Good morning!  We continue with Tony Robinson’s Time Travels in this episode:  In Cold Blood.  Tony arrives in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954.  He is exploring a trial of two young ladies.  These ladies were so obsessed with which each other they would kill to stay together.  The two ladies were named Juliet and Pauline.  Pauline’s mother wanted to move out of New Zealand, separating the two girls.
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The pair hatched a plan to murder Pauline’s mother.  They lured her to a place outside of Christchurch, where the mother was brutally beaten to death.  When the trial started, the courthouse was packed and the locals were curious to see who could commit the murder.  The diary of the girls was read during the rial.  On August 29, 1954, the girls were found guilty of murder, sentenced to five years in prison, and never saw each other again.  They were sentenced to prison.  After they got out of prison, they managed to live productive lives.

Tony then arrives in Australia and explores the shipwreck Batavia.  The Batavia was going to Australia in 1629 from Holland to look for spices.  Unfortunately, the ship went off course and wrecked off the west coast of Australia.  Events spiraled out of control after this wreck.  The captain took a few of his men and went to Jakarta for help.  This left the survivors without a leader.  A man named Jeronimus Cornelisz took charge.  He sent off a group of men to look for food.  He left the men behind and took control of the island.  What ensued was murder and misery.  Many of the passengers were massacred.  Eventually, the captain returned and Jeronimus Corenlisz was hanged.  A piece of the ship Batavia is in a museum.

Tony goes to Sydney and explores the year 1790.  Sydney harbor was bristling with tension.  The governor Captain Arthur Philip was under order to befriend the Aboriginal people.  However, the Aboriginal people avoided the colony.  Anyone who strayed from the colony in Sydney was killed by Aboriginal people.  Arthur decided to kidnap an Aboriginal person.  He kidnapped several more Aboriginal people.  Eventually, tensions grew between the settlers and the Aboriginal people.  The Aboriginal people attempted to assassinate Arthur Philip. 

Captain Arthur Philip did not want the colonists to retaliate against the Aboriginal people.  They came to the negotiation table.  A meeting was arranged and the Aboriginal people were welcomed into the settlement.  Unfortunately, this peace would not last as the men went and explored Australia.  Tony then learns about John Horrocks.  He was a man who wanted to make his mark on history.  He was a farmer but then decided his forte was exploring.  Horrocks then imported a camel.  Camels are normally sweet-tempered but the camel Horrocks imported was ill-tempered.  He bit the head of the tent master.  Horrocks discovered a bird that he wanted to stuff.  Harry shifted and knocked the gun, shooting Horrocks.  Horrocks died twenty-three days later.  He ordered the camel shot and it took two bullets to kill the camel.

Tony then goes to 1933 and the sporting pitch to explore the most brutal action that occurred in sporting history.  A touring English cricket team was playing a game against the Australian cricket team.  An Australian player was hit in the chest and the English team was accused of playing dirty.  Tension rose and the Australian Prime Minister had to intervene.  The English Captain’s actions tarnished cricket’s reputation.

This was a rather cool episode to view and I would recommend the first part for a library and information science class because it talks about Anne Perry.  The third story of between the Aboriginals and the Sydney Colony would be a good section to show for a geography class.

Tony Robinson explores the Rebels with a Cause.  These were the people who stood up and said no.  He explores the different rebels through history.  The first rebel is found in Sydney, Australia.

It was clear that the British were going to say in Australia.  They settled in a place that was considered sacred to the Aboriginal people.  Tony Robinson meets up with Leanne Tobin, an Australian of Aboriginal descent.  She tells the story of one rebel.  He was a magic man and challenged people who came to settle.  He was a man who could change into a crow and this allowed him to spy on the British.  This rebel did not like what he was seeing.  This man went to challenge the British soldiers.  The soldiers shot him but the man did not die.  The fact that he did not die only became part of his legend.  Eventually, he was defeated and Aboriginals and Aboriginal culture went underground.

