Shoot three navigation
By 2.30pm veteran Time Team chopper crew Bill and Charlie from Biggin Hill Helicopters, arrive. The chopper is stripped down by Charlie and TT comms boss, Joe Ellison and then packed with cameraman Richard Gibb, sound chief Steve Shearn, Mick Aston and Stewart Ainsworth.
Tim Taylor gives Onsite his thoughts for the afternoon. ‘We’re on this huge site and it looks like we’re starting to get evidence for quite a few structures. Up to early this afternoon we were looking all over the place for the nuns' house. Phil’s trench (Trench Two) looked like it could have been a building, with strong evidence for a wall, but we resolved that. It's still going down and is full of some nice finds like medieval glass.’
Is the Team any closer to the location of the nuns' house? ‘Geophysics have just finished an area that we originally thought could have been a formal garden. The new test results look good and it could be something a little more interesting than just a garden.’
So what’s your plan? ‘We’ve got one of the best experts in the country here - Roberta Gilchrist (medieval and gender archaeologist). She’s going to roll up her sleeves and grab a couple of Time Team diggers, put some trenches in and see what she can find.’
How about human remains? ‘Barney (Trench Four) looks like he could have a burial. At least we hope it’s a burial. We’ve got top human remains expert Margaret Cox standing by in the event that we find something.’
Generally how do you think it’s going? ‘Its mid-to-late afternoon and we’ve just reached that point where we’ve tipped over from not finding very much to suddenly hitting great archaeology. I’m very pleased.’
Throughout the afternoon the digging has been moving along at a fair pace with all hands on deck. All of the trenches are advancing well and spirits are high. Stewart Ainsworth has been driving all over the site with the brigadier to scout earthworks and features that could be of interest for the bigger picture. (His hay fever is much better today, incidentally.)
The finds are now coming in thick and fast from the trenches for the finds washers. A regular convoy of army wives and children is filtering through the incident room collecting fresh water to keep the finds processing team supplied.
To round up for today Onsite grabs a few words from Mick the Dig. ‘At this time of the day we’re getting really excited. Yesterday we really didn’t find very much but the whole site is now starting to come on. We’ve got some outstanding test results from geophysics, who have managed to map a very large area. Barney in his trench looks pretty sure to have burials, Phil’s trench is still going down and down, and in Trench Seven we’ve just found what look like the remains of a very large dog, possibly a hunting dog.’
How about the nuns' house? ‘We’re just digging a garden area (Trench Eight) and at the moment we have lots of flower pots - kind of what you would expect from a garden -- and we’re just about to check out some of these brilliant geophysics by opening Trench Nine.’
Are you happy? ‘Oh yes, We’ve been spending a lot of this dig just trying to locate the archaeology. Well now we’ve discovered some really interesting things. It’s starting to look really good now.’
