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Time Team 2003
Greenwich, London

2 February 2003

Joust dig it

Five hundred years ago, Greenwich Palace in London was inherited by Henry VIII when he became king in 1509. With England having a secondary reputation among armourers in the 15th century, Henry set about building the most prestigious armour works in Europe and recruited some of the best armourers from across the continent in an attempt to rival the leading German and Italian manufacturers.

Henry didn't only want to make outstanding armour. He also sought to impress both his own subjects and the rest of Europe by staging fantastic pageants at the palace, to which he invited the most powerful and influential people of the day. These pageants included jousts and tournaments, which took place in a specially constructed 'tiltyard' overlooked by two huge towers for the spectators.

There is nothing left above ground today of Henry's grand palace, the armoury and tilting yard at Greenwich, which is the site of the former Royal Naval College and more usually associated with Britain's maritime history. So could Time Team discover anything dating from the time of the Tudors?

Churned-up stratigraphy
In terms of actual finds, this was not one of Time Team's more productive digs – although it did produce part of a Tudor horseshoe, which may have been worn by one of the horses in the tilting yard. Indeed, the first couple of days yielded very little from the Tudor period at all. One of the big problems of archaeological work in London – or any built-up area – is the churned-up stratigraphy. Centuries of building and demolition activity usually mean that it's necessary to dig through metres of modern rubble, services and culverts before reaching any older remains. Even then, they are likely to be badly damaged or disturbed. The chances of finding a suit of armour, or even a piece of it, of course, are slim.

Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, with the help of a detailed search of historical documents it did prove possible to locate both the armoury and the tiltyard and its associated banqueting hall and other buildings. Further excavations are being carried out following Time Team's departure to advance our knowledge about this neglected aspect of the history of this world-famous site at Greenwich.

Time Team at Greenwich: free exhibition
'Greenwich Palace Revealed' is a free exhibition describing the search to uncover the royal armoury and tiltyard of Henry VIII. The display is located in the Greenwich Gateway Visitor Centre, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich; open 10am-5pm. The site also provides a history of Greenwich and information for visitors to Greenwich.

Further information is available on the Greenwich Foundation website at www.greenwichfoundation.org.uk/greenwich_gateway.htm

Time Team fans might like to combine a visit to this exhibition with one to 'Elizabeth', a major exhibition taking place at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where Elizabeth was born, from 1 May to 14 September 2003. Involving guest curator David Starkey, this will be the major national event marking the 400th anniversary of her death in 1603. It brings together over 350 personal items, paintings, manuscripts and other exhibits relating to Elizabeth I, many of which have not been on public display before. The exhibition is open from 10am-5pm (6pm in July and August).

This website contains links to other websites which are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

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Master M the armourer

The Greenwich programme featured a reconstruction cameo involving the skilled armourer Emrys (he only uses a first name), also known as Master M. He made a breast plate for Tony Robinson, offering a glimpse of what Henry VIII's armourers would have been producing on the site.

Armourers have always had to tackle a fundamental problem: a suit of armour (or full harness) has to offer protection yet at the same time be flexible and not hinder movement. By the 15th century knights were practically fully encased in steel, so great skill was involved in creating armour that met these requirements. Master M uses the same techniques to produce traditional armour today.

'I would like to think that any 15th-century armourer could walk into my workshop and recognise all of the tools and formers that I use,' he says. 'I've been making armour this way for over 32 years. I'm still learning the trade. The learning curve isn't quite as steep as it was, but I pick up new things all the time. I promised myself that the day I didn't have anything left to learn I would pack it in.'

Working with sheet steel, Master M marks out the various parts of the harness using card patterns. After cutting out the steel into the required pattern, the process of shaping the metal starts with hammering over various 'formers', or into the bowl-shaped depression of the tree-stump block. Scratches, marks and imperfections are removed by plenishing the metal (fine hammering) and then the elbow grease comes out for the polishing.

Though it can take up to six months to create a full harness from scratch, some parts are harder to make than others. 'The greaves (protection for the lower leg) have to be the hardest part,' says Master M. 'It takes a lot of work to make one with its delicate curves, but to then make the other to match like a mirror image can be the hardest part without a shadow of a doubt.'

A suit of armour isn't the sort of thing you can buy off the shelf, so every part is made to measure: 'I do it exactly the same way as they did in the 15th century. Some people come in to be measured up, but many send me wax or plaster casts of parts of their bodies – like their legs for making greaves. Sometimes I need to go to the client to measure them up and that can take me all over the world. The ideal situation is to have the client do several fittings as the suit comes together. The hardest individual piece I've ever made was a Greek style helmet with a swan on the top for the film Alexander the Great. It just took for ever to do.'

So has any job ever made him regret starting as an armourer? 'No. There is something about the beauty of steel. I just adore working with it.'

