Time Team S12-E02 Nether.Poppleton,.Yorkshire

this is the village of nether Poppleton just outside York as you can see most of the houses a modern summer Victorian a fewer 18th or the pushed 17th century yeah it looks very different even I can recognize a traditional medieval village layout with the main street running up to the church and lots of little plots running off it the Mozart works to the side of the church are an officially registered medieval site but the locals think it's older they think they can trace the roots of their village back to the Normans or even the Saxons are they right we've got just three days to find out good morning everybody it's really good of you to take part in this I hope you're going to enjoy it and I thought I just ought to say a little bit to it about what we're going to do because it's not really a respectable research strategy to bulldoze your village from end to end flatten it all out and then look underneath it you have to adopt a different strategy it's nine o'clock day one and the people of Poppleton have assembled to find out how they can help us pin down the true age of their village they're going to do the work today by digging test pits in their own gardens with some help from us so what are we after we're after the origins of the village does it start as a saxon village laid out in the norman period does it come into existence in the Middle Ages how do we get there dig lots and lots of pits all over the village one meter test pits and just get what the finds are from that to indicate what activity has been on that site you're persuading these people just to look for fine yeah isn't that the exact opposite of everything that you've told me the archaeology is archeology is about features archaeological I'm talking about stratigraphy it's about knowledge not about ripping fines on the ground no you're absolutely right you obviously have learned something that's to help talk well you have you haven't but it's the same idea it's looking for broken bits apart there are indications of activity where people have lived and broken stuff in a particular area so if we start to get 12th century pottery or Saxon Potter or medieval pottery he'll tell us as activity to that date we plot it all across the village then we'll start through the concentrations and those over the areas we need to dig in to get the structures circumstances yeah ladies and gentlemen how many of you know what you're supposed to do next about a third of them we want you all to get back to your homes with your pet archaeologist in your hand and start digging around off you go as they all set off there's a great sense of community spirit about many people are digging in their own gardens or they'll help out their less-able neighbors they'll bring all their finds to the incident room will analyze and date them and when we've identified the oldest will decide where to put trenches in tomorrow so it looks like there's going to be competition among the locals where will the oldest part of the village be we've divided the village into five sections each one with its own archaeologist to make sure that things are done properly I think you'll be surprised what you find it just the soil of a garden Ilia I live in a 1960s bungalow and then welcome so you think the absolutely nothing at all in E to fund the world and I've gotten one piece of Roman pottery about 12 pieces of 12th century pottery and that everything from 12th century colors mock life and that's in the 1960s bungalows are across the village test pits are opening all over the place and everyone's doing their part you we do our best to help out we want to do is try and keep things level go along like that rather than digging down you know you want to know which vines came from the top of your test fit which are the bottom when you dig a trench if it's a meter at the top it must be a meter at the bottom in other words the sides of the trench must always be absolutely vertical this means that the the layer that you've got exposed actually on the bottom of the trench you can actually see it in section so don't just dig in the middle of the hole dig right up to the edges keep them straight yes this feels gospel lesson of the day by mid-morning we're well on our way to exploring this side of the village where the main street and houses are but over here to the east lies the church it was built in Norman times so it's possible there was something else there at that time geophysics having larly look around it and Stuart's already out and about doing a full landscape survey of the whole area the church is usually a central feature of the community so if we're going to understand how people have lived here we need to look at the church is that one Norman I think Norman not in its present form but must be earlier lighter stuff as well do we know much about the actual history of this site sir well the church is dedicated to sin ever elder who's a very unusual dedication there are only two churches dedicated to her in Yorkshire she was 7th century Saint we think that Bishop Wilfred who was bishop of York encouraged her to settle in Yorkshire with two other nuns in the six 70s and around them a community at set of up to 80 nuns soon formed so they could actually be a nunnery on this side I think so and the church could be merely one part of a whole series of buildings going off in this direction with evidence of them still under the ground just under the surface yeah John what's the gf is like well