Good morning!  Today I am going to be doing one of the newer episodes of the Time Team and this is a Time Team special.  I know I should be saving this for November and World War II, but I want to keep all my Time Teams together as part of the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  Anyway, today’s Time Team is called Digging for the Band of Brothers and it has a run time of 1:36:56.  As it is a special, it is also narrated by Tony Robinson and he is joined by one of the regular Time Team archeologists Matt Williams.

The Time Team is investigating the US 101st Airborne Division in Britain.  They have been invited by Operation Nightingale to Albourne, Wiltshire.  They will be working alongside service men and women from the US and the UK to learn more about the iconic Band of Brothers.  It is the 80th Anniversary of D-Day and the Time Team is going to help investigate Easy Company.  Easy Company was stationed in Albourne before the D-Day Invasion.  What will the Time Team find to further the Band of Brother’s story.

Albourne, Wiltshire would become home to the paratroopers as they prepared for D-Day.  Easy Company and other regiments would take up residence in a variety of building as they prepared and trained for the D-Day invasion.  The Easy Company men would have arrived here after their training at Tocca.  Their exploits would have been recorded in a scrapbook, which is shown in this documentary.  David Webster writes about when they arrived in the middle of the night at Albourne.

Operation Nightingale are looking for Nissan huts, these were where the ordinary soldiers stayed.  Officers stayed in private homes or pubs.  Although they were in Albourne for a year, they made a big impact on the village and would have left traces behind.  It was very cool to see photographs that had never been seen before.  One of the photos shows Forrest Guth on a bike and it was rumored that he buried the bike before D-Day.  In addition to the photograph, there were maps made of what the camp looked like when the soldiers were present.

John Gater is surveying the fields with magnetometry to assist in learning more about the camp.  Many of the initial finds are in a local history museum.  One of the finds that prompted the Time Team joining up with the dig was a dog tag from one of the men.  This was an episode that had a different pace to it because it furthers the story of the Band of Brothers.  Mark Lawrence, one of the actors from the series visits the dig and he brings a copy of the script for the heritage center.  He teases a trade.  He talks about his experience in the film.  There was a discussion on the impact of the TV series on the area.  A section of stables was moved to the museum at Toccoa, Georgia.  What else does the Time Team discover about the Band of Brothers?  What other finds are made on this dig?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

It was cool that David Kenyon Webster’s words were used to help narrate the episode.  The photos were very good.  This went into many of the unknown stories of Easy Company. I rather like Tony narrating how Sobel got replaced.  It was cool to also see the actors from the TV series get in on the dig.  I also enjoyed seeing the tree where Easy Company soldiers carved their names.  I wonder what the descendants thought about the dig.  I found the bike story very funny.  I hope there will be another special about the Band of Brothers from Time Team.

It was cool to see Matt step up and narrate the episode.  I would have appreciated it if Gus also participated in this episode and then we would have the Matt-Tony-Gus team narrating Time Team.  This was a very well-done episode, the archeology and other facts about the Band of Brothers were interspersed in the episode.  I would definitely show this episode to a history class: both a US history and an American history class.

Good morning!  I hope you are doing well and am enjoying the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  This is an episode from series 16.  The Time Team is going to excavate a medieval village called Ulnaby.  The episode is called The Hollow Way and it has a run time of 48:52.

The Time Team is investigating a deserted medieval village.  It is a landmark in the Durham Countryside.  These remains have been photographed, surveyed and written about.  For the first time, these remains are going to be excavated and Time Team is going to do the job.  Why was this village deserted?  What secrets will this dig reveal?  What will the Time Team learn about the best preserved remains in Britain?

The Ulnaby Farmhouse is the home of the deserted village.  The challenge for the Time Team is to determine where to dig because the village site is big.  There are many lumps and bumps in the area.  The Time Team will have to rely on Stewart and landscape archelogy to determine where to dig.  English Heritage spent time recording all the lumps and bumps of the site.  This is the first time the Time Team will be going into a dig knowing more about the site than normal.

