Time Team S15-E07 The Naughty Nuns of Northampton, Towcester, Northamptonshire

this is paint-pot who sadly passed away last year but when his owner 8 year old Amy was burying him underneath this tree she came across a large stone wall what was going on her dad knew that a Cistercian nunnery had been built somewhere around here in Seward Lee Northamptonshire nine hundred years ago but all traces of it have been lost for centuries although we do know it existed because the nuns caused quite a stir gaining a reputation for sex scandal and sorcery so could paint part of giving us a clue as to the location of Northamptonshire naughtiest nunnery I'm really looking forward to the next three days 900 years ago Seward's lien nunnery was founded five miles from toaster in Northamptonshire its exact location has been lost for centuries but last year a clue might have been found the coal Clough family were burying their cat Paint Pot in their garden and discovered a large stone wall poor painful who dug the grave your dad's yeah I thought so but it's you Amy who suggested your dad got in touch with Time Team where exactly as Paint Pot buried then can I show us just down here why was Paint Pot called Paint Pot because he looked like he dipped his feet in a pot of paint to it and it knows as well what do you think we might find if we dig right into this area again some palms Meister's some bays I bet those nuns ate a lot of oysters I'm sure they did so the wall found in Paint Pots grave has given us a great opportunity to hunt for a lost nunnery and with no novices in our team we've already started to survey the lawns but strangely we're working on the opposite side of the garden Mick Paint Pots over there you're barking up the wrong tree he harbored you shut ensue I know we're gonna be looking over there we've got lots of interesting clues over here as well what well we've got this 19th century survey which shows foundations running between here and the house but we've also got the tree roots seeming to indicate to us where there's walls as well sorry how does that work wig so there is weather up against the wall presumably they'd normally go out from the tree so you mean there could be a wall just going along there yeah I think I got something better than tree root if we actually look at the geophysics we've got a clear plan of a building and that matches the old plans yeah and it lines up perfectly with the end of the house there what's the alignment of X this is aligned east-west so it could be a church that's one possibility yeah oh come on Mick if it is a church within three hours you'll be going oh well then the grains you must have been there early cloisters are there all done and dusted normally that would be true in a sort of you know well-developed monastic site but this is a nunnery so we think it's gonna be much less regular than that but it will help if we find a big substantial stone building here where do we start well I'm certainly gonna have a look or the area where the cat was buried because obviously a big wall across here but we're also gonna look somewhere in this area here probably taken in the corner and probably under this is the church we should be in the altar in isn't it satisfying when the very first trench is slap-bang in the middle of a lawn yes except there's no coniferous tree to attack here I'm really disappointed ah so we're using John's GF is to locate our first trench to see whether we can pick up the walls that were uncovered in the 19th century and find out whether they could be the nunnery church as trench one gets underway the team that began to survey around the cat's grave to see if they can pick up the wall which the family found and maybe give us some chance of understanding the layout of the nunnery back in trench 1 we've hardly scratched the surface and we've already found a wall hey what you got there see a limestone fish holy God it's a big ol slab yeah well this whole thing is just a bow in the position of that wall that's marked on the Hat Aquarian map we were supposed to be getting it coming along this show - the trench to the end and then turning back to cap - turn in that way so that's pretty much bang on loan don't screw the top guys on the side I'd be very good I can't help feeling this nunnery humps gonna be easy but Mick still adamant we're in for a real challenge if there was Cistercian monks here rather than nuns yeah we'd know what they were living in probably because she's such a regular plan if I just draw your quickly here look here's the church with the transepts and East range down here with the chapter house dormitory above cloister south of the church south range with the refectory projecting from it and the West range it would look something like that so could this people down an arene looks like probably not I'm afraid why not well numbers were poor a small number of people a top 12 nuns as opposed to perhaps some 80 monks in a monster like that everything on the nunnery site is much smaller scale but it would have had a church oh yes um you've got a church you have a dormitory go to sleep somewhere so refectory they have to eat somewhere they're enclosed so there's a cloister it's not odd isn't it on one hand we know quite a lot but on the other hand we don't really know anything at all that's right because if we find the church we might assume that the cloister east south of that but equally will be north of it so the cloister could be on the south side the house under the garden or it