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Big Royal Dig

Windsor Castle

Time Team's targets
An aerial view of Windsor Castle and grounds from 1763
An aerial view of Windsor Castle and
grounds from 1763
Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library
The Great Hall

Windsor Castle was transformed from a defensive building into a more residential, indeed palatial, one by Henrys II and III. They built what were, for the time, luxurious living quarters in the Lower Ward (immediately to the north of St George's Chapel). These included what was then an essential statement of status – a huge aisled hall.

No one has yet been able to find this building. Its location was posited by an antiquarian at the end of the last century, but archaeologists now think it is somewhere else. Using ground radar to give a glimpse below the castle tarmac, Time Team hopes to be able to target trenches that will uncover, for the first time, one of the very first English 'palaces'.

There are some parts of the Henry II and Henry III palace that have become enmeshed into the modern structure. In particular, some of the original timber framework of the buildings associated with the Great Hall is visible in the rows of houses facing onto the Lower Ward site. Time Team intends to carry out a standing buildings survey of these houses, and to date the timbers using dendrochronology, or tree ring dating.

The ultimate aim of the work on the Lower Ward is to unpick the development of the early palace buildings, and to produce a 3d graphic chronology of the Henry II/Henry III phase of the palace.

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