Tony then returns to Britain and talks about Queen Boudica.  Britain was under invasion by the Romans.  The Romans were going to change Britain.  Within months of the invasion, the Romans were in control over the southern half of the country.  When the Romans invaded Britain, they discovered a land ruled by a variety of kings and kingdoms.  These kings made deals with the Romans.  These deals worked out well for the Romans until the Iceni king died.  They seized the property of the Iceni, whipped the Iceni queen, and raped her daughter.  This queen was Boudica and she fought the Romans.  Eventually, the Romans gained the upper hand and Boudica killed herself.

Nine hundred years later, this spirit was found in one woman: Kate Sheppard.  She fought for women’s right to vote.  The first country in the world that allowed women to vote was New Zealand and she was born in Britain.  She not only fought for the women’s right to vote, she felt that women would vote against liquor.  This caused the liquor manufacturers to fight against Kate.  Thousands of people signed a petition for the women’s right to vote.  The issue was voted on in the New Zealand parliament and the women won the right to vote.

Tony then travels to Melbourne, Australia, and 1969.  The center of the rebellion was found in a theatre.  The actors were tackling the issue of censorship.  A playwright took on the authorities and wrote a play where the actors shouted obscenities.  The actors were arrested by the real authorities and were taken to jail.  The audience followed the actors to the jail shouting the lines of the play.  Eventually, the actors were charged and put on trial.  The first trial ended in dismissal.  Eventually, the censorship laws were overturned.

Finally, Tony goes to central Victoria and the goldfields.  Due to the gold, the population in central Victoria exploded.  Fortunes were made and unmade in the goldfields.  The goldfields were home to extravagance and excess.  Eventually, the government started charging diggers fees to the people.  The people were unhappy with the diggers fee.  A police force was sent to the goldfields to enforce the new rules.  The diggers started to dig in and try to stop the license checks.  The police responded with more license checks.  Eventually, the diggers were attacked.  Dozens lost their lives in the fight.  The survivors were put on trial for treason.  However, due to the gruesome manner people would be killed for treason, the survivors were found not guilty. 
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Tony goes to five different sites to explore history’s rebels.  I would just show the section on Boudica for a history class.

 Tony Robinson hosts the series Time Travels.  He looks for the men and women who made a difference in history.  These were moments when history changed forever.  These are bits that the victors leave out.  Travels around Australia to discover history’s hidden stories.  He talks with historians and ordinary people to tease out the details.  This is a fascinating series and Tony brings his Time Team experience and enthusiasm to each story.

In Secrets of the State, Tony Robinson explores the history-changing moments that the authorities do not want you to know about.  In this episode, Tony starts in Australia.  He goes back to World War II and a secret that was suppressed by the US Government.  Australia was in the sites of Japan.  Singapore had fallen and most of Indonesia was invaded.  Would Australia be able to withstand a Japanese invasion?

The Australian coast was a valuable place for the Allies.  The Americans started funneling supplies to Townsville.  Eventually, soldiers made their way to Australia as well.  Townsville population tripled.  This was a segregated US Army.  Black soldiers could go into town and mix with Australians.  They could go to the movies and sit in front of taxis.  They had more freedom in Australia than they had in America.  Eventually, the white officers clamped down on these activities.

Finally, a mutiny exploded between the black soldiers and the white officers.  The men machine-gunned the tents and set fire to the ammunition dumps.  They demanded a white officer be returned to the men.  The army met the soldiers' demands.  Congressman Lyndon Johnson was sent to Australia to investigate the mutiny.  A report was taken down.  Johnson summarized the report to Roosevelt.  The report was eventually buried.

Tony then goes back 200 years for another secret.  This secret would determine the fate of empires.  It was kicked off with a celestial event.  King George III wanted this event to be observed and so sent scientists out to the South Pacific.  James Cook was sent out to lead the expedition.  He took the scientists to Tahiti. 

This ship also had a secret agenda: they were going to find Australia.  The British were going to build their empire on this rumored southland.  In the King’s mind, there had to be a large continent to balance out North America.  New Zealand was discovered and claimed for the British Empire.  Finally, in 1770, the expedition found Australia.  Cook and the scientists were the first people to see the east coast of Australia.  Cook claimed Australia in the name of George III.  Australia would eventually bring Britain great wealth.