Geophysics is off and away on the site and it does not take long before a house is identified.  Trench one goes in on this house site.  The Time Team is also turning to the local records to see what they can reveal about this village site.  What will these local records reveal about the town?  Was this a Viking Village?  When was this village established?  Was there a manor here? Back in Trench One, Phil is looking for a house that may be made from turf.  Trench two goes in soon after trench one, Mick is focusing his attention on some other feature of the site.  This trench is going over another possible house platform, which may be from a later time than in Phil’s trench.  Tony is not pursued and would appreciate some further dating evidence.

Tony catches up with Mick about that dating evidence and Mick draws out a layout of the town.  Excitement is building in trench one, and Phil has discovered something in his trench.  Phil picks on John Gater for saying that there would not be a stone in this trench.  Phil concludes that the stone in his trench is forming a stone wall.  Perhaps this is the hints of a house.  There was plenty of laughs in this section.  In trench two the same thing is being discovered. 

The documents are proving to be a challenge.  However, from the tantalizing tidbits, it is clear that Ulnaby was an agricultural area.  In the meantime, Trench Three goes in under Stewart’s direction.  Was this one of the last cottages in the village?  It looks like the Time Team is trying to determine the three different time periods of the village.  Tony is pooh-poohing it call and is looking for dating evidence.

Eventually, Phil comes through with a piece of worked bone.  Will this evidence make Tony happy?  I would say so.  Stewart and Mick walk the field together and discover the remains of an old roadway.  It is nearing the end of day one- and the-Time Team search has just doubled.  All they can really do is geophysics the site.  However, the results are not good because the field has been plowed over the years.  So the Time Team will focus on the main field, the time.  What will the Time Team discover about this site?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

I was a little bit nervous that the Time Team had bitten off more than they could chew with this dig.  However, as the dig progressed you can see more and more evidence and it was very well preserved.  Tony was particularly funny during this episode.  There was a lot of debate in this episode as to what some of the evidence meant which was particularly enjoyable with Tony’s narration.  I would show this to a history class and a science class because of the debate on what the dig was showing.

Good morning, and I carry on with the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  This time I am pulling a special Time Team from 2005 from the Time Team Official Channel.  It is called the King of Bling and has a runtime of 50:37.

The Time Team is heading to Prittlewell, near Southend in Essex.  They are going to be looking at an important Royal Saxon Tomb.  During road construction, an impressive load of Saxon objects was discovered, leading to an initial excavation.  A nearly intact wood-lined burial chamber was discovered and its contents were comparable to similar discoveries made in England.  Who was this person?  Why would he have so many impressive finds?  The Time Team is on a case.

Construction work on a road in Prittlewell was going to be routine.  However, what was discovered as a result of construction changed things.  Anglo-Saxon artifacts were discovered on this site.  These objects were well preserved including drinking bowls, gold-rimmed cups, other gold objects, and fine jewelry.  It was a grave, unlike any others that were on the site.  As the dig continued, it was clear that this was an intact burial.  The finds were stunning, as the dig continued there needed to be security and the dig had to continue twenty-four-sevens.  What was discovered had to be kept secret.

The body and the objects would have been put in a wooden chamber.  The wood would have eventually collapsed, filling the chamber with dirt.  Not much of the body remained only a few teeth.  The objects themselves would end up in a museum.  Eventually, it was theorized that the person in this burial was a ruler.  However, this caused controversy in the archeological world.

Word would slowly spread amongst select archeologists.  It was clear that this was a significant burial and one of the most important in English history.  Slowly but surely, the finds were moved from the tomb to a conservation department.  Still, the discoveries kept coming.  The finds were carefully examined.  One of the finds included a musical instrument “fit for a king.”  The instrument would have been a symbol of wealth and status.