had some results back already and it's looking quite interesting and points the possibilities of you know all the churches being here does that look as building E to you as it does to me it probably is only if that's one of the things that would get us excited about the idea of a line of church yeah so can we put a trench in there well we need to do a lot more geophysics first to see a lot more of the area around before we go for that so although this church dates from the 11th century --scent ever rildo lived here 400 years earlier there may well have been buildings from that time on this site could we find a Saxon settlement somewhere around this church back in the village people are beginning to get the hang of things now nothing in that one and some fines are coming up if this had a bill green blade over there it's almost as old as our mother stone unturned you got a Roman brick you got a good imagination very vivid yeah the early signs at least in this trench I look good that's why I called proper medieval you're like 13th 14th century Juke sheds its local stuff probably made some around York these having trouble for at all so I mean I think you could well be on tops of medieval archaeology yeah you never believed would you that now I'd have never believed this was here at all so it's within religious hands in the incident room carrenza and Sarah are having a look at the written history of Poppleton and there isn't that much to go on the Domesday book on doomsday book tells us quite a bit more we've got the extract here and it tells us in another that is nether Poppleton OD the Deacon had two and a half Kara cuts taxable that's two and a half Kara cuts of land at about three hundred acres this land was absent ever elders that's the church so what date does poeple from first appear in the written record were the first references in 972 when Oswald the Archbishop of York listed a large number of lands in Yorkshire that he said the church had lost during the war was earlier in the century and among that list he included just two hides that's about two hundred and forty acres in Poppleton and that's all the record tells us what about the place name itself that must predate 972 well the place name has suck some elements in it tun meaning a settlement and poeple meaning the pebbly place so the supplement on the pebbly soil the settlement on the pebbly perhaps banks of the river so it has a saxon element and that could indeed be in a sense in one sense the oldest reference that we have to there being something here fills now moved up to work on the church but he isn't where I expected him to be well this morning we thought we were going to put a trench in here yeah but the more geophysics we did across this whole area that corner of the building that looks so different it just disappeared it just didn't seem as significant so there's no building there so we decided not to tackle out it really doesn't look like a building so we came back over here and put one down here why is that well because there is a suggestion that this wall went on this way and we've got permission to dig four square meters so we thought we'd wrap it round the core how well whoa if you think the wall went that way yeah why digging a trench out there we started with those two square meters and then we can do the other two square meters around this way so you've got a pipe there filling heels yeah you see here of Turney got a little child burial just one of those things really I mean you know it's a burial ground what you do with it we're gonna give it the the due respect it deserves and then just leave it alone funnily enough it doesn't actually detract from from the objectives of what we were the trench here which is well you see if I get my shovel see if I slot it in there yeah now that is the base of the foundations so the whole church is sitting on big stones like this the main thing is that there is nothing no walls coming this way so in fact we know that there was no it doesn't look as though there any oils or transepts come in this way Oh collapse we thought the might you see that curve yeah yeah yeah look see if there's a an opening in there and we thought that something might come off here well it's how you think it might just be a door I think it might be warlike a sort of to set in the walls easy to Sepik or something clearly it's not a structure yeah coming out this way so this answered that so now you've answered that do you have to continue with this trench okay yeah no no because we know that it was not wider what we've now got to prove is whether or not it was longer so that's it says that's when you recommend here up at the right corner so we'll have the same conversation in a few hours time that little child burial you know he's typical of what you find all over the place it's probably an infant you know dialect show birth or something like that and the piers are just popped in the churchyard probably one night to save you know paying the burial fee but to make sure the child in consecrated ground Oh across the village even more test pits are opening up there are now 32 of them three o'clock day one and this whole area is checkered with test pits there's one down there by that yellow bucket then two Gardens along there's one over there then another three Gardens along by that guy in the Red Hat there's one and then way way at the end of that same garden by that blue tarpaulin is another one and what have we found so far absolutely nothing strictly speaking