Blythburgh, Suffolk
First screened 29 March 2009

What they found

A few years ago, Nick and Susan Haward and their family moved into their new house in Blythburgh, Suffolk. They were pottering around in one of their garden sheds, looking through one of the innumerable old cupboards when they discovered two shelves of human bones, including pieces from three skulls. A bit alarming, or even scary perhaps, but not really surprising when you consider what's in the rest of the garden. For among the trees, the shrubs and the ivy are some unusual and impressive garden features.

The church at Blythburgh, known as the 'cathedral of the marshes' for its magnificence and size, has been a landmark on the coast road between Norfolk and Suffolk since medieval times. We also know that Henry I founded an Augustinian priory here in the 12th century and that 500 years earlier the Saxon king Anna was killed on the salt marshes that surround the village on three sides and buried here. Could the Hawards' overgrown garden once have been at the heart of one of the most sacred sites in East Anglia?

Nothing clear
Judging by the stone structures still standing above ground, with large walls above head height, various pillars and other remains, tracking down the original Norman priory ought to have been relatively easy. These followed a regular basic plan: a great hall, dormitory and refectory forming three sides of a cloister, and the fourth side enclosed, to the north or south, by the nave of the priory church. A dozen or so trenches and three days later, it was clear that – well, that nothing was as clear as might have been expected.

The combined efforts of Time Team's usual experts, together with local historian Alan Mackley, architectural historian Bob Carr and John Ette, from English Heritage, brought in specially for this dig, struggled to unravel the original plan of the priory and any buildings that stood here previously. The area under investigation was extended, going into a neighbouring garden, and provisional plans were revised, with the likely position of the cloister being moved from the south to the north of the church and an aisle being added outside the nave, as evidence accumulated and the dig progressed.

A special building
Most of all, it became obvious that in its heyday the priory church would have been a magnificent structure, much larger than anticipated before the dig began. 'It's big, it's a special building,' Bob Carr enthused. 'It must be the best bit of 13th-century in the region, fantastic!'.

Pinning down the exact locations of the east and west walls of the church, let alone other less obvious features, proved beyond the scope of a three-day dig, however. Phil Harding did find a large robbed-out trench, containing remnants of finely-faced flint, which he was convinced would have been part of the 'smart end' – the east end – of the church in one trench but elsewhere the diggers couldn't produce enough material to be sure. The west end of the church, in particular, seemed to have been removed altogether by later landscaping.

In Matt Williams's trench, a series of layers, including various post holes, referred back to various earlier stages of building on the site. And a number of burials uncovered during the dig, the investigation of which was led by regular Time Team osteoarchaeologist, or bones expert, Jackie McKinley, turned out to date back in some cases as far as the mid-7th century AD – around the time that King Anna was killed. Others were dated by radio-carbon dating to around 930 AD.

Five horses and an old cart
Most of the remains, though, including a large 13th-century male skeleton discovered with a splendid brooch, related to the medieval priory. This was a sorry shadow of its formerly grand self by the time of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, as local historian Alan Mackley explains. He describes the decline in prosperity of Blythburgh in an article, available in full online, How rich was Blythburgh?

Blythburgh was ranked 21st in Suffolk towns in a tax return of 1327, close to Newmarket and Stowmarket, but well below Dunwich and Orford. Blythburgh was still 19th in 1524, just below Southwold, but was suffering. The economic consequences of the Black Death of 1349, and its recurrences, had hit hard. In 1428, among taxes raised by Parliament to finance Henry VI's war with France, was one levied on parishes with more than ten households. Blythburgh qualified. But in 1449 Blythburgh was one of the communities granted tax relief (compared with a 1334 assessment), indicative of depopulation and loss of wealth since pre-Black Death days. Walberswick was not granted relief. Perhaps Blythburgh's position on a main road meant a disproportionate loss of passing trade, in addition to the disruption of the local rural economy. The market is described as 'decayed indeed' and in 1490 there was only one stall.

Blythburgh Priory was also less wealthy than it had been. In the 1200s it enjoyed incomes from some 40 Suffolk parishes, but the value of its property suffered from the Black Death and coastal erosion, falling from £88 pa in 1291 to £48 in 1535. The value of the priory when it was suppressed in 1537 was a little over £8, including five horses and an old cart.

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