Identifying the man or the king who was buried in the chamber would be a long way off.  Two months after the evacuation, the announcement was made that a royal grave was discovered.  The goods that were discovered show that he was wealthy enough to import goods.  However, the finds could not identify the man in the tomb.  In the conservation lab, the finds were carefully conserved and other finds were revealed.

Tony catches up with Mick to learn more about how to identify someone from a period that not much is known about.  Mick is thrilled with the challenge.  Archeologists and historians are invited on certain days to take a look at the grave goods and come up with a theory.  Each grave good was carefully selected and laid out to send a message about the person.  Helen Geake was thrilled with the discovery and she talks about the grave itself.  Perhaps it was laid out in a way so people could pay their respects to the dead before the grave was sealed.  However, who was the man?  The specialists concluded that he was a leader of men.  What would the historical record say about this man?

The grave goods have led archeologists to compare what was found in other finds in the graves of kings from the same period.  The grave goods that were discovered at Sutton Hoo, for example, were as rich as the grave goods found at Prittlewell.  Would the gentlemen in Prittlewell consider himself a king?  Perhaps he was a king, and he would have been a smart king.  His kingdom was at the mouth of the Thames and he would have had sway over his fellow kings.  Who was this king?  When he would have ruled?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

This is a very different Time Team, but it features archeology that was done by other archeologists.  The Prittlewell find was very fascinating and it was neat to hear about the secrecy that surrounded this dig.  I would show this to a history classroom.

Hello!  The Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continues on and this time the Time Team is going to Lincoln’s Inn.  Lincoln’s Inn is not an inn, but the center of legal London.  This is an episode from Season 16 and was pulled from the Chronicle YouTube Channel.  This episode is entitled Called to the Bar.  The episode has a run time of 48:46.

Instead of a muddy field, the Time Team is heading into London and the surroundings of Lincoln’s Inn.  They will be donning their best wigs and suits to do this dig!  The buildings that make up the world’s oldest and most distinguished law societies may hide a secret.  The Time Team has been brought in to look for a 13th Century Palace that may have belonged to King Henry III’s Lord Chancellor.  Will the Time Team find the remains of this palace?

Generations of lawyers have these lovely buildings.  There are many different styles of buildings in this are of London.  It is the legal center of London.  These buildings hide the earlier building that dated back to King Henry III.  Tony talks with Uncle Phil and John Gater.  Tony quips that this will be a one day dig.  Hedley Swain, is the site director, believes that Time Team can do it.  However, finding the right spot to dig will be a challenge because of the restrictions.

Tony meets up with Elaine Chalus to learn as to why everyone thinks there is a palace on the site.  IT would have been the home of the Bishop of Chichester and he was one of the most powerful men of the day.  The house he built, would have put a mark on the legal community.  The records show that there was a lavish house on the site.

However, the search for his house has not even begun.  It has taken a great deal of time for Phil to decide where the trench should go.  There are possible wall lines in the geophysics results.  Trench One will go in as soon as they get permission from the gardener.  Eventually, that permission is granted and the trench goes in by hand.  They will have to be careful to avoid tree roots.  The trench is near one of the oldest buildings on the site.  Perhaps when this building was built anything remaining from the Bishop of Chichester was destroyed.  This is where Helen Geake and an architectural historian come to examine the buildings on site.

Phil has discovered some brickwork in his trench, however, it could be modern.  Trench two goes in nearby.  The Time Team is going next door to the Tudor Building and dig in the herb garden.  Trench three goes in at this site.  However, things are taking extra time.  Phil has found a more modern wall.  What was this wall?  It is confusing to Phil.  Helen helps clarify what the wall could be.  Unfortunately, this wall is not what they are looking for.  It was from a Victorian courthouse.  Trench Two is providing demolition rubble and pottery.  In the herb garden, they are finding some more walls from the Victorian period.  However, they are finding a wig curler.  Day one is not starting very well.  Will the Time Team change their luck on day two?

