Time Team Day 8 - Under the Gravestones

Good morning, we are working through the Thirty-One Days of Time Team and this time the Time Team is investigating a gravestone in Castor, Cambridgeshire.  The run time is 47:54.

St. Kyneburgha Church is one of the most beautiful churches in England.  What lies in the graveyard has archeologists salivating.  There may be the remains of Roman structures.  What is this building?  Over the years, gravediggers have made many discoveries.  The Time Team is going to dig a part of the graveyard where there are no bodies.  Is there a building on this site?  Will Tony manage to find his way down off the roof?

Over the years there have been discoveries made in the churchyard.  Every time a grave was dug, another find was made.  Castor is five miles west of Peterborough.  It is on the River Nene and near a major Roman Road.  Geophysics works on a narrow strip of land for a survey.  A second survey is done in a nearby schoolyard.  Helen Geake catches up with local historians about a man obsessed with local archelogy.  Edmund Artist was a man with many talents and discovered he loved archeology.  He became a one-man Time Team.  He dug the area and illustrated what he found with beautiful drawings.

Artist surveyed the area and came up with a map as to where the Roman buildings are, so the Time Team is going to test his theory.  Tony catches up with Stewart Ainsworth to look at the map that Artist drew and what the modern city looks like.  In some places, what Artist originally found was reactivated, which is proving to be confusing to Ainsworth.  Stewart Ainsworth wants to remake a map and mark the locations of known archeology.  Roman walls are still visible along the lanes.

Trench one goes in, however, John Gater is confused about the results he is getting from the geophysics.  Phil immediately pulls out a piece of tile from the trench.  Mosaic flooring is also come up from the trench.  As the digger continues to work, more discoveries are found.  John Gater quickly realizes what he did wrong, he had the “Roman filter on.”  A sudden storm blows up soaking the archeologists.

However, even in the rain, the Time Team discoveries keep coming.  Trench one is turning out to be a gold mind.  The finds include Saxon pottery, Roman Pottery, and mosaic pieces.  So the site could include Saxon buildings.  Normally the Time Team does not find Saxon finds.  Trench two goes into the old rectory garden and trench three goes into the corner of the school field.  A Roman bathhouse was discovered in the school field.  Tony is getting the feeling that there is something special about Castor.

Helen catches up with a local historian in regard to the finds that were discovered in Castor.  Pots and pieces of wall plaster were discovered.  The painted plaster seems to hint at a beautiful building.  Geophysics goes into the north graveyard and in the afternoon the results come back.  John catches up with one of the people doing the geophysics and there seems to be something in the ground.  Earlier archeologists and finds seem to hint that there was a building in the north graveyard.  What is geophysics detecting? 

The finds keep coming from the first two trenches: Roman finds, Roman Tiles and pottery are being found in the trench.  Matt, one of the archeologists talks about the trench has backfill.  The rain keeps coming.  The search goes on for the Roman Baths.  Tracey, the archeologist working on the field trench, is confused as to what she is finding. At the end of day one, the Time Team is meeting at the back of the church.  The archeologists are talking about the potential for the biggest Roman building on the site.  Was this a headquarters for the military?  John reviews the geophysics results and is not seeing the building.  The Time Team has permission to dig in the churchyard for one day to see if they can find the building.  What else will the Time Team find out about the site?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

This was an interesting episode to watch and would be a good episode for research purposes.  This would be a good episode to show for a fun history day.