Three Tales of Canterbury
18 March 2001

Find out more

The Time Team Live 2000 website has been updated with the final news of all the weekend's excavations and other activities. There you will find stories of the individuals involved in the digs, pictures and descriptions of the most important finds, and VRs and movie clips from behind the scenes with the experts and programme-makers who produce Time Team. In addition, through our web links and recommended reading, you can delve deeper into any of the subjects that the excavations brought to light. You can also find out more about past archaeological triumphs in Canterbury and about its illustrious history.

Canterbury has been a major Christian centre since Augustine founded an abbey there at the end of the 6th century. But the murder in 1170 of its archbishop was the making of medieval Canterbury. Pilgrims from across Europe flocked to the city to worship at the tomb of Thomas Becket. And within 50 years of his death, Canterbury had become home to the first Franciscan friary in England, among a plethora of other religious houses.

Time Team excavated Greyfriars, Britain's first Franciscan friary; a site at Blue Boy Yard, within the precincts of the former Roman temple; and the medieval tile-making complex just outside the city at Tyler Hill. They also looked at medieval Canterbury itself, and, with a bit of help from Chaucer and some local schoolchildren, at the life of a medieval pilgrim.

The ecclesiastical centre could not have developed without a myriad of support industries – including glass-stainers, ecclesiastical architects and tilers. Every religious house needed tiles for roofs and floors and, by the 12th century, quite an industry had become established on Tyler Hill overlooking the city. Time Team excavated this tile-manufacturing complex and explored the relationship between the ecclesiastical centre and its satellite support industries.

The Blue Boy Yard excavation, not far from the Greyfriars site, took the team through various layers of later occupation down to (and below) the original courtyard surface of the Roman temple.

The full story of Time Team Live 2000, including its problems of competing with live cricket on the Channel 4 programme schedules, is told in all its detail on the Time Team Live 2000 website.

Further reading and other websites

For recommended reading and other web links, go to the Time Team Live 2000 website.

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