Day two kicks off with Phil wanting to expand his trench.  However, some geraniums need to be moved again.  Phil with a sly smile says that since they got permission to move them once, that extends to moving them again.  Tony does not like his dodgy logic with over two hundred lawyers checking out the digs.  On day two the focus shifts to Lincoln’s Inn Fields an undeveloped part of the Lincoln’s Inn.  The lawyers have been aggressive in preventing development on this track.  So was the town house in this field?  What else will the Time Team find?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

I liked the quip Uncle Tony made at the start of the episode that the Time Team had two hundred lawyers looking over their shoulders.  This was a very complicated dig with a variety of restrictions that the Time Team had to deal with.  This episode had up and downs and would be an episode I would show to a history class.

Good morning!  Good evening or good afternoon, depending on when you are reading this.  I am pulling an episode from Season Nine’s Time Team.  I am glad to be discovering more and more episodes of the Time Team.  The Time Team is investigating a monastery where both monks and nuns lived together.  The run time for this episode is 49:47 and it is called the Naughty Monastery.

The Time Team is heading to a military intelligence base at Chickstands to explore the site of a thirteenth-century monastery.  There is a catch to this monastery: it is unisex.  The site belonged to the Gilbertines, a British order known for having both nuns and monks living together.  The Time Team is going to be investigating for clues about the nun’s cloister and the other monastic remains.  As they dig, they may have discovered a possible staircase as well as a hospital area.  How did the monks and nuns manage to live together on the site?

Tony opens the Time Team with some intelligence gathering and introduces the Time Team episode.  Monks and Nuns living together would have been a scandal.  How would they have done it?  Mick and Tony meet in front of one of the surviving buildings from the surviving monastery.  Mick is thrilled to study a monastery site.   Geophysics begins on the site.  One man is impatient to learn what the Time Team can find out about this monastery.

Chris Holtom, the man who invited the Time Team, talks about what they hope to learn about this monastery site.  English Heritage has joined up with the dig and the Time Team will have to be careful with what they dig.  Trench one goes in over a feature that could be the nun’s house.  Mick however disagrees and thinks the nun’s cloister is in another location on the site.  Geophysics works in this location as well.

Trench one proves to be disappointing, as natural features are discovered.  Stewart is interested in another site in a nearby field.  Aerial photography shows something in this field.  Perhaps there are remains on this site too?  Trench two goes in a courtyard and another trench goes in nearby.  Another trench goes in over a potential burial site.  When a water pipe was put in the area in 1969, the initial dig disturbed a burial.  On top of a burial, there were tiles discovered when the water pipe was put in.

Unfortunately, the second trench has no archaeology in it and the army is helping the Time Team backfilling it.  Uncle Mick believes that this is good news, however, Uncle Tony is skeptical.  It feels so disappointing that there is nothing found on Day One, will the Time Team manage to turn things around?  One of the diggers, Jenni Butterworth, will live as a nun for twenty-four hours, in a historic recreation.  Robin shows Jenni what she has to wear and talks about the experiment.

It was at the end of Day One when the Time Team discovered some walls and other archeology.  However, Mick does not believe that this was the nun’s cloister.  Uncle Mick thinks it belongs to the hospital.  So what did Uncle Phil discover in his trench?  Day Two starts with Tony summing up Day One’s activities.  On day two another trench will be opened up and the Army base has given the Time Team permission to dig under some cobblestones.  Tony quips “I would not have given us permission.”  Has the Time Team discovered the hospital?  Will the Time Team find the nun’s cloister?  How will Jenni handle the experiment?  Will geophysics get some different results?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more about the Naughty Nuns.

I was pleasantly surprised that Robin was in this episode because I did not think that he was in later seasons.  It was cool to see the historic experiment and I enjoyed hearing Jenni’s reflections on this experiment.  The story was very good with the twists along the way.  This would be a good Time Team episode to show to a science class because there were so many theories as to where the nun’s cloister was.  I would also show this to a history class and use it for research purposes too.

