7.00pm 28th August 2006

The Interactive team:
Rupert, Matt, Kim and Alma
(Jon represented by fruit)

'This is Ed Winchester, signing out'
With trenches 1 and 2 shut down, the third joined them after excavation revealed only gravel-filled features, which could be either drainage or back-filled robber trenches. Trench 4 hit a brick-filled layer and found no evidence of canal, so it's been assumed that a foundation for the canal steps has been located. A fifth trench, set to find the finer gravel layers of the River Tyburn has hit almost three meters depth and successfully plotted the existence of the ancient water course. To round up our time here at Buckingham Palace we caught up with Phil Harding for his impressions of the Big Royal Dig.

'What can I say, it's been a privilege to dig here.' smiled Phil, 'Excavating the mound at Holyrood was a really great thing to do and finding that small seal was remarkable. Here at Buckingham Palace I've really enjoyed myself. We've found the Duke of Buckingham's canal, the course of the Tyburn, and even some Mesolithic material. Was it worth it? You bet it was!

For a full length summary by Phil Harding filmed specially just for channel4.com check out the video page. Thanks for checking out the Big Royal Dig and goodbye until next year from all the gang at Time Team Interactive.

Phil Harding's final thoughts
Phil gives us a round-up of our four days at Buckingham Palace recorded specially for channel4.com

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Geophysics results are in
As we promised, we've caught up with Jimmy Adcock again to get the low-down on all the geophysics work he's been doing. 'I've just about finished. I've been in the quadrangle for the last two days doing a detailed Ground Penetrating Radar survey, trying to find evidence of the earlier houses.' said Jimmy, 'The quadrangle is the square in the centre of the palace. It's so flat, like a sheet of glass, and I've been up and down it so many times that I've covered over five miles just by going up and down. The results are pretty good. We got readings as low as two meters down.'

Jimmy printed off the results and they are quite fascinating. Starting in the top left hand corner of the printout and reading the results frames left to right, the orange layers that you see are closer to ground level. The darker frames, starting at row three on the picture, capture layers from 1 to 2 meters deep. The lighter lines that you can see are services for the palace but in the centre is what appears to be a triangle, and this is thought to be a foundation for a fountain which was part of the earlier 17th century Arlington House. The bottom left frame shows a curving feature at 1.5 meters deep. 'This could even be something to do with the first Goring House,' said Jimmy, 'which was built in the early 1630s.'

Phil jumps out of his trench to talk about archaeology
Phil Harding tells us all about the soil conditions and how hard it has been to dig on the site. And then he waxes lyrical about living at the palace when the canal was here...

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Trench 5 yields some 'smallfinds'
A flurry of what archaeologists call 'smallfinds', or finds of special interest, have popped out of Trench 5. A copper alloy button, a George II (or possibly III) halfpenny, a trade token from The Swan public house on The Strand, and a piece of dressed stone fascia which may be a remnant of the WWII bombing of the palace.

We caught up with Meriel Jeater, a curator with the Museum of London, to see what will happen with the finds. 'We stabilise everything here to make sure that it doesn't deteriorate after coming out of the ground,' said Meriel. 'Then the finds will go back with Oxford Archaeology for cleaning and recording. They will then probably end up in an archive with us at the Museum of London because the original site is London based.'

See the picture gallery for images of the latest finds.

Filming and the trenches
It's been a busy morning of filming today. All the Time Team and More4 camera crews have been running non-stop. It took our small interactive unit two hours to get a two-minute interview slot with Phil Harding (coming soon – it's being edited now). Firstly Tony had to record some links for tonight's programme, then he did a pre-recorded piece with Phil and John Gater, meanwhile the More4 cameras were running live together with another crew working with Sarah Smith recording her links for the coverage this afternoon.

Trench wise, it's been tough for the archaeologists. Rain turned most of the excavations into ponds as the ground is so hard that the water can't drain away. Lots of sponging out later, and the diggers are back to work. Trenches One and Two (Civil War and Canal) are being recorded before they're back-filled, Trench Three (by Brigid's team) is ongoing, while Phil Harding has opened Trench Four between the canal and the palace (over Mick Aston's parch marks) in an attempt to find evidence of steps. A fifth trench is also being planned to discover the true course of the Tyburn River. 'We're hoping to add another angle to the story apart from the Royal one,' said Tim Taylor. We'll let you know the score when we have any news.

A rainy start increases the pressure on Monday
Matt gets in the queue to interview... anyone. Tim Taylor steps up.

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Civil War re-enactors
The Taunton Garrison Civil War Re-enactment Group tell us about their interpretation of the defences here at Buckingham Palace

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Our town
Here we go for the final day at Buckingham Palace and there's still lots of digging to do. The mass of resources which are brought together to make the programme come from across the country. Most of the production team come from London and Bristol, Time Team's regular geophysics people, GSB Prospection, hail from Bradford, the environmental team are down from Birmingham, and the archaeological recording team, and people who will clean and archive the finds, are from Oxford Archaeology.

This whole media circus will be closed down after tonight's show, trucks, cabins, tents, water bowsers, toilets and catering trucks packed away, and the 160 or so personnel that make up the production village and archaeological team will go their separate ways.

We've created a small town here at Buckingham Palace, and hosted a huge event, yet when we've gone there'll be no trace that we were ever here, apart from a few bumps to iron out on the palace lawns. It kind of makes you think how accurately archaeologists (especially when dealing with prehistory) can really interpret what actually happened in the past when they often only have ephemeral scraps of evidence to help them build a picture.

It's raining hard at the moment and the health and safety call has gone out to evacuate the trenches. As soon as we're back in business we'll get you an archaeology update.

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