Time Team Day 18 - School Diggers Medieval

Good morning, we will continue with our Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continues with a trip to Hooke Court.  The building is now used as a school.
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The Time Team is investigating a school that was built in the Middle Ages.  It is currently used as a school and the teachers would love to tell their students about their school.  Time Team has three days to find out more about their school.  The Hooke Court School was built on a ridge of high ground and would have been good for occupation.  The Time Team has an excellent area to work with.  What will the Time Team find out about the school? 

Geophysics is working on the site immediately.  Tony learns more about the school archives.  There is plenty of names and evidence available that tells bits and pieces of the school.  However, none of this information is really concrete.  Was this building built during the Civil War?  An architectural historian does not believe so.  He sees traces of a Medieval building.  There are different styles of windows which further tells the story of Hooke School.  Perhaps this building was part of a Medieval manor house and was part of a surviving bit.

However, there could be 500 years of building in the ground.  The Doomsday Book records that there was a manor house on the site.  The Time Team talks with the retired deputy headmaster of the school.  He shows the Time Team photos of a demolished wing of the school.  The old wing of the school was part of the medieval manor house.  When the house was demolished, the remains were carted away.  The building was two floors and would not be considered a medieval hall.  Trench One goes to find out more about the medieval building that once stood there. 

The geophysics results come back and are showing some good results for the Time Team.  John Gater is thrilled with the results and carefully explains the results.  There is good evidence of walls and even a fireplace is shown in the results.  Legend tells the story that there was a fire during the English Civil War that destroyed much of the building.

It only takes seconds before the first finds are found.  There are pieces of roof found with nails remaining in them.  Tony catches up with Jonathan a historian who takes a look at the archives.  He talks about the owner of the houses and about the English Civil War.  Phil continues to make finds in Trench One, fining roof tiles, fine glasswork, and pottery dating back to the English Civil War.  Time Team is starting strong with the dig.  They found evidence of the building as well as evidence of a moat.

A second trench goes in and immediately a wall is discovered.  This wall is very different from what was originally found.  It is even different from what Phil has found.  So the trenches will have to be extended to see if these are two different buildings.  The Time Team will have to carefully unpick the different phases of building on the site.  What will Day Two and Day Three bring for the Time Team?  Will the Time Team locate the great hall?  What will the students learn about their school?  Tune into this episode of the Time Team to find out more!

This was a cool episode to watch and it was cool to see the students be involved with the dig.  They were even helping with geophysics on the site.  So this would be a good episode to show in class especially when the English Civil War is being covered.