Good morning!  The Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continues and this time I am throwing it back to an episode of the Time Team from season four.  Once this gets done, I will have to find three more episodes for season four and then I will have season one, two, three, and four done.  My next goal, if I get done with season four this year is to get season five!  Tony has plenty of hair in this episode!  The Time Team is looking at a graveyard from an Eighth Century Scottish church.  The episode is simply called Eight Century Church and has a run time of 51:31.

Large and intricately carved gravestones have been found in a Glasgow Graveyard.  These gravestones date back to the Dark Ages.  Some tombstones associated with the Vikings were discovered as well.  Who was buried and why were they buried her?   Archeologist Anna Richie helps the Time Team make sense of the site.  Was this the site of an early Christian burial?  The Time Team is going to investigate possible connections to Dumbarton Rock and Strathclyde. 

Carenza and Tony take to the helicopter to get a jumpstart on the site.  They comment on the shape of the church and how it looks in comparison to the landscape.  This site may be one of Time Team’s more difficult sites.  Geophysics is working on the site.  At least eleven generations have been built in this graveyard.  There have been interesting headstones discovered and now Time Team wants to detangle the history of this churchyard.

Unfortunately, Uncle Mick has broken his leg looking for a Holy well, so the Time Team is joined by Anna Richie.  She is an expert on the Scottish Dark Ages.  She talks about the unusual shape of the churchyard.  It is in a pear shape instead of a square shape.  She talks about how important the site is and that many gravestones were discovered.  She talks about what the Time Team should be looking for.

The first trench is opened near the path and it is going to be a delicate operation because the Time Team does not want to disturb any current remains.  The Time Team is going to look for the earliest church that stood at the site.  Tony and Anna talk about the earliest gravestones that were found on the site.  Many of the gravestones were carved to look like houses.  The Viking gravestones were exclusive only to Britain.  They would have resembled the long houses they had left behind.  Then another gravestone is examined.  Tom Davidson Kelly, the current pastor of the church gets in on examining those gravestones.

Over the weekend there will be an experimental archeological aspect to this.  The Time Team is going to carve a stone to add to the collection.  In the meantime, the first old burial is discovered.  The body is found in a jumble at this site.  The body is over two hundred years old so it will be documented and the dig can go on.

Tony, Carenza and Robin meet together and examine the local maps of the area.  They were looking for a hill with a ditch surrounding it.  This would show that this was an important area for ceremonies.  The Time Team is going to dig the biggest trench, so this area will be fenced off.  It will take half a day to dig to get to the layer they need to get to, but hopefully the archeology will be excellent. 

In the meantime, Uncle Phil talks with a local archeologist about another site in the graveyard that may have been a grand entrance to a ceremonial hill.  Who was buried at this site?  Why were they buried here?  What will the Time Team find about this site?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

I really missed Mick in this episode, and it would have been interesting to see how he and Anna would have gotten along.  His commentary was really missed.  This was rather a slow episode to start with little tidbits here and there about what the Time Team was digging.  However, I would be skipping showing this episode to a history class.

Good morning!  The Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continues and this time I am looking at a Time Team special the Journey to Stonehenge.  This is an episode that is on the Time Team official channel and Tony introduces it.  Today I am going to look at a Time Team Special, it is called Journey to Stonehenge and has a run time of 49:50.

This time the Time Team is working with some archelogy students excavating Durrington Walls.  The Durrington Walls are Britain’s biggest neolithic henge and dwarves Stonehenge.  Mike Parson Pearson talks about his theory that there was a connection between the two sites.  The cremated remains of the dead would have been thrown into the River Avon to join their ancestors.  These remains would travel to Stonehenge and join their ancestors in the afterlife.  The discovery of a curved avenue leading from the henge to the river helps provide evidence for this theory.

