Portskewett, South Wales
First screened 30 March 2008

Q & A

Time Team regular Helen Geake answers our questions.

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What's your favourite Time Team dig?
The one I've enjoyed most is perhaps the mill at Dotton with its amazing stratigraphy and fantastic landscape. It taught me so much about watermills and how neglected – although incredibly important and informative – they are. The weather was wonderful and there was a river for swimming in at the end of the day. Could one ask for more?

What's your favourite Time Team find?
It came from Codnor Castle, but it's not the one you might expect! It's a lead spindle whorl with relief decoration, found in a medieval context. So what, you might ask – decorated lead whorls are quite commonly found by metal detectorists. Maybe, but until now they have been impossible to date. So this little object helps me a great deal in my 'day' job, working for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

We've recorded over 600 of these spindle whorls, but there has been a lot of controversy over their date – Roman or medieval? There was no Roman activity anywhere near Codnor, so the likelihood of its being residual (ie kicking about since the Roman period but only getting buried in medieval times) is minimal. So this apparently insignificant find instantly helps us to date hundreds of sites.

What's the most important Time Team discovery?
This has without a doubt got to be the early Anglo-Saxon grave, or graves, at Breamore (the Live dig in 2001). Not only did this area contain the Byzantine bronze bucket – one of only a handful known – but it also had several other inhumations [burials] with English buckets. An obsession with buckets (or anything else) like this is unparalleled in Anglo-Saxon archaeology.

What's your best Time Team moment?
Finding the little leather shoe at Jamestown, where I was helping to empty the well with Dave Givens, one of the Virginia archaeologists. We both had small children and it was a very familiar object to us. It was one of those moments when you feel a direct, emotional connection to someone long dead – a very poignant moment.

What's your favourite archaeological site in the UK?
Can I have a whole town? I love Ripon – I think it has more to tell us about the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England to Christianity than any other place.

And abroad?
It has to be Jamestown. The combination of familiar, intimate domestic finds and the world-changing consequences of where they were found is quite weird – it is like being on another planet.

Who's your archaeological hero?
Martin Carver, who taught me to be an archaeologist. He's not only an exceptionally talented excavator and researcher, but also someone passionate about making the past interesting – and this combination is so rare these days. Plus he knows how to keep people in his team happy and enthusiastic – he'll do the worst jobs (shovelling, spoil-heap management and sieving) and make sure that there is lots of whisky and singing in the evenings.

What's your favourite archaeology book?
The History of the English Countryside by Oliver Rackham.

If you could travel to one moment in time, where to and when?
Isle of Wight, 686 AD. The Isle of Wight was – officially – the last English kingdom to convert to Christianity, and its archaeology indicates that something very strange was going on at the time. There's a complete lack of burials, yet the island was certainly densely populated. It also had close political and cultural links with Kent, the first kingdom to be converted. One wonders if the ruling class were trying to hedge their bets.

If you could dig one site, what would it be?
The rest of Breamore.

If you could make one find, what would it be?
The royal treasure of King John, lost in the Wash in 1216. What that might tell us about medieval craftsmanship is almost impossible to imagine.

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