Time Team Day 6 - High Worsall

Good morning!  Thirty-One Days of the Time Team continues to press on with another episode from season five.  After doing this episode, there will be only three more episodes of season five I have to find.  Then I will have season five done for Time Team.  I really hope that I can keep this momentum up with finding these episodes because much like the Time Team, I feel like I am pressing my luck.  This episode is called Worsall and it has a run time of 50:35.

Time Team makes their way to High Worsall, a town near Middlesborough.  It was a village that almost completely disappeared.  The Time Team is looking to find any remaining buildings including a manor house.  Robin Bush and Dawn Hadley help research the village and try to imagine what life would have been like for the villagers.  Why did this village almost completely disappear?  What happened to its people?  What will the Time Team find out in three days?

Mick and Tony are walking the lumps and bumps of an empty field and talk about the possibility of a lost village.  This field was home to a lost village called High Worsall and it would have been dated back to the 12th Century. Since the site is so big, geophysics has begun scanning the site.  Stewart has been working trying to size up the lumps and bumps.  Tony and Mick gather with the rest of the Time Team to talk about the site.  Stewart shows them the map that he came up with as part of his examination. 

The Time Team talks about where to dig.  There are some concerns over lost evidence due to plowing.  Trench one is started and Phil is an enthusiastic digger.  This trench is going over an earth row over a north row of houses.  John continues to work on geophysics in the southern field to see if there is another row of potential houses on this site.  Robin goes off to the archives to learn more about the village to help provide more context to the site.

Carenza and Stewart are looking over aerial photos of the site.  There are clear images of something in the ground.  From above it looks like this village was very well planned.  Stewart is confident that the Time Team can show what the village looked like in the past.  In the meantime, while on the road, Robin is making more research plans.

Phil continues his work on trench one and there is some back and forth between Robin’s calls and Phil’s work on the trench.  Robin is not having luck in getting connected to the people he needs to connect with to learn about the village.  In the meantime, the first find is made.  It is a piece of pot.  This piece of pot shows that this building was from the Medieval period.

Trench two goes in over the site of a house platform on the south side of the field.  Since this field has been plowed before, the work creating trench two goes quickly.  Hopefully, Carenza will be able to find something in her trench.  A field walk is organized and people are carefully examining the field to see if they can make any additional finds.  A piece of Roman pottery is found which shows that the village had a period of inhabitation before it disappeared.

Robin and Dawn finally get connected with some historical documents to help piece together the history of High Worsall.  A will is discovered and it belonged to the owner of the manor at High Worsall.  Robin and Dawn continue their research.  Two more trenches are put in.  Phil discovers a strong stone feature in his trench; however, it is going through the center of the building.  Why was it going through the center of the building?  What will the Time Team discover about this site?  Why did High Worsall disappear?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

Wow, there was just so much to take in about this site.  I felt bad for Robin as he was trying to get connected to the people he needed to get connected to but was getting the run-around.  This was a very good episode with its pacing.  Tony was also in a teasing mood.  Over all this would be an episode I would show to a history class.