Birthplace of the Confessor

Time Team descended upon the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Islip (population about 600), the birthplace of Edward the Confessor, for one of the most challenging and intriguing excavations of the 2006 series.

The eldest son of King Ethelred 'the Unready' and the last of the Saxon kings (though his mother was Emma of Normandy), Edward reigned from 1042-66. He built Westminster Abbey and was responsible for starting a chain of events that led to the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066. The fact that he died childless and with the succession to the throne uncertain led to the conflict that saw the Saxon claimant, Harold, killed in the Battle of Hastings and the Norman claimant, William, victorious.

The villagers of Islip had been celebrating the millennium of Edward's birth in the first years of the 11th century. They wanted Time Team to discover the location of a medieval chapel dedicated to their famous royal son – and possibly to find evidence of a reputed royal palace belonging to his father, Ethelred.

A detailed drawing of the chapel, with measurements of its key dimensions, showed how it looked when it was in use as a barn before it was eventually demolished around 1780. A variety of maps were also available, showing a number of possible locations for the chapel – and one for the reputed royal palace. The hunt for the chapel was to result in a number of well tended back gardens, together with a timber yard and a pub car park, being turned upside down. And as the diggers continued their search for the remains of what would once have been an impressive structure, some of the Team travelled to Westminster Abbey to see what secrets their archives might hold.

After three days of tenacious, and often frustrating, excavation the results were not exactly what the villagers hoped for – or the archaeologists expected.

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