people have found some things but we're not seeing them in the incident room they're not getting to us fast enough so we can't analyze them Paul and carrenza aren't exactly rushed off their feet and they're a bit worried in rapture Matt frigid and Kerry have any of you got any more fines to come in from any tests it's because we really need it up there as quickly as possible anybody else chasing fines by radio isn't working so when all else fails there's only one way to get things moving right how are we doing here we need to get move on with all this how are you getting off about 500 mil down now we're coming to a close we think right okay uh can you get the fine to the incident as soon as possible cuz we need to get pulled sort them tonight oh yeah yeah brilliant right how are you doing here nearly finished can you get those fines down to the incident room now to get them dated tonight okay brilliant thanks right well this worked now Paul and currents are complaining they've got too much to do just down the Nestle money it's the end of day one all the test pits are finally closed the people who dug them have found loads of stuff look this is just some of the rubbish of course they all want to know what it means can we tell them me I think so we're still in the business of analysing the results here I'm plotting on the map but we do have late Saxon Potter coming out now that's what we were looking for isn't it is this just the only piece of Saxon 400 have you got more no we've got five pieces of like Saxon ones literally as we often do talking is just appeared and how much more have you got to sort through I've no idea there's masses of stuff coming in there watching it sorting it as best they can I hear them getting it through to me and I'm flying through how long's it gonna take up I don't know well you know I'm just acutely aware that we've got a load of people coming in and no belongings no no talking the longest comes yeah I'm not having a pop it's just there's a lot be good yeah I realize I'm getting throws masazuka carrenza are we gonna be able to tell people where they can put in their trenches well if we're looking for Saxon at the moment the concentration seems to be right at the other end of the village in Ian's area but we got to go through the finds from all the test pits before we make a decision because some of the other ones may have equally good concentrations Saxon material we can't start do we know that so tomorrow bright and early loads of people from the village are going to turn up asking what this little lot is all about how are we gonna be able to tell them anything we'll know tomorrow morning 9:00 a.m. and there's frantic activity in the incident room outside the locals are gathering to find out what we can tell from the test pits yesterday inside we're still trying to work it out last night you could have cut the tension in here with a knife Paul and Kendra and I were getting really frazzled because we wanted to get everything ready for everyone to be able to dig this morning well this one was like Pollyanna oh don't worry everything's gonna be all right well was he right have we got everything sorted it was because we got really frazzled worked really hard at it and then we've been hard at it this morning getting all the data presented on a map that looks respectable that we can show the villages did you actually find anything that surprised you yeah we did actually we've got no Saxon pottery at all from this end of the village and it's not we start heading west through the village that we get a few fragments of sacks and pottery tiny triangle here show just a few grams of pottery tiny little amount they're a bit more here as we head west and then even further west in this completely different bit of the village what looks like a different history with a lot of sacks and pottery especially here at number 20 we've got a huge amount of Saxon pottery suggesting really there's a focus of Saxon settlement in this area a lot of activity down here all right let's sorted out the West End but what about this big bit here well that's the problem we haven't really done anything at this end we've got no handfuls of material or no pottery nothing to date this end we've got Phil's little l-shaped trench around the church and we produce any fines and yet we would still think that that was where either was a saxon church probably a sex of monasteries ought be something in that area so we do have to look at that what do you think the strategy should be judge well I think we've got to build on what we did yesterday take this test-fitting strategy and apply it to this area got a look at the ROM the old stables the granary you know the spaces back of the incident room let's get some trenches in there you can I get some more local people involved in digging those take it forward okay good morning everybody thank you very much for coming back I'm going to tell you the results of the test pits yesterday which you all dug and thank you ever so again today people from the village have turned up to help they're all keen to know where the oldest parts of the village might be so today we'll explore that area in more detail the villages jobs now done we do the work from this point on so the test pit at number 20 is widened to become a full trench but today we'll concentrate more on the area around the church it's Norman but dedicated to a nun who lived in the Saxon period so we're hopeful of finding Saxon material there so up by the church we