Portskewett, South Wales
First screened 30 March 2008

What they found

'1065: In this year before Lamas Harold earl ordered building in Britland at Portskewett now that he had overrun it; and thereto many goods gathered; and thought to have the king Edward there for hunt meets.

But when it was all ready, then fared Caradoc there, Gruffyd's son, with all the gang that he could get, and that slew almost all of the folk that there were building; and the goods that were prepared there seized.'

Thus reported the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the year before the Norman invasion and the death of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Two years earlier Harold, then the earl of Wessex, had defeated the Welsh king Gruffyd ap Llywelyn, pursuing his forces into their previously impenetrable mountain strongholds. Harold planned to build a grand hunting lodge at Portskewett to mark the victory. Local tradition suggested that he had done so in what is now known as Harold's Field, on the hill next to where St Mary's church now stands. This was the site that villagers had asked Time Team to investigate.

Difficulty
The Team's first difficulty in locating Harold's building was immediately obvious from that brief reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For a start, it wasn't clear whether the building work had actually been completed – and if it was, the Welsh leader Caradoc had exacted revenge for his father's defeat and death by raiding and quite probably demolishing any structure on the site soon afterwards.

The second difficulty became evident as soon as the first trench was opened on the most obvious remains at the top of the hill. Underneath the turf was a mass of rubble, representing at least two stages of building. As the diggers cleared away the debris and began to make sense of the remains, it became clear that this belonged to a Norman fortified tower house constructed on the site and mentioned in the 1271 Survey of the Forest of Wentwood. If Harold's building did once stand here, this would have been built on top of it.

Under the rubble
Underneath the rubble, which included large quantities of medieval roof tiles, the diggers in this trench uncovered a doorway from one building, probably the manor house tower, and two walls from a separate, adjacent structure, probably stables. Dressed stone was recovered from the doorjamb and windows, which proved to be the same size and style as used on St Mary's church, which dates to the early 1100s. The detailing on the window stones, which are known to have been changed on the church in the 1200s, also matched, suggesting that manor house was altered at same time.

Ditch and creek
Lower down the hill, Trench Two exposed some clear stratigraphy going back through the various periods of occupation of the site. A deep ditch was identified going around the hill, which was found to be part of the medieval manor. This was dated by pottery finds, which included a medieval cooking pot from about 1150. Other pottery included Severn Valley Ware, including a second- or third-century Roman storage jar.

Meanwhile, Stewart Ainsworth's study of maps and the local landscape identified the silted-up creek that would have led to the lost harbour of Portskewett (the name means 'harbour beneath the woods'). Auguring, which produced beach sand, confirmed his location of the very spot where boats would have pulled up onto the beach to load and off-load their cargoes.

Harold's hunting lodge
As for Harold and his hunting lodge, however, there was not a sign. The short-lived timber structure would have left little mark, even if had been completed before the attack by Caradoc. And even that might have been obliterated by the construction of the manor house, whose remodelling of the site included building a causeway across the creek to produce a grand entranceway flanked by a flooded lake.

So presenter Tony Robinson, who admitted to being something of a fan of Harold's, was left with little to satisfy his interest in him. By the end of the three days, he was reduced to clinging to a single fragment of chaff-tempered ware (pottery that is characterised by the addition of large quantities of coarsely chopped grass, straw or chaff) as some sort of evidence that the Saxons had been here at all.

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