could be under the field on the other side of the house or it could be under this yes yes it could or that could be part of it so it really does seem that we've set ourselves a mammoth challenge but back at Paint Pots grave John's to your fears has revealed strong signals so we've put in a trench to see if they correspond to the wall where Jamie found and whether they're anything to do with the nuns while the buildings have been lost for centuries the nuns did leave behind a wealth of documents and Helen's beginning to find out what they can tell us this is the foundation document and it records the gift by Richard of Leicester yes that is he's giving a number of things to the the fledgling nunnery which I suppose is just an open field at this time he's giving Seward Slee and nearby Women's League so that's two whole estates yes and then he talks about what he's providing for the nuns themselves and it includes oxen we of course would pull their players cattle for milking and you can to us ovae's two hundred sheep so it sounds like they started off pretty well it would seem so and he had a lot of support many of his family are here but it doesn't always seem to have been the case so what happened well in the 14th century a lot went wrong for a great many people the Black Death struck and Seward's Lee we know was as badly hit as anywhere else if not worse so it actually turned life on its head because in 1366 they are given license to beg for arms that's terrible now you'd expect them to be giving arms to the poor okay but they're going out into the community to beg arms themselves well however poor the nun seemed to have been on paper is not reflected by the wealth of archaeology we're finding in the ground as in Paint Pots trench phase also got a wall and a little extra archaeological help thrown in which is very soon that's what you found beasts oh yeah yeah it was a bit Kleenex we'll talk a bit you can better than a we've done that were you saying much cannon dust oh yeah well we'll try make it a bit cleaner but it may take us a bit longer it's only the middle of day one and we've already got walls in both our trenches but it's too soon to tell whether they're part of the nunnery oh you got as well don't rush I know then this one might be the internal one that we extended a trench for these aren't the only clues we've got in the cold class garden for Grave slabs were found around here in the 19th century and we're cleaning them up to see if they're in their original position or were just moved here to form an ornamental garden feature Stevens also wondering whether his Victorian home might contain some evidence I'll tell you what Steve it's a gorgeous house but cool is that the width of a wall I think so that's some wall isn't it that must be older than Victorian mustnít I certainly think so me if you look at the balls around all of here it's certainly much thicker and we've got a couple of others I think in in their hair sort of similar thickness so this frame so I've called in Henri to identify and plot out any of the thicker walls which look suspicious to see if they line up with anything in the ground this very large walls is this one - that's the one yeah back in the garden trench one has now revealed loads of walls but it's proving tricky to untangle them Phil is there any structure there or can I just see rubble you can see rubble but there is structure within the rubble I don't need a straight line across there isn't there that's right I mean this is a very obvious line going that way which we think is the wall that John picked up on his geophysics there's also another nice edge going across there and you can see there's these stones here look how flat they are it's not as though they're rubble I think they're actually in a war so we've got walls but nothing yet to say they're part of the church but having cleaned up the graves it seems that they might actually provide an important clue fracture that white stuff down there is that stone that is stone we initially dug here to see whether these were actually burials in situ and if this was a sarcophagus and you can see this line it's correct running all the way along yeah it's a bit confusing so we thought that was the lid of the coffin yeah but actually digging down and see from here to here that's actually one huge slab of stone and then this line of stones down here this might actually be the start of a proper grave and if this just simply put on top to its market because one assumption was that this was a collection of stones put here in the 19th century wasn't it that have been acquired off the site now looks is this more structure to it than that presumably this ring of stones around the edge it's just a garden feature well again I think we assume that didn't we but it's it's looking quite substantial at the base of it now do you think that we'll end up by lifting those I think we might have to to see whether they actually 19th century in placement so we'll actually you know part of some sort of burial ground symmetry whatever it's an interesting little puzzle bit what you got well oh look at that have you got all of it or just a part of it no a little bit all of it oh oh yes Paul oh come on look at this yeah oh that's nice bubbly would you reckon all leather um so but in medieval them it's a great floor tile Tamizh got a some sort of pattern stamped in it it pays to be glazed off to get cleaned up for proper look but that's come from a nice posh building and obviously it's not