This is Day 18 of our Thirty-One Days of Time Team and this time the Time Team will be exploring the grounds of a manor house.
Time Team explores one of the finest manor houses in all of England. It was built for a powerful family and hosted King Charles I. The archeologists were excited when they discovered a moat. Only one problem, the moat went in the other direction. So what was this moat was protecting? What connection does it have to the current manor house? Is it a cattle enclosure? Tony hopes that they will not be excavating a cattle enclosure. The Pritchard family owned the manor. It is now a museum. However, the museum director did not know if there was a second house on the site. So while hosting school trips they are also hosting the Time Team to look at the site. Do they have a moated house or a Roman fort? They immediately begin digging and do not wait for the geophysics. Immediately they find evidence of earthworks. It seems that the Time Team will have an easy dig. They could not wait to get digging. Phil is thinking big when it comes to digging trenches. The site promises to be an example of stunning archelogy. Tony talks with Stewart about what could be found on the ground. Stewart hints about the fluid definition of a moat. Tony learns more about the Pritchard family who owned the house and the land. They were a powerful family in the land. Could the moat enclose a possible first house of the Pritchard family? It would be unusual that the current house was the only house the Pritchard family-owned. Would the moat enclose a less grand house? The digging commences and there is good evidence of the earthwork. Geophysics continues to work on the site. John Gater, the geophysicist is confused by the geophysics results. The field could be empty. Going into day two, the Time Team knows even less about the site than what they originally know. They look at a wall that hints at an enclosure. They conclude that the moat did not exist. However, there is a feature that intrigues the team. They have to dig the feature to find out what is it. It seems to be from an earlier period. A second trench is opened up to explore this feature. The Time Team is working from the theory that there was an earlier house on the site that was torn down when the new house was built. The Time Team explores the current house to get dating evidence. They bring in a dendrochronologist because the wood will provide the best dating evidence. A lot of the history of the manor house came down through family stories. So the Time Team will turn to a paper trail to find additional evidence for the family. However, the paper trail does not show where they were living before the grand manor house. At the end of day one, they are still not finding evidence of a manor house. There is also no evidence of the moat even though the evidence points to a moat. The locals believe that there is a moat. What will the Time Team find? Why is geophysics proving to be a challenge? Tune into the rest of the episode to find out. Tony’s narration for the episode is fantastic. He brings in a great deal of humor to the story of this manor's house. It is even fantastic to see the manor manager take part in this episode. This would be a good episode for independent study students in both STEM and history classes.
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