open a test pit here here and another here and jaundice more geophysics in and around the church to see if we can find other targets mix getting more and more excited it's not just Saxon he wants he thinks that there was a monastery here that would mean a settlement 400 years earlier than the present Church could he be right make you've closed down this trench yeah well it's told us all we needed to know that which is the church doesn't know I'm further east but that means we've still got this 400 year old gap between the time the nun died here and the time they put up this church in memory of it yes but I think looking at as a gaps probably wrong when with the we're pretty sure of what would have happened during that period what do you think of him well what tends that means when you get somebody who's turn into a saint you you often have a monastic community with you and that is unlikely to have survived more than a couple hundred years because the the Scandinavians coming through here well they are Vikings yeah the Vikings and they burn everything down they destroy everything if there's ever an honor here it just evaporates the only things you tend to get left is perhaps the church site if there's enough locals around and they survive and they carry on being Christian you gets turned into a parish church or in some case it's turned into a proper medieval Priory but we don't seem down batter here but how can we prove all that well the main problem we've got is there's a church and the churchyard in the middle of the area we'd really like to look at you know it's quite likely there's a lot of stuff under here we're not allowed to do that so what we can do is come in as close as you can because the area that was occupied by the monastery is almost certainly bigger than the area occupy the church and the church Australia so the Church of the church I feel like a retreat from the likely mass maximum extent of the of the monastery but we need some targets to look at Stewart survey of the earthworks around the church has thrown up some interesting results here's the church there's a medieval motive site just here but there's also a whole other system of earthworks this seems to be a roadway from the river heading straight towards the church there also seems to be a large platform at the top of it and off to the side is a large lump in the ground another platform it looks like it could be a boundary ditch of some sort so we put a trench just here to see if it is we also now have some geophysics results for this area here the orchard field right next to the church have a GF is the whole field we've only mentioned a quarter because of all the trees but look we've got some really nice results the high resistance in black is what we're normally interested in but look at these low resistance rectilinear walk white responses what might that be that looks like a buildings well it could be rubbed out walls the thing is they're also aligned with the church why do you say our what could be so significant about that well if the present church is on the site of a monastic Church then these could be monastic buildings going with it we've got a ticket home with no we're certainly out yeah well what I think we should do is actually put a couple of test pits to get the bigger picture if mixed right here I don't think we can at least we will get an idea what those are representing before we start big and any fines associated it could just be an out of Victorian bottles yeah well the Bondi once you've done your test Phil opens the first of two test pits in the orchard John keeps an eye on things I would help you you know but no you wouldn't give the further work you've done today so hey when was the last time you did any I've been working all morning you don't know what work is John all you do is walk up and down look with a supermarket trolley look out for the crocuses back in the village we've really gone as far as we can in number 20 this was where we found Saxon material but now as we go deeper all we're getting is medieval and even later Victoria clearly this ground has been turned over so there's nothing more to be gained by digging here we closed it down in one of the test pits closer to the church we've also hit the bottom and we've got an interesting find here what's nice here is we can see two distinct phases of archeology we've got the later wall which looks to be 18th century hair made bricks running down the garden and they're overlying straight on top of this earlier cobble surface which contains 15th century and therefore probably dates to that point too if I must see this an idea and it they existed like this absolutely it's you know it's wonderful to see it the problem with this though again is that it doesn't really take us any earlier than medieval so what can the pottery we found tell us i've laid some of the finds for the test bits out so in chronological order give me an idea what's going on we've got the romans down there all on their own and a great big gap here this is the black hole of 400 years yeah this is the the early and middle saxon say 450 to 850 ad there's nothing so far and then we arrive at the late sacks and there one saying late sacks and i suppose what we really mean is viking age 853 into the 10th century then we've got this stuff which is all the norman period stuff the 11th to 12th century so those people who were saying that this is a medieval settlement we've we've proved that that's wrong we've got a lot of north oh yeah