the sort of thing you'd find a chicken shed or something is it medieval tiles and possible in-situ graves could these be the first signs that we've actually got the nunnery we still really need to understand the bigger picture of the site so the team begin to gia fears the rest of the garden to see whether there's evidence of other buildings which might give us a plan over in Paint Pots trench phase walls seem to be taking shape but others could say what if we've got there then well unless we got two walls coming in we've got a wall here and a wall here and possibly the intersection between these two walls and I don't know what's going on here this could be the internal error of those two wars so any dating evidence for us not really just a couple of piece of MIDI you were pottery in the Reston's Victorian potsherd you really need to see more of it I think don't you only have very clear what's going on I mean the good thing is we've put the trench in the right place I mean that's what we're worried about to start with yeah this is definitely where they tried to buried the cut so we ought to ask the owners you can add another meter or so on to this we've got paint pots wall in trench to a massive walls in trench one and a thick wall in the house but we've no strict nunnery template and there's a thousand ways they could fit together John's got his GF is for the rest of the garden but will it help or hinder us that looks noisy John yeah I mean you don't seem very happy about it just doesn't ring true this is the structure we think that maybe the church and the results are really clear very straight sharp wall lines in here though it's a bit more confused the anomalies aren't as clear they're not on a regular sort of alignment with these buildings but I mean almost every monastic site has got a later post medieval house on it with its gardens and and paths azar so we ought to expect that really we needn't 19th century got a late late 19th century Ordnance Survey map here there's there's that the house there and it shows that a layout of drives or paths coming route towards it from from the gate which is the the gate over there PUF came straight up there out of the house just looking at that and looking at the those features they look awful like that coming round or perhaps okay okay well if that's later we've still got things in there that don't fit with that don't necessarily fit with elastic plan but we should have a look and see what they are but that will have to wait until tomorrow it's the end of day one and everyone's still busy in their trenches a good day yeah lots of good stuff we're gonna do more work over where the cat was buried there's lots of walls there and the geophysics across this year there's giving us two or three really juicy targets for tomorrow what about this trench that fills me more this one here we're gonna have to extend a little because we need to see the corner of this building here look is it a church well we don't know yet and to do that we really need to know whether there's a step up over there whether there's an altar base whether there's a barrel in front of the altar do we even know this is medieval well yes we do we know it's 12th century because it's only producing coal since we possibly like this and nothing later this is lovely isn't it this tile from the circular fleet is what you'd expect to find around the church and the chapter house so what do we know about this area well I think what we think now is we we did think that this was an antiquarian collection of gray slabs just position in the garden but we now think that actually in situ and there's actually burials under them so tomorrow are we going to lift the one where Jackie's see if there's a skeleton under it if there is then presume these are in some sort of chapel or more tree enclosure attached to the church which is not what we expected at all so have we got a church have we got a nunnery we'll find out more tomorrow when we lift that gravestone beginning of day two here in Northamptonshire where we're looking for the lost memory of surds lee and yesterday we had a great day you see here in Phil's trench we've got this honking great medieval wall properly dated and over here we've got at least four potential Grave slabs and on the far side of this lawn over where Paint Pots buried Paint Pot who is the owners daughters cat another walls come up again probably medieval so John's been GF is in this whole area have you got a well we've got some great results in the resistance data but Stuart's come up with plans showing that this is actually a roadway associated with the house some of the other things are garden features so whereas we hope they were monastic and they're not really so what we've done is looked to the radar to go deeper into the ground there's Phil's trench on the corner of what well we hope is going to be the church and look at these wall lines that are now starting to emerge clear right angles going there what do you think they arm it well if this is the church and it's looking increasingly as if it might be then this could well be the cloister tacked onto the south side of it what were close does fall apart from being a passageway between the various buildings it's the main working anyway things like sewing and writing and things I've ever done so we really want to look at that so you see whether it's medieval or not so where would you put in a trench to try and establish that what we did really need to look at something like