So Tony goes from the 1770s to the 1960s to learn about a man who was impacted by the Cold War.  He meets up with Philip Geri.  Philip encountered this man, who was a spy.  The Cold War came to Australia.  This man was out recruiting young agents.  Philip was given papers for his parents to sign.  Philip would become a spy himself.  After 23 years, his service ended and he was paid off.

So where else does Tony travel during this episode?  What else does Tony learn about history’s forgotten stories?  Tune into this episode to find out more.
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Time Travels runs about thirty minutes and each section could be broken up into little sections for easy viewing or to incorporate into a lecture.  Tony proves to be a delightful and cheeky narrator for this series and enjoys what he learns.  Each section would be good to show in a history class depending on the subject discussed.  Or if you wanted something fun to show as a brain break for students, then this series should be added to your arsenal.

In this final Thirty-One days of Time Team, we will be throwing it back to an older episode of the series.  Tony Robinson has long hair!  Today, the Time Team is hunting for a Mammoth. 
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Time Team is a landfill and underneath all the rubbish there is a village where Stone Age Britons lived.  There have been remains of Mammoths in the ground.  Will the Time Team find the remains of mammoths?  What will the remains of the mammoths tell the Time Team about Stone Age Britain?  The Time Team is in a gravel pit and will try to find out more about the history of Oxford.

Phil Harding talks about how the gravel pit is typical of paleolithic sites and talks about how the gravel pit was formed.  A channel was carved into the Oxford landscape.  However, nobody discovered the channel edges.  Intact surfaces from the prehistoric environment are rare and so the Time Team will use geophysics to distinguish the natural environment.  This is the first time geophysics will be used this way.

John Gater talks about the challenges of working in those conditions.  Gater hopes that the rain will hold off.  If it rains, geophysics may not work in this landscape.  The Time Team is hopeful that geophysics will work.  An air tent is set up in the field to help house the technology used.

A trench goes in and immediately they find bones.  Excavating in the gravel pits has been a challenge because of the bones.  It takes three days to excavate proper bones.  This will cause some delays for the Time Team.  Keeping Phil Harding on track will be a challenge.  In trench one, they are discovering the remains of a tree.  This may be where the river bank was.

On the south end of the pit, the Time Team is looking for the channel and where the river cut a channel.  Christine Buckingham is in charge of the site.  She believes that the river moved over decades.  Will the Time Team be able to find the edges of the river?

Mick Ashton gets in on the dig and discovers a mammoth tooth on the site.  It shows that the mammoth was eating lush green vegetation.  The animal was about 30 years old and would have stood to 10 feet tall.  It even adapted to the British environment.  The mammoth is a distraction from finding the river.  Mick talks about the challenges of trying to save archeology and trying to determine the environment.  Is destroying some known finds provide additional information worth it?  So will archeology be destroyed to determine the environment?

Mick and Tony go up in the air to see the landscape from above.  Mick talks with Tony about the history of the area and why the Time Team is focusing on the geology of the area.  Did the landscape support human habitation?  If it did, how many people live in the area?

The next day, a large trench will be dug.  It will go over the mammoth tusks.  Unfortunately, the weather has changed.  It has rained for five hours and turned the sand into the mud.  One trench will be covered and a second one will be dug.  Unfortunately for geophysics will face an uphill challenge trying to discover the edges of the channel.  In the second trench, another channel was discovered.  Is this a hint of a series of river channels?  Tune into Time Team to find out!

This particular episode of the Time Team would be excellent for a geology class and good for a history class.  Hunting for Mammoths is unusual because the Time Team focused more on geology.

Good morning, Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continues with the Birthplace of the Confessor.  This time, the pressure is on the Time Team, as the whole village gets in on the dig.  Town pride and Time Team clash in this episode.
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Islip has a claim to fame.  It is said that it was the birthplace of Edward the Confessor.  The Time Team needs to find the chapel that was built in his honor as well as the palace where he grew up.  The problem is that the town has never been dug before.  It will be a tall order for the Time Team and they have three days to solve this mystery.  Is Islip the birthplace of Edward the Confessor?