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Running for Time Team

You might have heard of production 'runners', but what do they actually do? Time Team runners Tim Chambers and Ben Alpers talked about what's involved in their jobs.

'Production running is all about lots of tea and sandwiches!' says Tim. 'For this job it's a bit of "pick and mix" really. There's the basic running about to fetch stuff for the production crew, but also a lot of location work. I've done a few films before and they have their own location people, but on Time Team both roles are combined. We have to look after the health and safety side of things and make sure that whoever owns the site we're working on is happy as well.'

'Before Time Team I was a runner in New Zealand,' says Ben. 'I was on the same crewing agency as Mak Knighton (the runners' boss on Time Team) and got hired by him. Basically Tim and I have a full working week out of each shoot. We have the rigging day before everything starts and then the clearing up and de-rig at the end. Between us we share all the jobs from getting people tea and sandwiches to running out cables. When we're not filming we help with the post-production work by doing things like copying all of the rushes (the 30 or so original tapes from the three days of filming) for the director and editors. Sometimes there need to be three copies of the rushes so we can end up watching a hundred tapes and then delivering them across London.'

'The best part of the job is the travelling,' says Tim. 'Ben takes his camera everywhere – he's a real tourist. You can't be a runner for ever, so most people do this to get a start in the production business. It's a good way in, great fun and we love it.'

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Further reading

Royal Palaces of Tudor England by Simon Thurley (Yale University Press, 1993) hardback £45 ISBN: 0300054203
The royal palaces of the Tudor period – Greenwich Palace, Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London, St James' Palace, Nonesuch, Whitehall and Richmond Palace, amongst others – are the subject of this beautifully illustrated exploration of royal architecture and court life in the reign of Henry VIII, reflecting the richness and splendour of the Tudor lifestyle. Every aspect of palace life – from the deliberations of the Star Chamber to the problems of providing sanitation for 800 people – is covered in detail, as well as the architectural history of not only the most important palaces, but also a selection of 'lesser' houses. A beautifully illustrated exploration of royal architecture and court life in the reign of Henry VIII, reflecting the richness and splendour of the Tudor lifestyle. Simon Thurley was used as Time Team's principal expert for the Rycote House excavation for the 2001 series.

What's Left of Henry VIII? by Deborah Jaffé (Dial House, 1995) paperback £9.99
Combines the story of Henry's life and reign with a discussion of those artefacts and buildings associated with him that still survive, including a number of palaces and country houses.

Brick Building in Britain by R W Brunskill (Orion, 1997) paperback £16.99 ISBN: 0575065354
Time Team was able to identify the Tudor remains at Greenwich by the brickwork. The Tudors reintroduced the use of bricks in building in Britain for the first time since the Romans. The manufacture of brick, its use in historic buildings and the changing styles of brick-based construction and decoration are all described in this well-illustrated book.

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Other websites

This website contains links to other websites which are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

National Maritime Museum
www.nmm.ac.uk
The National Maritime Website at Greenwich has extensive collections covering the Tudor period at Greenwich, including its collection of paintings in the Tudor room. The website contains a great deal of material about the period, but it is not organised under one heading and so can be difficult to find. The site search engine can be used for this purpose, however, and searches for 'Tudors', 'Tudor palace', or 'Henry VIII' will link you to the relevant sections. There are online copies of some of the drawings used by Time Team during the excavation, which featured in the programme.

Greenwich Foundation
www.greenwichfoundation.org.uk
When the Royal Navy departed from Greenwich in December 1998, responsibility for the Old Royal Naval College, which stands on the site of Henry VIII's palace at Greenwich, passed to the Greenwich Foundation. Their website contains information about the site, including a brief history and details of a free exhibition about Time Team's excavations there.

Greenwich Palace
www.britannia.com/history/
londonhistory/grw-pal1.html
The Britannia website has a good history of the royal palace at Greenwich, including a contemporary account of one of Henry VIII's jousting tournaments there.

Tudor History
www.tudorhistory.org
Extensive website with information on all the Tudor monarchs and the period in general. As well as sections dealing with life in Tudor times, who's who in Tudor history, genealogies, maps, chronologies and electronic texts and documents, there's even one on 'Tudor humour'.

The Tudor Project
www.burbage-jun.leics.sch.uk/tudors
An excellent website that shows how much can be done on limited resources, this was created by Carran Craig and the children of Class 4M at Burbage Junior School, Leicestershire. The project covers the Tudor Years (1485-1603), offering useful facts and figures on many aspects of Tudor Life. There is an assortment of trivia, biographies, case studies, and some entertaining quizzes and puzzles, including one in which you have to arrange Henry VIII's mixed-up armour correctly. The children have contributed their own pictures and text too.

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