Padstow, North Cornwall
First screened 9 March 2008

Padstow – Background

One summer during the 1980s, strange crop marks appeared in two fields on the north Cornish coast near Lellizzick. Aerial photographs taken by archaeologist Steve Hartgroves and two geophysics surveys revealed dozens of circular and semi-circular shapes and lines running across the clifftop fields. It's been suggested that they could represent up to 70 individual roundhouse dwellings.

Metal detecting by local man Jonathan Clemes has also recovered an extraordinary range of finds – flints, coins and pottery stretching from possibly as far back as the Mesolithic to the post-Roman period. Among the post-Roman artefacts found on the site are sherds of rare (in Britain and northern Europe) north African red slipped ware pottery, imported from the Mediterranean.

The Camel estuary and the Padstow area also attracted the early Christians. St Petroc and St Samson both came here; a chapel dedicated to St Samson used to stand just a few hundred metres from the site.

So who was at Lellizzick when this settlement was occupied and what were they doing? Could this site be a previously unknown trading station, one which perhaps lasted on and off for thousands of years? As usual, Time Team had three days to find out.

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