the corner there to see whether it is actually stonework because I mean these might still be garden features um where is that in the ground so possible Church over there possible cloisters over there but we still don't know so we've got great geophys results that seem to show wall lines all over the garden and we're putting our third trench across here to see if we've got the cloisters we might now have a tentative nunnery plan to work to with a possible Church the quadrangular set of ploy stirs running off to the south but this all depends on finding the archaeology in the ground so Matt's still digging in trench one to see if you can find evidence like burials or altar that will confirm we've got the Church we're also extending paint-pot straits to uncover more of the walls so that we can get an outline of this building and hopefully identify what it is soon so little is known about the nuns buildings Helen's learning what we know about their lives to see if that will help us understand the nunnery itself what do we know about sisters lungs well Dana life the nuns in one way would have followed the same routine as monks and really their lives would have been structured very much around worship in the Priory Church around that there would be time set aside for private devotions for reading that would have been in the climax yes that's would have been done in the cloister the other was manual labor now I suppose that could take a variety of forms and we have got some references to nuns engaged in in silk work into the embroidery in other cases where you get a nunnery that was a small and as poorest seriously we might even have found nuns being sent out into the fields Wow that was if they hadn't got servants or a substantial component of men in the monastery to do that kind of work but would there have been men within the nunnery there would yes I know that again varies but at the very least there would have been a chaplain a nun's priest who would have been here to say the mass and to administer to the spiritual needs of the nuns if you'd like to know more about the nuns daily routine and their habits log on to the time team website back in the garden it seems that John's geophys results were bang on target don't stop hey couldn't send in the wall not to stop that's got to be it Phil that is yeah I've done it there's any doubt about that John you've actually got here what two three courses a wall it's too early to tell whether this is the cloisters but over in trench one we finally had a breakthrough in our quest for the church so has Jackie seen this bone then Matt yeah she has and and it's human it's the base of the skull just there where'd it come from oh well it came from this this grave cut here was the only bit of human bone from it it's a pretty short grave yeah well has actually been cut by this later wall across there but that's not the earliest wall in the trench we start at this end the earliest wall is down here which is this cynical l-shaped thing along there yeah that's been robbed out so it's a bit messy though hang on so that means that the building came from where the house is now yes as far as here yeah so I'm outside and this grave is outside as well and then the second phase of building comes along there behind me back across it and that's when it's chopped the grave they probably didn't know it was there did they they just built straight over yeah it's running straight across it are we happy that it's a church I think we have to think it's a church it's a massive building it's on an east-west alignment it's got no domestic activity with it at all there's no fireplaces there's no animal bone no pottery and it's got barrels with it and he's on the side of a nunnery so in a funny way the fact that there aren't any finds is telling us that it's probably a church I think it's a real help in this case yeah so at last we've not only got the church but know that it was extended at the East End it's very close to the graves and since we now think they might be in situ they could be important burials so we're lifting one of them to see if we can find out who lies beneath one two three up not just a point okay my fingers all right so we've got graves a church and possible cloisters but how on earth does Paint Pots trench fit into the grand scheme of things failure - hell of a lot more impressive than yesterday cell isn't it I mean we've made the trench a lot bigger which has helped an awful lot you've got a big wall in to meet you we have got a massive wall but actually perhaps more interestingly we've got this lovely fireplace coming in you see this curve with burnt stone so it looks like there was a fireplace a chimney inserted there but this is on a completely different alignment to the walls over there they're more they're more sort of that direction this is like sort of 45 degrees well it's not really a problem the other area we think around the cloister somewhere here we're probably in the area of the inner court the separate entities were within the monastery and they don't have to be on the same alignments the whole thing sort of looks rather domestic and domestic is what the inner court really is this is where you have the guests house there are the priests louvre so really it's a case of moron picking and cleaning see what we've got this building seems to be smaller and more domestic than the structures in the center of the garden which could mean it's the priests house on the edge of the main nunnery complex with all the