Ground work
After a busy day rigging equipment yesterday, most of today has revolved around equipment checks, geophysics prospecting, and preparing for the tile-making reconstruction cameo. Tyler Hill, so called because it was the medieval tile manufacturing centre of Canterbury, looks like a very promising site for the Team to excavate. A bonus for anybody working on site is the outstanding view over the city.
'This whole area is very large and we're just looking at a small part of it, but the prospects for finding good archaeology are very good indeed' says Tory Batten, archaeologist and television producer for this site. 'There's been a whole load of kilns, both for tiles and pottery, found all around this area in the past. The geophysics team have been running over our field all morning and the results so far are looking very hopeful.'
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Steve Bowden checks the equipmentin the sound section of OB Truck One
The technical bit
Two large outside broadcast (OB) lorries are parked by the entrance to the field (above). These articulated wagons are piled high with equipment for sound and vision broadcasting.
'We can deal with almost anything from these control vehicles' says sound engineer Steve Bowden (above). 'Everything from this site comes through here. We then transmit all the sound and vision to the main editing suite down in Canterbury and from there it can go out live on air'.
The equipment in the lorry is split between audio and visual. Monitors and mixing desks act as a hub for all of the mobile cameras and microphones. 'Live TV always gives us a few extra technical nightmares, but there's always the great relief when the broadcast is over,' says Steve with a laugh.
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Biggest kiln
Preparations are being made for the reconstruction cameo where the Team are going to attempt to make some medieval tiles. Huge piles of wood are being gathered to fire a kiln that will be constructed by specialist Beryl Hines. Producer Ella Galinski (above) enthused over the excitement of doing a live reconstruction.
'We've never built a kiln of this size and shape before. The challenge for a live broadcast like this is making it all come together,' she says. 'We don't know if the weather will hold, if the tiles will dry out in time or fire correctly, and there's always the possibility that it won't work! We have so many talented specialists coming together to work on this one I'm sure it's going to be just fascinating.'
Tomorrow ...
The real digging will start. The atmosphere is relaxed with an underlying nervous excitement. Watch out for our special interview with the Time Team director at Tyler Hill, Duncan Hess.
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The producer's view
By Tory Batten
Today has been one of preparation before the digging starts tomorrow. With a single show this evening, the crew have had a relatively quiet and very sunny day, interspersed with periods of frantic activity, walking through and rehearsing each scene before the transmission.
This has left the site free for geophysics. Magnetometry first, followed by radar and resistivity. And there's still mag sus to go! We don't yet have all the results but these should show if we're planning to dig in the right place.
The cameo team has also been hard at work, starting the process of kiln-building. The kiln sits in the soil, so everyone was relieved that there was no archaeology just where they chose to build. Wood has been gathered, clay prepared and a delivery of bricks has just turned up.
The experts expect the archaeology to lie only about 10cm below the surface, so they are itching to get going in the morning. The bad news, though, is the lousy weather forecast as there's very little shelter up here. In the meantime they've been counting wheelbarrows, checking the digger-bucket and polishing their trowels.
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