we got norman i'm we've got pre norman so i think from the pottery coy there's very little doubt that this there was a settlement here in the norman times the pottery we found proves that there were people living in and around nether Poppleton right through the medieval period and right back to the 11th century that part of the village occupied by houses was laid out in the medieval period but there was already a norman community living here so we close down all the test pits in the village they've answered that question the big question though was there an earlier settlement still stands our only chance now of finding anything earlier lies in what we find close to the church that monastery that mix besotted with is our only hope of pushing this village history back any further Raksha thinks she may have something but is it good enough for Paul um well Oh put a piece of pottery yeah quite excited I think it's quite a me yeah so dear um well it could be um I mean certainly look at the geology over here these people to coarse sticking out of it and it's kind of typical of late Saxon and the sack so normal pottery you get round here I mean it could conceivably be even earlier but it's very bad and I wouldn't like to self really try give to close a date to it you know you're being rude about my pottery I mean it's a nice star but it will be notice if you get some bigger bits I'll try my best it is this trench could be very important there's a big ditch here and if it is Saxon it could help determine whether there was a monastic settlement here at that time but if there was one what are we looking for so what would it have been like this ministry well it's difficult to answer that because so few of them have been excavated you know so few um do we know anything about but the little bits that we do now I'm gonna plumb of the best thing is to draw and ruler that's on a sketch it of them a lot of the time they are on trauma trees very often there's a you know chunk of land sticking out with with marshes around it or you know River next to it something like that and they cut off that promontory with a ditch that cuts off the monastic area from the rest and then what's the most important thing there's often more than one church they're often in line like that so I'll put a couple in there why did they do that we don't know to be honest I think part of it is just structural they couldn't put a really big building up and then because often monasteries at that late are mixed communities of men and women and nuns priests serve the nuns and then often with an Abbess you know we must be formidable ladies actually over the top of everybody so we need some sort of dormitory area refectory or something like that and let's have some priests with similar accommodation nearby kitchens and all that sort of stuff going with it and there's always guests and those guests in some cases will be the aristocratic families and the royal families so let's put in a big sort of guest to all over here with facilities going with that and then offer there down by a river and they're bringing supplies by River so in the end it can start to look like almost like a small town you know some complexes of buildings but very very irregular and nothing like your fountains abbey or your Tinton Abbey that we think of as monasteries later on right next to the church we've found something a little strange so we asked an architectural historian to have a look at it it's limestone which is the kind of stain you would use for architectural details on buildings problem is we can't quite see enough of it at the moment - yeah definitely see what it is I would guess judging by the molding so far this 13th century in origin but 13th century but we really need to see a lot more of it it's a rather strange find really one would hope it's from the church to make make the story uncomplicated but if it's from another building it all gets very interesting indeed yeah this will clearly need to be investigated a little further over in the orchard Phil's also got a strange find you got thing over there well I'm damned in the in the deepest bit I'm down to about 80 centimetres yeah I got to know spits of early medieval pottery yeah and I think I've got a pair of legs down here her legs think their legs sure they're not roots all I've had is loads and loads of roots and worms and stuff down here no I think their legs they seem to have marrow in the middle of sure it's legs yeah like only I'm not down on the natural yet so I'm gonna keep hauling down here and maybe I'll find a pair of arms or something it doesn't look much like just a simple field wall and on the other side of the orchard there are a few brick sticking out of the ground which Ian has started to explore a bit and they are intriguing looking quite substantial isn't it yeah I mean it's there's some bricks tumbling off it down this way but it's going on down it's pretty solid yes I'm actually wondering whether it is too thick or chisel all that well it could be but for an orchard it's a very big wall remember I said to you what a long shot it was to get at that early Saxon period well I think the odds have just shortened on this because of what we found in this ditch what you got Rosa found a larger bit of pottery you know what they those poor oh yeah that's a bit more like it I mean that's pre Viking that's Saxon ad 450 to 850 I mean that's what we've been looking for really where did you find it I found it more or less at the bottom of this ditch