archaeologists busy in their trenches we've had to bring in the digger to extend trench 3 to see if we can expose more walls and tie down the cloisters cats got a lot time to go it's not only the archaeology that's revealing more about the nunnery the nuns left us five hundred years worth of historical documents which Ian's got to wade through they also left us their signature seal stamped on some of them this gives us a rare glimpse into their world and we're producing an exact replica of it to give to the family the legends very easy to read the inscription around the outside it's a seal of assent Mary of Seward Slee so that's the name of the nunnery and then inside it's got a picture of the Virgin Mary which is so crammed full of full of ikana graphical detail with so many meanings bound up in this for instance you'll see that the Virgin Mary they're seated on a throne and she has she's wearing a crown and that's an allusion to her as the Queen of Heaven then we've got here what looked like dragon heads yes she does be a strange indeed and there's a verse in the Psalms which says you shall trample the lion and the dragon underfoot did you realize is all this behind it to you from from and how long is that gonna take you to do that the whole thing is a good day's work that's being generous like you yeah when I work at Henry you got your work cut at it so Ian our engraver cracks on with the seal copying the image onto brass while Victor's creating an inventory of the nunnery buildings to put the stamp on he's basing it on documents from other monastic sites which itemized all their buildings and listed their dimensions but in order for Victor to complete his documents we need to uncover as much of the nunnery as possible so we've started to open a fourth trench to help us confirm that we've got the toy step digging next to the church this might also pick up the chapter house which was the central meeting place in the nunnery in the church's Celt we've not only got the building that some fantastic 12th century finds which date right back to the foundation of the nunnery looks like a nice lot of pottery here then yeah um the interesting thing about it is there's a lot of jug sheds um things like this I mean see it's got the rims II love a little a little pouring lip on it there normally you look at an assemblage like this maybe one shared in 20 or be from a jug at least half of these are jug sheds it's really unusual now looking at pottery somebody's over the years one of the things I've noticed is where you get assemblages associated with industry you get an awful lot of pottery associated with the consumption and drink it's hot it's hard heavy work you need plenty of liquids I just wonder if this is actually pottery that was dropped by the builders when they were actually building the church oh wow the fact that it's all found on just on the outside you start thinking of people building scaffolding and whoops they drop the gel off the scaffolding and there it is break yeah I mean this is a lot of these shirts joined together as well you know it's what we'd call a primary assemblage it's pretty much where it was dropped welcome settings where it remains so we've actually got pottery which might have been dropped by the builders when the church was being constructed while all the archaeological jigsaw pieces are fitting together nicely Ian's document troll has built up a tantalizing picture of the nuns and it seems they had some pretty bad habits you've got all these documents about the naughty nuns it's a bit like reading back copies of the Sun isn't it it's interesting stuff quite scurrilous the charges are that they have cast aside the restraint of all modesty and chastity are giving their minds to debauchery committing in damnable wise in public and as it were in the sight of all the people acts of adultery incest sacrilege and fornication seems to have inspired Victor of it well I certainly enjoyed doing this while that one looks remarkably like the back view of make a sterling you would have enjoyed actually and what about this one that looks like witchcraft we're in the middle of the Wars of the Roses what basically appears to have happened is that a local magnate brings accusations of witchcraft in the form of well effectively voodoo dolls the nuns are brought into it because there are said to be a number of effigies which they have displayed at the nunnery and they include effigies of the king and queen which would of course take it right to the top and cause a scandal do we think that there is any truth in in any of these allegations it's it's part of the the terrible pressures that society is under everyone is looking for a scapegoat we've got to remember why they're there they're there to pray for the souls of their patrons if you discredit the nuns you discredit the prayers being said for them for the patrons and as a result their own salvation is no longer assured so the poor old nuns are just innocent bystanders yes they're caught in the crossfire over at the graves the burials are still intriguing us since although Jackie's dug quite deep there's not much sign of a body so we found one toe bone do you think there's any much chance of us finding the richest barrister well that bone is in very good condition so somewhere down there waiting for us is the rest of the foot from which this came Jackie seems confident but while there's still lots more to do here Fay and Ian have almost sorted out Paint Pots trench and it's time to tell