The Cheyne gang

Julia Plaistowe, the owner of Chesham Bois House, is a keen gardener. Over the years, she's turned up 17th-century and medieval tiles beneath the greenhouse, uncovered medieval pottery in the flowerbeds, and noticed strange lumps and bumps at the bottom of the garden.

From an early 18th-century map she knew that her current house, which dates from around 1820, was built on the site of a much larger property. But this 1735 map is the only known illustration of that building. Nor are there any descriptions of what it looked like – in fact, there's nothing that could tell Julia when it was built, what it looked like or what lies beneath the surface in her garden.

Historical records, however, trace the ownership of the manor here back to the reign of Edward the Confessor; and we know of a manor house in the vicinity from at least the 1420s. This was when it came into the ownership of the Cheyne family, whose colourful reputation for violence and possibly heresy didn't prevent them from becoming pillars of the local establishment until their line died out in the first half of the 18th century.

Time Team was called in by Julia Plaistowe, as the modern-day heir to the former Cheyne manor, to see what could be discovered about its past.

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