on the side which is great which means it's from the early phase of this ditch so that means we've got a Saxon ditch well it looks like isn't it the pottery is the right date we've got the ditch coming through it's near the bottom yours we knew when it was dug but a ditch isn't the most exciting thing in the world as well when it comes to Saxon ditches in the preview mode yes there's only three things you tend to get them round a royal centre a trading centre or a monastery so it can only be one of these three things and what we're looking for here is a monastery so it seems to fit but um the significance of that ditches well I think he's fantastic it could be the Vallum round the edge of a monastic enclosure of alum it's a big ditch which defines the religious area from from the world outside as well does why do you say that because it's big explore this exactly something you expect to find and you can trace it in earthwork form going down there and going back that way heading back towards the church so I ask fantastic okay so we've got one piece of Saxon pottery and a little bit of dish well no cuz we've got another piece of cycling pottery Emma's just found that in a feature down my end of the trench and Phil's got a piece out of the churchyard as well so it's all coming together in the last hour or so and I'm beginning to get the evidence the boundary around it it's all starting to come together you're quite excited is fantastic just what we just what I thought we'd never find so tomorrow could we find Mick's missing monastry go out so yesterday evening we found an old ditch and some ancient pottery down there which seem to be clues as to the location of Mick's missing anglo-saxon monastery bar this being Time Team things are never as easy as they seem and this morning Stuart's found something entirely different which is such as herring off in a totally different direction Stewart after twelve years on time team even I know that is not relaxing archaeology Lhasa face a section you've never seen him before what are you doing here well what we got is a series of regular unearthed works as a regular layout in which were interesting they want to know what they were there's a piece of Warwick's post can you see that yeah yeah so we've got a trench here to see what it was and look we've got we've got this really well built brick wall it's got what appeared to be two des bricks in it and it's just sitting there what do you think in my ability well we've actually put another hole in over there yeah we've got lots of building rubble tile only debris from a collapsed building I think we probably got here an unknown tudor buildings you're after you absolutely nothing about before really unknown completely I mean I've walked over this field more times than I care to remember with doesn't some other people and we've bought past that wall and the idea of a Tudor mansion just hasn't popped into our minds and yet when you look at the aerial photographs when you listen to Stewart talking about it's quite clear that we've got this regular platform surrounded by these intricate earthworks the do seem to indicate a previously non Tudor house with this garden around it we've only got one day left what can we do about it well I think the important thing here is to decide are we inside a house are we outside the house so dig this trench see if we can identify floor levels or yard levels here and take the trench into the back into the orchard over there again see if we've got yard levels or indeed floor levels so we've got an anglo-saxon monastery and a Tudor mansion and just one day left it's big trouble I think even when you know there's something under the ground you don't always find it to have stumbled across a Tudor mansion no one had ever heard of is very rare indeed this is where the wall is at the back of the orchard the building rubble is here we open another trench here to see if we can find more wall these are the earthworks which look like some sort of raised platform John GF is this area yesterday so we re-examine the results to see if this new discovery makes any sense I can't actually see a cleared building plan here we've certainly got what might be structure on that side yeah they're the Ian's digging yeah Chloe's wall at that point there and behind us on the bank yeah but I'm not sure is whether this is a terrace a garden terrace yeah or whether we're actually in the building and many walls have been stripped away yeah and I suppose that depends on the plan of it if it was a series of rangy then we would be the garden yeah whereas if it was more of a block then we'd be in the middle of it I only so you're suggesting we need something across it a dog that the earthworks going to Stuart suggests that that might be at the front of the house we've got responses that go with those earthworks I think if we put a trench across we can establish whether it's a garden terrace or the front okay so you fade it out we go there look at that yeah let's have a look at that first and see where we go from there we also look at other things in a different light it turns out that this column we found yesterday also has Tudor bricks in it so it could have been part of the foundations of the Tudor house and in this garden just behind where the wall was found there are lots of little lumps and bumps that with our new view of what might be happening could be left over walls so our architectural historian is helping us to plot them out which have mapped them so you can