the girls right girls this is why you asked us here in order to see what was underneath where Paint Pot was buried what have we got well we've got the wall that you found whilst digging for Paint Pot so you've got this big wall here but we've also got another wall here and more interestingly we've got what we think is a fireplace here can you see the ready burning on the stones so that would have been your fireplace and here we've got your room which is probably where the priest would have lived what do you think I think it's quite likely we know that the would have been a priest somewhere on the site to look after the church where the nihms work the other side he were house and he's got to live somewhere and he's more likely to lead over this side of the site if he's got a little room to live in the little fireplace next to that the idea wouldn't it so girls do you want us to dig up the whole of the rest of the garden in order to prove it for sure or should we just say yes this is definitely where the priestly I need to get the whole garden okay we'll rip out the rest of the garden a six-day time scene nice idea but back to reality and we've only got another day to sort out the whole nunnery at the moment we've got a church and the priests house and by the graves Jackie's perseverance has paid off what have you got well we'd already got the grave curtain now and we had the coffin but now right down there this is quite a deep grave we have got the remains of the skeleton in situ looking at the bone itself I know it's an adult I can't talk quite how old it is and I because I can only see the knees I can't sex it because you can't sex somebody from their knees can we date it right sure oh yes poured have a look at that pottery that's come out of fulfil and he's dated to the late 13th to 14th century which is bang on the money that's great isn't it so out of the blue we've got something which is definitely very evil it's great and what we're gonna do is look at one of the other types of burials this is an earth cut grave in a wooden coffin that's a grave that has got a stone coffin inside it so we want to see how the cut either compare with each other but that's for tomorrow that's of tomorrow because it's the end of day two and although there's still loads to do I'm really confident we're getting to grips with our nannerine so we've got the church all the way along here we've got the cloisters down there the next thing is to move this entire spoil heap and put a trench in here in order to try and find the chapter house which mixes is the second most important building around here and we're gonna lift the lid of the sarcophagus to see who's buried under it but that's for tomorrow beginning of day three here in Northamptonshire where we're looking for the lost nunnery and as you can see things are really starting to kick off now we've already got the church down there lots of lovely masonry over here and started to put in a trench so we can locate chapter house and in this trench here Phil's looking for the cloisters you got a wall or rigging exactly well we've got the one end of it here turning round like this but the other side whoops is over here where John's got a very state wall but you can see if masses of clay in there we think it might actually be a clay built wall we've got two walls so we've got the cloister oh yeah but it's not as simple as that Tony things never are are they that is far too wide for the cloister Valley coming down like that it's it that ought to be what four or five feet this is this is much wider this must be the east range of the whole complex you know the one thing that was worrying me about this day was things were going so smoothly so we haven't got the cloisters after all well we know where they are but this isn't them if this is the east range though in the east range is the chapter house the second most important building the whole complex it's the sort of meeting room it's next to the church it's often where the priorities are buried and so we're gonna have a look for that up there and we find that there's a burial even without taking the burial out we'll know we're in these strange then but where's the cloisters I think we may actually have it Tony look here in the corner here look at this we've got this clay surface I think that could well be the floor of the plaster wouldn't take the nuns long to walk around that know whatever hello you walk all the way around one yeah so are we gonna extend this trench or put another one in to confirm that we don't need to do that because having found that corner we know the typical dimensions of them leave the chapters is up there this is the east rain then the the cloister alley the walkway would have been just in front of it we're just nicked one corner we got one square foot of it yeah but all that only works provided that is genuinely the chapter house correct that's today's challenge come back later so beginning of day three and our nunnery plan has changed slightly we now think that we've got the East range of buildings heading towards the church and a hint of the cloister next to it but before we can be sure we need to locate the chapter house so we're extending trench four to see if we can find any evidence of it no it's not medieval but we starting down that rubble layer over the last two days we've also been intrigued by the grave slabs and we've now started to lift the stone sarcophagus to see if we can find out if this is an important burial with only a day