you if I were puff along to a 27 I think with a song of interest for you over you can tell me what it is absolutely not you've got to come over and have a look okay miles is this the other wall we were looking for yes indeed yeah we've got the cloister well hopefully yeah this is the wall that appeared on the geophysics that Bridget's cleaning up here but but far more important than that remember this morning when I was saying about one of the key things you'd like to find inside the cloister was human burial Wow that's exactly what we've got untouched state do we know what sex they are um unfortunately there's not an awful lot of the skull left as you can see but we've got a nice rounded forage and no brown ridges to speak of so it looks pretty female to me although I want a bit more and I want to see the pelvis if possible any other phones yes there are other finds and can you see these here orangish things are actually coffin nails and there was one in this one as well so this is pretty conclusive evidence that we've actually got a coffin and not a shroud burial why have we got so many skulls and yet so few other bones well it is interesting and I've given a little bit of thought I think there must have been wearing a hood either made of leather or cloth stuffed with straw or something like that and the Resta bodies gone but the the hoods protected the head and hence it's stayed in the hole so if alice is right this cloister would have housed the nuns of Sian or at least until Henry the eighth's got rid of them when the nuns left here what happened to this place it was probably left as it were empty but it was certainly enough of a building and it had enough sanctity left to it that when Henry the eighth's died and his coffin was brought back it was left in the what had been the chapel overnight is that the story about the blood it is the story about the blood that's every schoolboy story about the blood the background to the story is that a priest being interrogated by Henry warned him that he must not proceed on the course against the monasteries against the Pope ultimately against God and if he did so then he would be punished as an Old Testament character a tribe whose body was eaten by dogs on his death and of course Henry did proceed and in dramatic fulfillment of this prophecy his apparently his coffin is left here overnight it's although it's lead-lined it leaks and the blood goes down to the floor and dogs come in and eat Henry's blood it's wonderfully vivid but would Henry's coffin really have been left unattended overnight it's such a great story it's we've got a source for it there is a record that says this indeed happened I think it's fairly unlikely he was a very well regarded king of England I can't believe they just bundled it in here and you know went off for a pint but standing here in the undercroft of the house it feels like it's gotta be true to me it's such a great story I don't think we can just lose it we asked Alex Wenham to make us a stone figure it's almost finished Oh paintbrush in hand I just clean e up now you finished it well their times up so I've had to stop he's absolutely magnificent thank you pleased with it yeah a piece of what I've got done in the plane sure if you learn anything from it well I've learned that I can get a little figure like this done in two and a half days and before I probably would have thought that I'd have taken a bit longer but yeah I've got all sorts of respect for the medieval Masons who made this the first time around you know it's just dawned on me what you've actually achieved is only one half of one facet of one stone of one gatepost for one of the largest monastic buildings in Britain that's right do you fancy you're finishing it off here it's a very long drive trench to is about to reveal its dark secret Jonathan and Barney may be the first to look down here for nearly 500 years so these are the two walls we saw yesterday with a passageway in between but that passageway has got a hole through the floor not a passageway that's fantastic so this must be the guard rope the latrine block for the nuns basically make sense off the cloister doesn't it yeah absolutely and so will where Matt's fishing like an Eskimo now that's that's the long culvert yeah that carries all the waste away nion is that then an individual latrine or toilet well I think it must be that must be the where the waste goes down into the main drain brilliant well what about dating did Gani stratigraphy well as far as we can see it seems that it's completely sealed by this huge dump of demolition rubble therefore it's got to be earlier than the demolition of the abbey so it must be late medieval or she's got a monastic is excellent that's great and this is actually actually the first piece of the cloisters they've been able to identify and it looks on the geophys here as if it runs for about 15 metres you can see we're here and it's running ten meters behind us and five meters in that direction that's a lot of lose isn't it absolutely planned everything out from this now yeah here's the the nuns dormitory with what we now think is a train block here yeah and this would be the whole cloister with the church running through here that looks good doesn't it yeah I think that's really exciting it's the best I've seen in this site yeah by long talk Richard the estate manager um said he got a cellar Stewart's been crawling about underneath the house and is about to drop a bombshell why am I not surprised looks a bit careless deirdre live we've already got a torch rigged up too to help yeah all right yeah now have a look at this wall valley just down here see they there's still work no well these are nice to look you've got think it's big stones all cost in little tiles there to bring them up level and they go right the way down to the floor there do that's all good solid medieval stone and tile and bits of brick now like it's this a lot this is the kind of stuff we should be looking at and the original construction the once sat in those robber trenches were looking at outside but we're following it now through under the house what makes this really interesting from my point of view is is wery Teague's because Henry came down and as planned where is in relation to the building can you shine your torch on this I think you might like this this is the the house we're in yeah this green line here is the line of the the wall now look at what lines up with on the outside of the building look at that that's a bang on isn't it absolutely and that actually it's incredibly important because we haven't got off the lawn before now this trench that we found we continued it this far under the house it shows that the wall of this house is built on top of it reusing the old foundation and it gives us a minimum length for the building so if that's 120 foot we're talking about at least two hundred and sixty foot overall length of the church we've got a whopper on hands and we what an irony Stuart the arch skeptic has finally confirmed Jonathan's theory three days ago we knew almost nothing about sign a B we now know there was a church here and how big it was we believe the nuns lived on the south side with an infirmary in Chapel and we assume the monks were housed on the other side we can work out where the nuns might have slept and where the monks world-famous library might have been it's been a bumpy ride for Jonathan he was right all along about the size and position of the church but he has changed his mind about what it looked like however the learning curve has just got much steeper because having found that single pier between these two walls remember on the first day we're looking at getting interested in these but thought they were garden features well they're not this has now turned out to be another pier so what we've got is one two three four and then that is separated from that and we have to be able to manage the junction between that space and this one this is three Isles that one looks like it's to sign Abbey Church was 260 feet long and a hundred and eight feet wide with a single pitched roof and was one of the largest monastic buildings in England twice the width of King's College Chapel Cambridge the view from the River Thames must have been breathtaking Jonathan thinks the pillar base we found in trench one was a footing for a central column that supported a large platform at the east end of the church the nuns held their services here separated from the monks below for us this has been an extraordinary and enigmatic mystery to unravel but our experts tell us that what we found here at Sian Park could be the greatest monastic discovery of modern times you

Channel: Reijer Zaaijer

Views: 505,460

Keywords: time, team, full, episodes, season

Id: mwCmdnIQH2k

Length: 46min 59sec (2819 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2013