What they found

History and architecture
Time Team's investigations at Hooke Court included more than the usual quotient of historical and architectural information. This was because both historical documents and the remaining building had a lot to reveal about the site.

Indeed, before even a clod of earth had been turned by the diggers, buildings archaeologist Jonathan Foyle was able to tell a great deal about the different phases of construction at Hooke Court. In addition to the more obviously modern structures on the site, he identified the porch and an extension to the right of the main building as Victorian additions. He dated the top storey of the main structure to the mid-17th century the time of the English civil war, when most of the old house was reported to have been burnt down and the surviving wing was rebuilt. And beneath this, Jonathan delineated the traces of a medieval building two lines of quoin stones up to about three-quarters of the current height. He identified this as a 15th-century block to which another block was added in Tudor times.

The surviving medieval structure would have formed part of a much bigger manor house. This would have included a gatehouse and great hall, as well as other ancillary buildings. The part that remains today was identified by its narrow garderobe, or privy, windows as an old accommodation block. With Domesday Book records showing that there was a manor here back in the 11th century, Time Team faced a very complicated sequence of buildings that would have gone through various phases of construction and demolition over the years. It would be a massive challenge for the archaeologists to sort out one phase from another.

Agreeing to disagree
They got off to a good start with a couple of trenches opened on the footprint of the old north wing, which was demolished in the 1960s. With the help of old plans and photographs, they were able to identify this as the former gatehouse.

Despite plenty of good targets provided by the geophysics surveys, the search for the site of the great hall proved more problematic. In the end, different members of the team had to agree to disagree. Jonathan Foyle eventually identified a 16 × 48 feet building with two storeys as a rare example of a first floor hall, of which a few are known in Dorset. Other team members, including Phil Harding and geophysics expert John Gater, disagreed, arguing that a more orthodox single-floor hall was more likely to have stood in an unexcavated part of the site.

'Best find for years'
Meanwhile, Stewart Ainsworth and historian Sam Newton found evidence of an even earlier building at Hooke Court: a Saxon 'thanely residence'. The children from Hooke school carried out their own geophysics survey and excavation of a dovecote. And among a rich haul of finds, ranging from great piles of 17th-century pottery to a decorated tile dating from around 1500 that almost certainly came from a great hall or chapel, there was one that Mick Aston described as 'the best find we've had for years'.

This was a 15th-century copper tap, uncovered in excellent condition. As Mick put it, 'We're so used to them today that we forget that until the 19th century they were very rare indeed.'

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