Edward the Confessor is famous for keeping the country safe during his reign and for Westminster Abbey.  He gained the name “Confessor” after his death.  In the meantime, Mick Ashton is talking with the villagers who invited the Time Team to dig in their village.  Tony is skeptical because there were no Saxon finds in the village.  This is the first time there was a dig in the village. 

Stewart Ainsworth and Helen Geake are working together to figure out where the chapel was built.  Ainsworth talks about the challenges map makers had back in the back day.  Mapmaking was not a precise science because the makers and surveyors were relying on local knowledge.  John Gater works on the chapel site.   The chapel area was not an easy area to survey or use geophysics.  The chapel site is in a lumber yard so there will be delays.  The Time Team helps unload some wood.

The chapel could be anywhere.  It could even be in the yard of the pub or a local garden.  The owner permits the Time Team to dig some test pits.  The house may hold a clue as to where the chapel was.  The house was called Confessor’s gate.  The wall is less than 100 years old, however, there was a head stuck into the wall.  Did the locals recycle something found and stuck it in the wall?  It is just another mystery that Time Team will need to solve.

The Confessor’s gate site may hold some better clues for the Time Team.  The plans of the land show something akin to a chapel.  One of the test pits will be extended to see if there is something to the house plans.  Time Team will have two possible chapel sites to examine.  Day one has mixed results.  The site in the lumber yard is proving to be disappointing.  A new map discovery is providing the Time Team with new guidance on where to dig for the chapel.  One site is in a church graveyard, so they will need some special permission to dig in the graveyard.

Tony explores more of the history of Edward the Confessor.  Edward the Confessor left no heirs which lead to the Conquest.  In 1161 he was made a saint.  When he died he left the palace in Islip to a monastery.  The monastery then built the chapel to recognize the birth site of Edward the Confessor.  Is there anything that remains of the chapel or the Saxon palace? 

Will the Time Team find the chapel of Edward the Confessor?  Will the Time Team find Saxon pottery to keep the villagers happy?  Tune in to the episode to find out more.

This was an enjoyable episode to watch throughout.  It was interesting to learn more about Edward the Confessor.  Islip was proud to be part of Edward the Confessor’s story.  Additionally, the Time Team brought in a variety of sources to determine the location of the chapel.  This would be a good episode to show when English history is discussed.

Two more days and then Thirty-One Days of the Time Team will be done.  It makes me sad to be winding down with the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  IT was a nice little challenge to do for March and I’m glad that the Time Team came back to YouTube.  In today’s episode, we will learn about King George III and his lost palace.
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Kew Gardens is the setting for the Time Team.  This was the site of the home of King George III called the white house palace.  It was a favorite of King George III.  The White House Palace was where King George III spent his later, made years locked up.  What did it look like?  Where was it located in the gardens?  Time Team has three days to find out more about the palace.

The White House palace was a spectacular home for King George.  A sundial seems to mark the spot where the palace was.  However, it does not tell the Time Team what it looked like.  Was it a house that had a façade or was it built from scratch?  Geophysics works on the site.  However, the results are confusing.  There seems to be a four-meter wide wall.  That does not sound right to the Time Team.  So why was there a four-meter-wide feature on the geophysics results?

Trench one goes in.  The Time Team carefully takes the top layers of turf off the lawn.  There was a Tudor Mansion on the site.  Was it knocked down to build a new home?  Or did the architect just put a new face on the house?  So far, all Phil is finding is gravel.

Stewart is looking at the records for the old palace.  There was a survey done that revealed a plan of the palace.  The plans highlight the location of the rooms.   “Geophysics seems to be doing fine without the plan,” Tony quips.  A second trench is put in the ground.  Time Team is hoping that they end up in the White House.  Phil Works with a turf cutter to help remove the turf.