to go the site is a hive of activity Oh dog is an absolute poop she really is such a happy little chappy it's not my second name hold it and our trenches are beginning to produce a flood of fancy tiles is it dog or is it the flower oh nice just here can't you Hey well uh I'll see your dog I'll raise your dog in our fantastic days and they gotta be ashamed oh it is same Derby news definitely in the midst of all the excitement Amy and Papi's school have made a visit to catch up with the progress Christmases what are you doing you bought them all would you like to see where the nuns bodies are Tracy I brought you some some little friends anybody who doesn't want to see our old bones don't look anybody who does can you see there in there not a bit scary they're not scary at all morning of day three and the Nana is really coming together we've not only got remains of the church surviving in the ground but we can also tie it into the 19th century house have a look at this bloom this is Henry's plots of the walls inside the existing house and you can see that there's a very thick wall running down there and turning across this one in particular this wall here and this one line up with our church walls and they would give us the church that's about 90 feet long well if you remember on dy said we were looking for a building about 80 foot by 20 now this building has actually been extended we've got the original east wall and a literate east wall so we've got your 80 foot plus 10 that's right our standard module of 80 by 20 works here yeah yeah the other thing is now we can see the church wall on here if this is the west wall then we can see the area of the cloister to the south of the church in there which is about 45 feet in each stone yes and which is almost exactly the same as the measurements given in the surveys in sixteenth century so it looks as though the GF is the church walls and the building survey might tie together to produce a really clear plan of the nunnery so we're opening another trench which if we're right should pick up the west range but just as things are going so well trench for our hopeful chapter house trench seems to be completely empty you think that's natural think so yeah so then that is a surface is that it's not a so it's the surface it's a very funny that's the floor and well there's no root there's no floor tiles left on it somebody probably came and he took there the floor tiles and reuse them somewhere else yeah it's so pretty aren't they yeah they've just left us with a rubbish we hoped that trench four would reveal the chapter house to confirm that we've got the cloister and ranges but it looks as though any building that was here has been robbed out it's a setback and what's more the burials seem to be getting more complicated than we first thought this is so weird we thought we had a sarcophagus and we've been going down and down and down and gradually the sarcophagus has disappeared and now we should have a small pathway what's going on well what's quite interesting if you look at this this stone here and runs right underneath and you can see it coming out of the other side Oh what is that stuff Tyler yeah and it's starting to look now that like it's marking a double grave these stones are put in to seal the top of the grave as a joint thing and then these were put over to later date that over one side and that over the other how are we gonna find out if it is a double grave well we can't move that unfortunately but what I'm going to try and do is take a slot out of one end of this one that we can get to yeah and then we'll be able to see the relationship between the material that underlies that in relation to this it seems we've got a double grave which suggests the bodies are related so Helens keen to see if there's a chance the documents might be able to identify them people who might have been buried together there is a Robert de Pahlavi of course the whole family come from Paula's pari Pahlavi's peri nearby but he has a wife called Johanna and they're both described as the patrons of the house because they're of equal status they have R equals beta the documents record them both we might be able to put a name to the graves as well as identify the layout of the nunnery buildings nearly the end of day three and en our engraver is carving the final details onto the seal originally this would have authenticated the nuns documents and it seems to have been their personal logo since fantastically it's been replicated on our finds in the ground oh that is lovely isn't it I think what we've got here is a depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven absolutely and because remember the seal Priory sealed up here that put the two side-by-side Oh fantastic yes what we have yeah lovely really mark really is nice and as well in these Rose tiles here because the Rose is associated with the Virgin Mary yeah what are we going to do with the dogs yeah they don't sit very well is the Queen of Heaven and the Rose can you think of anything that well in the negative way really when Bishops visited nunneries they sometimes criticize the Prioress for having little dogs you know like our static women did so I suppose it's quite luxurious as well isn't it something to keep you warm I mean the interesting thing from the ceramicist point of view is I've had a good look at the fabric of these the player made from and I'd look at the glaze where it survived and I'm almost completely certain that these were made in Potter's