Time Team Day 8 - Nuns in Northumbria

Good morning, not even the rain can stop the Time Team’s search for a lost monastery.  I am pulling an episode from season seven and this episode is called Nuns in Northumbria.  The run time for this episode is 49:51.

The Time Team arrives at the Headland at Hartlepool, a place that is rain and wind-swept.  They have three days to find out the location of a monastery.  This monastery was built 1,200 years old and was a thriving community.  This community was overseen by Saint Hilda, the founding abbess of this monastery.  She was an important figure in the history of Anglo-Saxon Europe.  Where was this monastery?  Who was Saint Hilda?

The wind and the waves greet Tony as he introduces the site.  The Headland at Hartlepool was home to a monastery that was ruled by a powerful Anglo-Saxon Princess.  The monastery vanished after two hundred years and the Time Team is looking to discover where it was and the people that were buried in it.  Tony meets with Robin Daniel, who is with Tees Archaeology.  He was the one who invited the Time Team to look for the monastery.  Over the years there have been discoveries made.  The discoveries had consisted of a sort of headstones.  Trench one goes in over a potential graveyard site.  This is where the nuns were buried.

The Victorians had done a great deal of building on this land, but the Time Team hopes that something will remain.  They are going to look at two potential sites for the monastery.  Trench Two goes in an open field that is near the church.  The first task for this trench is to carefully lift the roses.  Tony eventually meets Mick.  He wants to learn from Mick as to why the Time Team should be excited about discovering a monastery.  Mick talks about how this was one of the earliest monasteries in Britain.  Very little was known about this monastery so this dig will help further the history of the monastery.  The Time Team may learn about how the monastery was organized.

Phil makes the first discovery in his trench: a coin from the Victorian period.  In Carenza’s trench, the remains of a Victorian school were exposed and one of the locals talks about how she attended the school.  She brought pictures and talked about her memories of the school which was a very nice touch.  In the meantime, Mick catches up with John Gater and Stewart Ainsworth.  They talk about what the landscape is telling them.  John is concerned about what sort of results Geophysics will get.  However, they are dispatched to work in the rain.

Tony catches up with Robin Bush in the local church to learn about St. Hilda.  Back in trench one, Phil has discovered bones.  However, when Margaret Cox examines them they are not human remains.  Mick and Robin talk about putting in trench three to see if they can discover the outer boundary of the monastery.  In the meantime, Phil is entertaining the locals with his digs.  Phil has discovered Anglo-Saxon pottery in his trench.  He examines his finds with a skeptical Tony.

Carenza in her trench had discovered a piece of worked stone.  Robin theorizes that this has come from the original church, which shocks Carenza.  In the meantime, Phil expands his search for the graves a few houses up.  The weather clears on day two and the Time Team goes over the geophysics results.  The initial results show a very noisy area with service pipes and military finds.  However, a different set of results shows that there was something going on at this site.  For once, Stewart is demonstrating some skepticism about the results.  Will Stewart change his mind?  Will Phil find a grave?  Will Carenza find a church?  What will the Time Team learn about St. Hilda’s monastery?  Continue to follow along the episode to find out.

Even though the Time Team is about history, you can definitely apply the scientific method to these digs.  You have a theory and you test out that theory by doing a dig.  This episode was really moving along at a good and fast pace.  It was rather cool to see how the locals were curious about the dig.   This would be one episode to show to both a history class and a science class.