The White House was where King George III stayed during his fits of madness.  It was a time of change for Britain.  England stood alone against France.  The Industrial Revolution was occurring.  Great Britain was growing wealthy. 

Phil is excavating trench one.  There is plenty of gravel but no archeology.  Nick the site manager wants to close out the trench and move Phil on to another Trench.  Phil insists on staying.  However, everyone is growing worried.  Was the building completely rubbed out of the landscape when it was taken down?  Trench Two puts those fears to rest when there is brickwork is discovered.  Back at trench one, there is evidence of a cellar, and Phil’s instincts are proven right.

Going into day two, things are going well for the Time Team.  However, while John Gater reviews the geophysics results alongside the blueprints of the palace.  None of it is making sense to John.  Another trench will be needed to find the back of the palace.  There is a problem: there is a gas pipe running through the lawn.  This will prevent the Time Team from digging where they need to to find the back of the palace.

Trench one is yielding some more brick as well as a glass stem for a wine glass from the Georgian period.  What else will Time Team find out about the White House?  What will this dig tell us about King George III?  Tune into this episode to find out more.

This episode would be a good episode to show while learning about King George III.  This was the place where George III spent his last years.

Good morning!  We are going to continue with the Thirty-One Days of Time Team.  This time we are on the Island of Loee in Cornwall exploring a Hermit Island. 
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Monks, ghosts, treasure maps, shipwrecks, and dramatic coasts are the highlights of Cornwall.  However, it was off the Cornish coast where the first rumblings of Christianity in Britain were heard.  The Time Team will face a new challenge with this dig.  The tides only allow the team to spend five hours digging on the island.  They are on the search for two chapels, one on the island and one built into the hilltop.

Legend has it, Joseph of Arimathea brought Jesus to the island and while he was doing business with Cornish tin miners, Jesus would play on the coast.  This legend would have brought pilgrimages to the island.  Early archeologists believed the site to come from the Celtic period.  Mick disagrees with that assessment so the Time Team will have to find dating evidence for the chapels. 

Geophysics works on the site alongside Stewart Ainsworth.  Even on the surface, there seem to be indications of a building.  Phil puts in the first trench before the geophysics team is done. The first chapel on the site is dedicated to St. Michael.  Tony does some investigating into the history of the Chapel and why it would be dedicated to St. Michael.  This Chapel was tied to the Glastonbury Abbey.

Time Team is also investigating a site on the mainland.  They are looking for a second chapel.  An archeologist in the 1930’s had done some investigating before.  However, World War II cut short his excavation.  There were a few theories about mainland sight.  Did the monks at Glastonbury add to an existing chapel?  Or did they build a new one from scratch?  The Time Team will pick up from where this earlier archeologist left behind.

The archeology for both sites will be a bit complicated.  Chapel sites normally do not leave behind the dating evidence normally found on household sites.  The Time Team has found a burial on the island site.  The individual was quite big.  When Glastonbury Abbey purchased the island there was an existing chapel on the site.  After the site was purchased, two monks were sent over to start a new pilgrimage site.

These two monks would have faced a challenge.  The island is often buffeted by winds that could cut the island off from the mainland.  A couple of Time Team members volunteered to stay on the island to continue the dig.  The tides are going out, and so the other Time Team members will have to leave the island.  The volunteers continue with the dig.

In the meantime, the dig continues on the mainland.  The Time Team is finding stairs, walls, and floor.  The builders seemed to have deliberately terraced the chapel and it made it at the same level as the chapel on the island.  The Time Team wants to find the Nave and wants to discover if a chancel was built later.  Some features indicate that there was an earlier structure on the site.  There seem to be post holes in the ground for an earlier, wooden chapel.  Time Team is still searching for dating evidence.

The logistics of the site provided an interesting challenge for the Time Team.  The tides limited the amount of time the Time Team could spend on the island.  Even the Royal Navy got involved with this dig looking for rocks and wrecks.  The story of the chapel was fascinating and furthered the story of Cornwall.  This would be an episode for independent study students and a filler for a substitute teacher.