Tony walks the Durrington Walls and introduces the dig.  He talks about how archeologists have been testing the theory that Stonehenge and Durrington Walls were linked by life and death.  The Durrington Walls was a large ring that had two entrances.  A group of archeologists are working on this site.  Tony talks with Mike Parsons Pearson about henges.  Henges were the name for an enclosure meant to keep something in.  They would have been built during the Third Millennium.  Wessex, where Stonehenge and Durrington was a massive construction site during this time.  What was going on during this time?

Durrington Walls was unlike any other henge in the area.  There were a variety of finds discovered including arrowheads, pottery, and other unusual finds.  For four weeks, ten different universities are working on this site over a four-week period.  Mike talks with Mick about the chalk banks that were found.  These chalk banks would have been a challenge to dig during the Neolithic period.  The henge would have been a bright white gleaming wall of chalk.  It would have been massive with a deep ditch.  Why would the Neolithic people carve such a henge?

Tony and Mick talk about Durrington Walls and its potential purpose.  Mike has developed a highly unusual idea: the Durrington Henge was a place where you transitioned into death.  The cremated remains would have been tossed into the River Avon.  This ceremony would have happened during the Midwinter, and there would have been feasting taking place.  It does sound highly unusual, but there may be evidence for this theory.

A huge trench is opened over the entrance to Durrington Walls and the archeology was amazing.  Many objects were discovered.  There were cooking pots, animal bones, and arrowheads discovered.  Much of the rubbish was neatly buried, however, some things were not neatly buried.  Another trench is opened in another area of the Durrington Walls and this trench is over a wooden henge.  Uncle Phil talks with the archeologist who is overseeing this dig.  There was a dig in the 1960s over this wooden henge and discovered the wooden posts.  The dig this time around is looking to find some dating evidence to see when this wooden henge was built.

Durrington Walls is close to Stonehenge and they are linked together by the River Avon.  Tony takes a short tour of this river and talks about how the River Avon was the start of the journey for the dead into the afterlife.  Tony talks with Mike about the evidence for this theory.  Mike has been looking for an avenue that leads from Durrington Walls to the River Avon, like the Avenue from Stonehenge to the River Avon.  Stonehenge has been associated with death, so what would have been the equivalent of life in Durrington Walls?  Mick talks with Mike about the theory of the place of the dead and the place of the living.  What else does this special talk about Stonehenge?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out!

This is an excellent episode talking about the further archeology that is being done on Stonehenge.  Uncle Mick and Uncle Phil are good narrators.  I rather enjoyed Mike’s contribution to the episode as well.  I would recommend showing this to a history class.

Good morning!  Good afternoon!  Good evening!  Depending on when you are reading this, I hope that this day finds you well.  I am continuing to work on the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team and am working on an episode from Season 16.  Today the Time Team is looking at a castle that may have come from a little-known period of English history known as the Anarchy.  The run time for this episode is 48:46 and is called Anarchy in the UK.

A waterside field is beside the oldest bridge the River Thames in Oxfordshire.  For centuries people have been drawn to this area.  It was the perfect position for an assault as evidenced by some earthworks on the site.  A pair of local archeologists have geophysics the site and invited the Time Team to dig it.  The Time Team is looking to discover the remains of a castle that was buried under the grass.  Could this be the castle of Queen Matilda?

Radcott would be the last place a castle would be.  However, it was a strategic point in English History.  A local pair of archeologists have geophysics the site and may have discovered a castle.  Could this belong to the English Civil War?  Or was this castle from the older period?  Did it come from World War II?  Did this castle belong to Queen Matilda?  These local archaeologists did a dig and found the remains of a wall, however, one wall does not make a castle.

Mick goes over the geophysics results too, and feels like the Time Team is spoiled for choice when it comes to putting in a trench.  Phil puts in the first trench over a feature that could have been a Norman tower.  The results also show other strange features in the ground that may have been part of a Norman Castle.  John Gater and his geophysics team do more geophysics on the site.

