Time Team's FINAL FINDS III (Mills, Monks and Manors)

amazingly in the last hours of day three we seem to have found the most important parts of Arc rights Mill Mike you lot have been making me promise after promise for the past three days have you delivered we have Tony just just look at this it's deep it's massive isn't it I said to you that if we had the wheel pit we needed a whole eight foot wide and 15 foot deep and preferably 30 foot long I can't do the 30 foot long because that goes over there but that's eight foot wide and it's 15 foot deep in fact we haven't got to the bottom so we're missing the arch out of which the water would have flown but we've got other material in there for a slew skate we think that is the 1781 wheel Pit All right so if the wheel was in there what about the steam come over here where are we going just just to hear yeah do you remember these I do I remember them on the first day that lovely art it's one of the first exciting thing we found we now think this is the site of arkwright's 1781 steam engine he tried to use to power textile machinery but if that was his very first engine that was the one that didn't work properly it was so why is it still here well it was positioned in the middle of the mill so it could run the line shifting to pound the textile Machinery that way yeah it didn't work so what it looks like they've done is they've reused it for pumping water from the lower Reservoir through the well there and out onto a Spillway into channels running that way arkwright's Mill led the rise of the cotton Mills in Manchester making the city the Cradle of the Industrial Revolution Factory thickened the air with smoke and noise dominating the lives of the poor cried's Mill was also the site of innovative technology that we've managed to reveal in our three days this is how we think our Mill worked an artificial water system drove the Machinery an engine pumped water between the lower and upper ponds pushing water over a water wheel it was a radical system for its time but not as radical as the failed system it replaced in 1781 arkwright first installed a steam engine to drive the Machinery directly it didn't work but this technology did Inspire others who eventually succeeded and within decades had taken over and mechanized British industry how significant a fine is this ah this is this is Monumental this is what we've been looking for this is the first time somebody has tried to apply steam to textile Machinery so this isn't just archeology this is history this is where the modern world begins [Music] might there have been a chapel in this area here sometimes you pray for a day for Phil yeah we've come to have a look at what you're doing wow you will not be disappointed come and have a look at this fantastic but we're actually beginning to get an idea now of what the site is all about you know we had so much trouble finding whether this was a wall or not we've now got it continuing right over towards the Digger so it definitely runs that way and it's massive isn't it it is absolutely massive but you see on the corner we've got a wall coming across there it then returns around there so what we've got on the corner here is either a turret or perhaps a toilet uh Tower well you know they had to go somewhere didn't they you know right by the stream yeah right by the street remind you of Posh floor for a laugh exactly of course these tiles were original but they've been actually been relayed you can see that the pattern doesn't actually marry up but you can see I mean somebody obviously thought wow that has some nice tiles we'll have them you can't blame them hang on Phil if you're saying that this wall goes all the way back well to hear at least at least and could be much bigger well we're talking about a heck of a size for a building and very Posh with this plinth along the front so are we talking about a manor house or a posh residence well let's stick with the Posh residence and if the Abbott's going to come and live here and he's got a nice big building looking down the valley with either little turret in the corner or Louie in the corn that strikes me as really high quality accommodation exactly because it could extend under your house yeah I don't think I like the sound yeah this building certainly would have been very impressive bigger than anything we expected it had two ranges out the back and was huge in terms of size there is one good comparative site this is what it may have looked like King's Manor in nearby York it really is huge look at that lawn Barbara you hardly know we've been here would you uh just one slight downside this huge hole here but I'm afraid that's what happens when you get a 600 year old Abbott's house discovered in your Paddock how do you feel about that I think it's fantastic I had no idea the structure was so substantial uh it's far bigger than we ever imagined far bigger we also imagined a simple story for being a chapel with a few uh laborers houses and that would be it it's a bit more complicated than that [Music] the story of Chris and Barbara's Farm certainly is complicated for 400 years the monks of fountains Abbey ran it as a farm a grange in the 1300s they built a huge house and rented it out as a manor house in the late 1400s it's likely to have come back to The Abbey for the use of Abbott hubby in the 1600s Chris and Barbara's current buildings began to spring up as the older medieval buildings were knocked down their buildings bear the signs of the upheaval from 500 years ago when the monasteries were dissolved [Music] [Music] right now we're running out of time the villagers who invited us here are turning up to see what we've been able to discover about Harold's field and in match trench we're nearly ready to tell them we're down deep enough to find the floor of this building Outlast excellent what is it what they make Stone yeah it's Sunstone these are harder he's a limestone I guess strengthening it doesn't seem to be seems to be lower than the bottom of the wall there doesn't it the church and Manor House were probably built by the same stone masons but can we now say which bits of the manor house we've been digging up I think what we're looking at here is the doorway into a 12th century Tower I mean it is magnificent inside you've got the floor and then you go out through the doorway over the threshold that's that Big Stone down there that's a big slab there and then you're outside the building and then our trench turns right and goes down the hill and what the trench has done has cut through a range of buildings along that side which are later 13th century and I think probably are likely to be a stable block they've got a central sort of walkway going through we've got no later 13th century pottery from there anyway haven't we so it's not domestic no I don't think it is so we know these big Earthworks sketch long ago in Harold's field are not the remains of Harold Saxon hunting Tower and we can now reveal to the villagers what was under the lumps and bumps the main building we Unearthed was a Norman fortified Tower house likely to have been three stories high next to it there was a stable lock and these Earthworks are likely to be a courtyard with ancillary buildings set around it encircling the hill was this deep ditch and the impressive route in was across this Causeway with the creek on one side and a large lake of spring water on the other this was the home of the local Lord but not the center of power as it was in Harold's day because in Norman times their base was at chepstow Castle down the road but what I hoped for was something to link this field with Harold did we get any pre-conquest Pottery we've got some of the earliest medieval Pottery ever found in Wales really it's very exciting but is any of it proof that the Saxons were here we've just got a fragment out now it could well be you know pre-norman though almost certainly but which fits that it's a very small piece there is not too fanciful then to say that this could be from the time of King Harold no not at all because we know it's that much earlier in the sequence well it's not much but finding this from a time when there simply wasn't much Pottery feels like discovering the Holy Grail this is chaff-tempered wear and it's Saxon I can hardly believe it we can tell the locals that we found evidence of activity here just before the Norman conquest and for me it's proof enough that Harold was here a historian Sam is convinced that Harold would have built his hunting lodge on this important Hill intending it to stand out as a symbol of new power to anyone arriving in the creek below so basically what we've discovered is that this is a really classy place and if you didn't know it already you're really Posh people to live here [Music] hello my name is John Gator time team is fan funding by patreon this vital support helps us to make new episodes joining patreon gives you access to exclusive interviews 3D models and master classes 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Channel: Time Team Classics

Views: 12,035

Keywords: Archaeology, History, Education, Educational, British TV, British History, Tony Robinson, Phil Harding, John Gater, Stewart Ainsworth, Mick Aston, archeological dig, Channel 4, Time Team Full Episodes, Full Episode, Time Team

Id: rtuktHvPgf4

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023