Good morning!  We are doing a throwback for today’s Time Team.  Today the Time Team are exploring a manmade island in the middle of a lake.  This episode is older and from an early season.  They are still working out the kinks.  Tony Robinson has hair in this episode!

A king wanted to demonstrate his power and he built an island in the middle of the lake.  Then he put a palace on the island.  The Time Team puts together a game plan to explore the island.  The island had been excavated before and so the team has a good head start on the excavation.  The Time Team will also be creating a replica of a log boat that was found.

This island was the first of its type discovered outside of Scotland and Ireland.  One of the locals wrote a letter to Time Team wanting to know more about the island.  The island and the surrounding area are going to be examined by geophysics.  Tony and Robin talk about the island and wonder who would have made the island.  Robin explains that these types of manmade islands are typical to Ireland, but not to Wales.  Robin further explains more about the island as well as what it was used for.

The Time Team starts with a small trench near the riding school.  Mick and Tony go up in a helicopter to examine the landscape from the air.  Mick discusses what they are looking at it and why it would be a good place to examine it.  Tony questions him about what they would find.  Mick replies answers they would be looking for defense structures and if they are lucky they will find structures.

Mick and Tony then fly over the island.  Tony was surprised to see that it was so small.  Mick suggests that the island was bigger.  He also talks about different scales would be too different people.  Where right now, the Island seems small, but back in the Dark Ages the island would have been impressive.  Phil and a team of recreators start working on a boat.  They use a large log to recreate the boat.  The team will work together in shifts to finish the boat in time.  They are using modern tools to help speed up the process.

Victor Ambrus, the illustrator uses the remains of the palisades to create an illustration of what the palisades would have looked like.  The timber is well preserved.  The Time Team will have to do a silt search around the island.  The field the geophysics team examined is showing no evidence of settlement.  It is not a very good start for Time Team.  They will then examine the other field.  Mick had seen some interesting crop marks in the field.

Tony kicks off the next day discussing the Dark Ages.  He talks about the history of the island why there is nothing the remains of the palisade.  One version says it all hinges on the assassination of an abbot.  Alfred the Great’s daughter sent troops to avenge the death.  Other versions say that Alfred the Great’s daughter wanted to dominate the Welsh Kingdom and sent in troops anyway.  The Time Team then goes and examines the land around the lake.  The Lake was bigger in the past. 

Mick and Carenza walk the field and pick up artifacts to examine.  They find one piece of flint.  It shows evidence of activity and settlement in the region.  Will the Time Team find additional evidence of settlement?  Will the boat that they made float?  Or will is it sink like the Titanic?  You can continue to learn more by watching this episode on YouTube.

This episode would be a good episode to show an independent study student.

Good morning and we are continuing with our journey through the 31 Days of Time Team.  Today we are looking at Keeping up with the Georgians.  This episode is from season fifteen and is a newer episode.  Tony Robinson introduces this episode on horseback.  The estate was built outside of Bath.  Why was this house built?  Was it even lived in?  Was it ever finished?  All the remains of this estate were the arches from the portico.  The Time Team has three days to solve the mystery of this building.

The Time Team examines the remains of what was Great Britain’s grandest Georgian’s houses.  Stone arches are all that remains of the house.  It was built for MP Sir Francis Popham.  He had never seen it completely built.   The paintings of the house show that it was an impressive structure and it could have been mistaken for Buckingham Palace.  What did this house look like?  Is the painting with Sir Francis Popham an accurate representation of the house?

There have been mansions at Hunstrete since the Middle Ages.  Sir John Popham acquired the estate in the 16th Century.  There were many different phases of building on the site.  The Time Team looks at a painting of the house.  The geophysics looks at the area behind the remains of the arches.  One dry year in the 1920s revealed the lines of the walls.  When they get the geophysics results back is showing some wonky results.  The Time Team starts trench one and immediately finds the eastern façade of the home. 

Tony Robinson explores the lodge where the Popham family stayed while the house was under construction.  After Sir Francis Popham died, his wife continued to build the project.  They had no heirs.  The grand houses were built with the family dynasty in mind.  So why did the Popham family decided to build this house even though they did not have children?