see how they like the earthworks yeah if you if you look up towards the north there can you soon as that slope in the grow yeah here there's a drop of fan and it runs straight towards us okay where was stood in fact and then it returns at that point if there's a corner just there that way doesn't that's right once we put the information on a man correct it may show us the outline of the tudor building yeah I'll walk up the next corner okay I've got that okay I'll pull that so if I plot that up on the computer see how it relates to the earthwork so everything else while the hunt for the tudor building continues we're also looking for evidence of a monastic settlement around the church we still want to find it Stuart thinks he has an idea of where it could have been see down below is where where the trenches yeah that's cut across a line of a ditch which goes straight up there and leads straight towards the churchyard so it's going beyond the churchyard wall down it well I would suspect so you can't see any traces out in the churchyard no it actually comes along from there down below us yeah heads towards that that pylon there in the distance it does a right angle across the field you see where that green earth greener grasses across it's just bit beyond that there's actually quite a dip when you get down there right and then on the aerial photograph and in the earthworks you can actually see a ditch heading down towards the river so where the low ground is down there yeah well that's where there's a series of fish ponds now broadly to do with the the manor house your bottom of the slope in front of us it is what that dip is and why they've used it's fish pond is because it's an old river channel coming through there alright so that might be the sort of former edge of the river yeah in the Sexson period so I think what this monastic enclosure is doing is it's coming along here doing a right angle heading down to the river yeah potentially where it is over that side it also the church is there what should expect you'd expect a tavini inside yeah yeah and to me it looks litany or the other rate is going to do where the village is separated from so we're a big hedge even the big trees is where it's getting back towards the river so I mean it's almost like the feel that we're in yeah apart from a small bit at that far end is them is the monastic enclosure you know it gives you that the other that sense of isolation I know you're like we've on the streets right yes almost on the promontory sticking Easterners yeah that's absolutely ideal this is the area described by Stuart it's the edge of the monastic enclosure with the church inside it and the edge of the village forming one side to it it's a huge site but entirely what one might expect mix happy with this back on the ground phil has removed the legs they were from a dog and he's got some more good news for Mick Phil that is not a one by one test but no it's a two by two test pit actually it started out as a one big mission why did you extend it because of what we found in here I mean look we've got this this feature what looks like possibly a shallow pit and it's not merely the fact that we've got a pit down there it's what we got out of it is that Saxon yeah it is 450 to 850 little sacs and stuff so does that mean in this feature whatever it is is Saxon it it could be you've got to be a little bit careful because we've also had early medieval pottery from there as well but the thing that we have not had is late pottery or any post medieval pottery so in other words I'm fairly convinced that that feature has got to be early medieval at the latest Mick have we any idea what that is well I don't think we have at this stage and this is one reason for extending the trench exactly but it is the sort of thing you expect on these these sort of sacks and sites and they've they put Timbers in the floor or or posts or something like that oh look how close to the church we are yeah you know we're right in the end you will expect activity at that time so what are you gonna do with this now we'll just take it on down try and find out what this feature is to in Lorance a trench lot to do today we have yet but you know this issues coming up we might even ever go this one later on as well it's got sound to sort thing in the bottom of it the hunt for the Tudor house is going well kerry is cleaning up the main part of the wall some locals are helping expose more of it while we're beginning to think that the material in this trench is to the front of the house and Henry is now pulling together the bigger picture from the lumps and bumps he plotted so what would it have look like well judging by the fragments that we've turned up so far we would have had a range at the back which would have contained the hall some range is coming off either side which might have contained chambers and such like an entrance into that courtyard and then announce a courtyard where all the service buildings would have been and including perhaps this building the barn so we are looking at a complex of buildings oh yes quite an extensive site yes everyone's saying we didn't even know there was a Tudor building there before is that right what bizarrely yes it is the only references we have a sort of rumours if you like in Victorian histories you see here there's a reference here to the manor house now that's the current manor house that's still standing and it says here that that was built out of the remains of the ancient seat of the