Jim Newbolt, tile-making specialist for the reconstruction cameo, is a craftsman with many talents. Apart from manufacturing tiles for this Time Team Live, Jim also travels the country demonstrating medieval ceramic technology to thousands of people every year.

Jim sets up his traditional potter's stall complete with wares for sale, a hand-driven potter's wheel, a selection of special tools, and even concoctions of ancient substances for producing accurate copies of medieval glazes.

The craft

For this programme Jim has been drafted in for his tile-making expertise. Using a wooden 'former' frame the red clay base is compacted to create the basic square pattern tile. Then a stamp, holding an impression of the required design, is pushed into the former to create a negative image:

'I make my stamps out of clay. That's because I'm a potter and it's easy for me to make them,' says Jim. 'Some of the other ones I use are wooden, but the principle is the same. White clay is then pushed into the negative impression.'

He continues, 'I have to wait until the tile air dries to a leathery texture before I can skive off the surface (scrape off a thin layer of clay). This brings the design up clearly as the white clay is left in the design impression'.

Final stages
As soon as the tiles are dried and skived they are glazed with a mixture of clay, flint and iron and ready to fire. 'I'm really looking forward to seeing how these come out in Beryl's kiln' says Jim. 'You can get different results depending on how hot the kiln gets and how they are stacked. We can learn a lot from this reconstruction' Jim enthused. With that he reached for his one hundred and third tile and continued to skive. Only 47 to go!

Time Team stalwart and regular face in the field, Mick the Dig has had an interesting day yesterday! Held up with rock hard soil and the pressure of a live broadcast looming, one word said it all, fun.

'This is fun', laughs Mick, 'It's so much better now we've broken through that horrible compacted clay. Finding the kiln is great. We're cleaning it up now and then we're going to go down into the kiln and try and find out what it was used for'.

Many of the kilns previously discovered in this area are of a similar pattern, but they can be used for different purposes (roof tiles, floor tiles or pottery).

'It's going to be good to find out what happened with this one. If it's a tile kiln hopefully we can find out which way the tiles were stacked. That would be a great help with the reconstruction cameo. Also if we can get any wasters (discarded fragments of poorly manufactured tiles or pots) from the kiln we can hopefully date its use'.

Many of the other medieval examples of kilns, though similar in size, can have varying designs. Mick is intrigued to find out about the workings of this one.
'I can't wait to see how this kiln worked, where the flues were and stoking holes. These things weren't built from a kit! Each one has its own peculiarities'.

So what are the plans for the rest of the site, any more trenches?
'We're dealing mainly with this one today, but I want to look for the workshops that probably would have gone with it. Lots of kilns have associated buildings, and with the number of them in this area I wouldn't be surprised if we found some sort of trace of something nearby'.

Behind the serious archaeology side there's also a smile on Mick's face: 'I just love doing live TV. Firstly you don't have to do loads of takes on everything, and secondly you can just say what you like, well, within reason.

Another thing with live TV is that it's hard work. At the end of the day it's definitely time for some drinking. We like to work hard and play hard, and we all like a drink to wind-down, so tonight we're going to be down the pub'.

What about digging the next day with a hangover?
'The best cure for a hangover that I've found is to dig a ten-metre-square trench. Some hot sun and a mattock (trench digging pick) are all you need. There's no need to start eating raw eggs or any of that nonsense'.