The Time Team continues to examine the portico.  The portico seems small in comparison to the grand design of the house.  They need to find the corners of the house.  Finding the corners will help find out the size of the house.  The archeology is proving to be confusing in light of the paintings of the place.  Phil is finding walls in the ground.  He expands the trench to see if the wall is thick enough to support three stories.  The wall is thicker and it shows that the walls could support three stories.

Tony and Elaine Chalus, another historian examine building receipts and additional documents from the Popham family.  Money was no object when the house was built.  The layouts of surviving Georgian buildings will show what they are looking for.  There is a landscape map of the land Popham owned.  They show how generations of Popham families transformed the landscape.  Even before the Georgian Builds, there were plenty of buildings on the property with gardens.  Was this what the family inspired?

Phil discovers a kink in the skinny wall of the façade.  There is a dogleg in the wall.  Nobody would have guessed that from the painting.  The building had a projection.  Tony goes over additional geophysics results.  The building is proving to be smaller than initially thought.  On day two, they look inside the building.  To continue to learn about this Time Team episode, continue to watch this episode on YouTube.

This would be a good episode for an independent study student.  This Georgian building is proving to be a great mystery for the Time Team.  There is plenty of evidence in the painting of the building’s design, but the archeology is proving to be confusing.  Feel free to check out this episode.

Good Morning and our 31-Days of Time Team continues!  In this episode, the Time Team is investigating a mill that was listed in the Doomsday Book.  They are in for a challenge because there are few records about the mill.

A local landowner has been investigating the site before and found a reference to this flour mill in the Doomsday book.  She also found a 11700’s map where there was a picture of the mill.  Mick is skeptical that the mill existed and that it was a large mill because the area was not known for cereals growing.

Phil surveys the area with the geophysics team.  The area will be challenging because of the concrete.  The Time Team first clear the area of brambles.  Immediately they find metal brackets on the site.  Is this the first hint of a mill?  Phil seems to think the brackets are lightweight.  Guessing what the parts are is a brain teaser for the group.

Mick discusses the history of the watermill and how it was a huge impact on the area.  Watermills were a step up from muscle power because they harnessed the power of water.

With very few paper records in regards to the mill, the team will have to rely on archeology to tell the mill’s story.  They dig where the wheel was.  As they dig, Phil finds a metal water wheel.  It is a surprising find.  It seems that the wheel comes from the 19th Century and it was the last wheel from where the mill was in use.

The Time Team spends time learning that the site is larger than what initially thought.  They are also finding more pieces from the wheel.  Another group is looking at where the miller’s house was.  They discover a very posh floor in the house.  With the archaeology, Mick is suspecting that the mill’s history goes deeper.  The landscape archeologist created a replica of the mill site to demonstrate how the landscape was changed to support a mill.  Additionally, the archeologists are discovering that the locals used the site as a dump pit.  The site is not making any sense to the team.

Stewart and Mick eventually go walk a field and figure that the original mill was not where the stone works are.  They are convinced that the original mill is 300 meters to the west.  They are putting their reputations on the line.  So the team shifts the work to the other site.  Tony remains unconvinced.  However, geophysics is showing that there may be something to their theory. 

Now they are shifting the clay for wood bits to try to date the site.  In the meantime, Phil continues to dig the wheel site.  Now they are discovering that the wheel was an overshot wheel, therefore more efficient.  It shows that the site of the mill is older and grander than originally thought.  However, it was an average-sized mill, but still an important building in the land.  Now they are diving into documents in regards to the owners of the land.  A will was discovered that the milliner left the mill, therefore the business to his wife.  They trace the line of the family that owned the mill.

To continue to learn more about the Doomsday Mill, continue to watch this episode.

This episode is a thoroughly enjoyable conundrum for the Time Team.  Tony shows his humor with Mick and Stewart’s theory about where the original mill was.  Even the diggers are skeptical about the theory.  This would be a good episode to show in both a history and science classroom as there is a demonstration of the scientific method at work.