Time Team Day 4 - Aston Eyre

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending on when you are reading this.  I am continuing with Thirty-One Days of the Time Team with an episode from Season 5.  After this episode, I will have five more episodes to find to complete season 5.  This time the Time Team is traveling to a farmhouse, but this farmhouse is more than what it seems.  The Episode is called Ashton Eyre and it has a run time of 50:35.

Time Team is investigating a gatehouse that was turned into a farmhouse.  Why was this gatehouse turned into a farmhouse?  Somewhere in this jungle of remains, there is a picture of Medieval life.  Who would have lived on this farm?  Why would they have built this farm in that location?  What buildings would have been on this site?

Mick is thrilled with the weekend’s activities and Tony asks why Mick is thrilled looking at buildings.  The Time Team is going to put in several trenches to learn more about the property.  Mick and Tony look at the Great Hall.  The Great Hall would have been where the owner and his family would have lived.  The owner of the property is going to restore it to a luxury house and is curious to know the history of the property.  It is the only chance the Time Team will have a chance to thoroughly examine the site.  Mark Horton talks about the building and points out the features of the building.  Tony just thinks it is a jumble of bricks.  Both Mick and Mark get going pointing out the features when they examine the outside of the Great Hall.

Beric Morley and the owner take a look at the gatehouse.  Beric points out the stonework and the massive amounts of woodwork and floor timbers.  It was really cool to see the hinges that would have held the gate.  The Time Team will look to date the beams that were discovered in the building.  One team goes through the records to learn more about the building that could potentially be on the site as well as the history of the property.  Carenza and John go over the plans for the building and look over the photographs of the property.

The debris is cleared from the Great Hall in preparation for trench one.  In the meantime, Geophysics works on scanning the courtyard.  Stewart goes out in the field to survey the landscape.  Man, it seems like there was plenty of work for the Time Team to do over three days, I hope they get things done.  Trench one goes in and Phil immediately discovers the remains of a wall that came off the Great Hall.  Carenza is working in the other courtyard and may have discovered an important piece of plumbing.

Tony talks with one of the local historians about the history of the property and the village.  As part of the investigation recreation of the building is going to be made.  Mick is also going to learn how to make quick lime.  Carenza continues to investigate medieval plumbing and discovers that it was a highly unusual feature of the house which is puzzling the Time Team.  Victor works to draw what the Great Hall would have looked like in the past.  In the meantime, Phil has discovered a brick floor that needs to be carefully photographed and documented.  It will take some time, which exasperates Tony.  Day one ends and the archeology continues to perplex Tony.  What else does the Time Team discover about this site?  Will the discoveries make sense by the end of the dig?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more about the farmhouse.

Wow, there seemed to be a lot of archaeology going on this site.  I wondered how the Time Team could have gone through it all in three days.  However, they managed to do it and the history of the building became clearer throughout the episode.  There were plenty of twists and turns in this episode.  Tony is perfectly humorous and exasperated throughout the episode.  The experiment making quicklime was very nice to see.  I would put this on my “potential” list to show to a history classroom.