As trench one goes in, Phil makes the first find a piece of pottery.  However, this piece of pottery could come from the Roman period.  Phil quips that this was a medieval program.  More and more pottery shards continue to come up in this trench.  In the meantime, Tony learns more about Radcott and learns about Stephen and Matilda.  They would have been two grandchildren of William the Conqueror.  They would have fought for the throne of England.  Radcott would have been caught in a vicious civil war.  Perhaps Matilda would have built a castle at this site.

Phil continues to discover more and more pottery in his trench.  As the dig continues Phil may have hit a castle wall.  As Phil continues to scrape, it is clear that there is a wall in the first trench and it’s only midday.  Trench two goes in over what Mick concludes is the Gatehouse.  Stewart has his input as to where to put in this trench.  Trench two goes in over this gatehouse feature.  However, one thing puzzles Tony, if this is a castle, why does it now show up in the local records?  Mick and Tony talk about why it did not show up in the records.  Radcott was the site of a battle during the English Civil War, so over the years this history may have been confused with its Norman history.

Phil’s trench continues to bring up the finds.  There have been many pottery finds in three hours.  Many of the pottery finds have come from the 12th Century.  There have also been big chunks of Roman pottery that have been discovered.  There was a chunk of a Roman heating system was discovered.  This makes the Time Team reevaluate the geophysics.  Perhaps this was part of a Roman villa at one time.  There was set a of Roman remains that The Time Team initially thought was part of a Chapel, but was this part of a Roman villa instead?  Trench three goes in over this feature.  What will the Time Team find in this trench?  Was this castle part of the Anarchy?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

This was a rather neat episode about the Anarchy and an unknown castle.  Tony and Mick were both funny during this episode.  I would show this episode to a history class.

Good morning, good evening or good afternoon depending on when you are reading this!  The Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  This episode is looking at Scargill Castle and has a run time of 48:48.  It is called The Wedding Present.

A pair of archeologists are getting married, and what does the soon to be husband gets his soon to be wife?  He buys her a wreck of a castle for a wedding present.  Over the years, the surviving remains of the castle the gatehouse were lovingly restored.  The castle is located in the wilds of County Durham, formerly owned by the Scargill family.  The husband and wife team have done what they can with learning about the history of the castle.  Now Time Team is going to excavate the castle for three days.

Niall Hammond and his wife Caroline Hardie were the pair that restored the castle and have done what they can with the castle.  They have called Time Team to help them further the castle’s history.  Trench one and Trench two immediately go in under the watchful eye of Phil.  However, Mick is going to pour water on the theory that the castle was an actual castle.  He believes that it is a fortified manor house.  Richard K. Morriss, a historic buildings expert, talks about the features of a fortified manor house and points out that the gatehouse is rubbish and would not have been good for defense.

The initial trenches are showing that the complex was substantial, but was it substantial enough to be called a castle?  The Time Team will have to further its investigation.  Much of the remain building was built with fine stone and the Scargill Family was wealthy enough to carefully build their home.  Tony arrives to the rubbish gatehouse and points out the features that make Richard call it a rubbish gatehouse.  Caroline despairs that Richard is calling it rubbish and Tony quips that it will be the shortest Time Team.  The Gatehouse was built in the 1500’s, which would not have been built by the Scargill family.

Richard, Phil, and Mick go over another wall.  Richard points out the features that would have dated back to the Tudor times.  Trench three goes in in this area to see if there are Tudor remains.  However, the Time Team was supposed to look for the Medieval period.  What is going on with this castle?  Will the Time Team find Medieval remains?

At lunch time, Tony does some catching up in the incident room: the gatehouse and the Time Team is scattered over the three floors of the gatehouse.  Helen Geake and Michael Prestwich talk about the first short mention of the Scargill Castle in the Domesday Book.  The discussion shifts to the Scargill family who eventually owned the castle for the time.  Unfortunately, the plans of the castle have been lost to time.