Huffman's the old house that's the reference to an older house that was used to build the existing one we had known nothing more definite than that about it before now as we uncover more of the walls we begin to get a clearer picture of this Tudor house the evidence points to it being very big the front wall runs from here to here the earthworks in the orchard suggests that the extended right back to here and the thickness of the walls suggests that it was a couple of stories high it was a prestigious place Stuart took me on a tour of the front of it if I'm a visitor to the Tudor house why am i coming up this way rather than from the road well this is where the privileged visitors would arrive there the high status visas you wouldn't want to come in passed on all the peasants basically so what can I see over here you'd see ornamental ponds little water scape just out there you can walk around and over there in this enclosure here you'd have trees ornamental orchard type trees and they'd be screening what was the old mode by the time you got to this point here what you'd see in front of you is this grand facade of this new Tudor house so presumably that's the whole point of the grand walker it's it sure is showing off it's showing off to you as a visitor this is this is its display side over here and if you look out from the house well what you've got looking this way is an open landscape it's a hell of a view it is it's private and it's privileged you can't see the village you can't see the peasants you've got you've got ponds River open landscape orchards ornamental gardens very shelf very Tudor and this is what this enormous complex would have looked like this was an impressive building dominating the landscape with its own entrance to the church and to the river out in Phil's trench he's now reached the bottom of this feature the saxon pottery he found came from the other side of the trench but what does this side tell us so what do you reckon what we got out of this now not quite what we expected me remember on the geophysics there was that that white line which we thought was it was going to be a beam slot a building that sort of thing well there's no way that this is a building this is a massive ditch it's going to come out what at least that size in a seconds you've only got one half I'm here the other half gonna be that's over here some and have you got any dating for that ditch yep we've had pottery from about the Norman Conquest right through to about the 14th century it's within those sort of three or four hundred years and I think that what we're looking at is activity here in the early medieval period at the same period as that church starts to tell you so what do you think we have got here I think it's probably something to do with what the Norman period you know the church is all of that sort of data later we'd expect some sort of manor house to go with it probably somewhere in this area if not down on the moated mound and this is one of the land divisions associated with that the main thing is I think that we've actually got people living round yeah which of course you don't have now up on the top of the hill here you look at it now yeah there's just one house here there's no no village at all in those days this would have been thriving but what of Mick's missing monastery here at the east end of the village around the church do we have any evidence for that when we do why the Doozers respond is because it's an old river channel coming through there the Saxon ditch we found is most likely in this instance to have been from a monastic settlement the church seems to have been built on the site of a former church or monastery its dedication to a saint who died 400 years earlier is an important clue and the topography on a promontory is similar to that of many other monastic size proving shape so now we just have to explain all of this to the people of Poppleton what can we tell them after three days of exploring what does make kind of vary with it so we've got Anglo Saxon here Anglo Saxon here must have some some Hamlet well to begin with they were right there village is older than it looks this pottery shows us that there was occupation here in Norman times and in Saxon times in the Saxon period there was an enormous enclosure surrounding a monastic settlement it would have had a church as the centerpiece houses and a few workshops the promontory it situated on is perfect easy access to York and a bit of height to give it some security in Norman times the present church was built and a settlement grew up around it and then three or four hundred years later an enormous Tudor mansion dominates this part of the landscape this is something no one had expected to find like so many other places it's a story of a thousand years of history on the doorstep so for the people of nether Poppleton is their job now done well now a huge to the mansion was a bit of a surprise the good news is that because of what we've discovered you're going to be really busy for years to come thanks for having us subscribe to the time team magazine trench one for just 1850 a year and you'll receive a free trench one hat worth eight pounds called Oh 8 7 Oh 400 double to 400 during office hours well coming up next on for Bart Simpson finds himself in superhero heaven don't go away

Channel: Reijer Zaaijer

Views: 408,231

Keywords: time, team, full, episodes, season

Id: ndDvbOH6Stk

Length: 48min 58sec (2938 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2013