buried just down the road now the interesting thing is Potter's bery hasn't got any real history of making decorated floor tiles and I'm just wondering if these are actually a bespoke batch that were made specifically for the nun yeah I think they've put in a special order yeah that means then that these could mean something really specific and we just don't know what it is the sense of humor mmm-hmm the tiles would have formed a magnificent floor but can we say anything about the building's they came from hours ago you told me this trench was virtually done and dusted but you're still here well it was virtually done and dusted and it still is virtually done dusted there was one thing I want to check God that was this east wall of this main east range and always said it was Cobb or Taylor framed well I was wrong what is it made from been out stone look at the size of that Robert wrench that is four stone you do not rob Cobb so which way would that wall have gone it's running this way North say this is the eastern wall of the eastern range and if you step into here we are now in the eastern range yeah and here in the corner we have the western wall of the East Room range and the north wall of the south range if that sounds confusing we've got both walls of the east range which appear to have been stoned built running up to the church and we've also located another wall which would have been part of the southern range come in and enjoy me in the cloister and we'll walk down the cloister and if you ever had any doubts about the return of it there it is goes along and turns back northwards proper job proper jobs so we've also got the West range which would have closed off the quadrangle surrounding an internal cloister as our picture of the nunnery falls into place victors finally able to gather together the exact measurements to fill in the blanks in his survey size of the cloister shows it a closed durably net in foot in foot about four efolio 45 are you measuring out for carpet it's set man you second rapido 9 over the past two and a half days Jackie tantalizing us as the story of these graves has changed and changed again Jackie what's the final outcome well as usual we've answered some questions but posed others what I'm quite sure is it that these two graves probably weren't cut together and I've got a nice edge along here and I've got a nice edge along here but they've been finished off together and the other thing we've got down here is a whole load of redeposited bone and that is not part of this grave so what that tells us is that this grave itself is cut through an early burial and I was just looking at this earlier and together with some of the bone it's like coffin that's Peter coffin how amazing do you think that might imply that this is a family gravesite and that various generations have been buried here one after the other yeah I think that's a really good idea and we do have a family that deep a fleas were patrons of the nunnery for generations and and we do have a candidate for a potential double burial Robert and Johanna pavely our patrons joint patrons of the nunnery in the late 13th century and we don't know they died together but even if they didn't you could easily dig a grave for one and then the other one could join them later on trying to use the same piece of space essentially it's the end of a great three days and our quest for the nunnery in the 12th century the nuns of Seward's Lee built a large stone church which they later extended ranges of buildings where the nuns worked ate and slept were built to the south surrounding an internal cloister a priest was housed just outside the complex where paint pot was Barry a series of burials were placed at the east end of the church and amazingly 500 years after the nunnery was lost we can even put a name to them over the following centuries the nunnery disappeared except for a few walls which remain within the family's Victorian home well I can't imagine that when you dug Paint Pots grave you had any idea the amount of chaos that would come out of it but I don't think the dig could have gone much better I think I've got everything that we wanted and we've got more besides and when I say more besides one of the things that we've got is an inventory of a Priory just like our one it says item Abedi chamber one other little chamber item the Prioress chamber with window glass 'add item other chambers called guest chambers and chimney in the bigger walls courtyard with slates and we're going to put a seal on it yeah we've made a replica of the seal of the Priory which Amy's got any look and we're going to put a stamp this would have been used to authenticate their documents originally we're going to do the same with this document here I think it's amazing that nearly 500 years after Seward's lien Anna Reed disappeared we've not only managed to find out so much about the buildings but also about the nuns themselves and the patrons who sponsored them oh look at that wonderful and all because of eight-year-old Amy her family and a cat called Paint Pot all good they are they may hold us well Tony Robinson is dishing the dirt on what the time team will be unearthing next to find out go to digital text page for 1o next tonight the Channel 4 News

Channel: Reijer Zaaijer

Views: 928,504

Rating: 4.8026567 out of 5

Keywords: time, team, full, episodes, season, argeologie, archaeological

Id: 7uVJQJayfqw

Length: 47min 55sec (2875 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2013