In Trench three, Phil has discovered the hearth of the Tudor Fireplace.  In the meantime, a graphic recreation of the home is being worked on.  Tony catches up with Fay in the first trench while Mick and Niall catches up with Phil in the third trench.  Mick is showing his humor talking about hearing Phil’s happy scrapping.  Niall theorizes that this area had a defensive tower, and the geophysics results are showing a substantial wall in the area.  So Phil will just extend his trench instead of putting in another trench.  Back in trench one, there are some smaller finds that are being discovered amongst the huge walls.  This site is proving to be quiet the conundrum for the Time Team.  Will the Time Team sort out the wall situation?  What is geophysics revealing about the site?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

Tony is on fire with his humor in this episode, especially when he found out that the castle was not a castle but a fortified house.  I rather enjoyed how Richard put it that the gatehouse was rubbish, I laugh out loud.  The story was very well done and there were lots of walls that the Time Team had to deal with.  I would show this episode to a history class and a science class because there were so many hypostasizes to test out with this castle.

Good morning, Thirty One Days of the Time Team continues to press on for October.  I am continuing  with a season eight and an episode on Canterbury.  In fact, this episode is going to tell three different stories from this medieval time.  The Time Team in three days is going to excavate a Roman Pagan Town, a Medieval Factory, and a Medieval Friary.  The run time for this episode is 48:53 and it is called Three Tales of Canterbury.

Sandi Toksvig and Liza Tarbuk, rookie archeologists, join up with Tony and the Time Team.  The Time Team is going to tell three different stories about Canterbury.  The first story involves pagan temple.  Then the Time Team is going to excavate a Medieval Friary and perhaps come face to face with the pilgrims that would have made their way to Canterbury.  Finally the Time Team will learn about a medieval factory.  What will the Time Team find in three days?  

Canterbury was an important city in Medieval History.  It was a place where pilgrims journeyed to.  Phil, Carenza, Mick and Phil talk about what is going ton with this dig and eventually they meet up with Sandi Toksvig and Liza Tarbuk.  The challenge is to uncover as much as they can in three days and the Time Team is going to do it live.

The first trench will go in over a Roman Temple site.  John Gater goes over the geophysics results.  Phil will have to make his way through some concrete to put in the first trench.  Liza heads on over to the bookstore to learn about the Roman remains that were found.  The bookstore was over a former Roman bath.  It was cool to see the Roman bath, the Roman theater, and the Roman House all right at Canterbury.  Back in the yard, Uncle Phil has discovered gravel where the Romans would have walked to enter the temple.  An iron age coin and Roman pottery is discovered at this site.  What is the significance of this area to the temple?  What else does Uncle Phil find in his trench?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out!

The second trench goes in over the Medieval Factory site.  This factory made roof and floor tiles.  The geophysics results show a giant blob in the middle of the field.  Trench two goes over this blob and trench two goes in by hand.  However the ground is hard, and so a digger is called.  The diggers get potential bigger and finally the trench is dug.  Immediately, bricks are found that indicate that there was a kiln on the site.  During this section there is a bit of experimental archelogy making tiles.  What will be discovered on this site?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out!

The third site that the Time Team is going to excavate is the Medieval friary.  The geophysics results show some fascinating wall anomalies and trench three goes over those walls.  Over the three days, the Time Team wants to find as much as they can so they can recreate the friary.  Immediately floor tiles are discovered and it is a black and white checkered board floor.  A second trench in this friary site goes over the hospital site.  One of the most interesting finds that were made at this site was a beautifully carved knife handle.  What else will be discovered at this site?  What do these digs tell us about the history of Canterbury?  Tune into the rest of the Time Team to find out.

I was nervous about this episode, because I did not think the Time Team could dig three separate sites in three days.  However I was proven wrong and they handled the digs very well.  This episode was divided up into three different chapters for each of the different stories.  The episode would show all three days at one section, then the next section would do the same thing, and the final section the same thing.  It was an interesting way to do it.  It kept everything together.  This was a very good episode and the story of Canterbury had a good flow to it.  I liked the experimental archeology part of it too.  This would be an episode that I would show to a history classroom.