Saturday's diary 11.00am Mick 'The Dig' Worthington says that the early geophysics results are really impressive and they'll be opening Trench 1 mid-morning. The going will be a bit 'iffy' since the soil is sandy. This not only makes it difficult to construct a coherent excavation (the soil falls apart rather than staying where it's wanted), but the dark-coloured sand will make it hard for the cameras to see what is being unearthed. Mick was last seen disappearing over a rise on his way to open the Live's first trench, which will be overseen by Carenza. Up at the church, archaeological surveyor Richard Trainer was directing his equipment on to the ruins. He is going to make a three-dimensional computer model of them, which will eventually be imported into Steve Breeze's software for the final reconstruction. Richard is using a TVALS, which includes a television lead that communicates directly with his computer so that what he is measuring can be displayed on screen. In addition, he's employing a Zeiss Ric Elta RL that incorporates a laser beam to measure distances. With the latter measurements and the angles that the apparatus also sorts out, he will be able to give a totally accurate position for the church. Richard says that this method of creating a 3D model is best when – as here – there are very few expansive planes (which could be recreated from rectified photography). He will be able to cope better with the multiplicity of corners and openings that comprise the ruins. Poised to attack our future spoil heaps are a dozen metal detectorists led by John Wells, all members of the West Norfolk Search and Recovery Group. They have possibly the best reputation in the country for working closely with archaeologists – an initiative that was started a number of years ago. Andrew Rogerson (with Mick Aston, left) – head of Norfolk Landscape Archaeology and one of our key archaeological experts on the Live – attends each monthly meeting of the Group, collects what the metal detectorists have found during the previous four weeks, takes it back to the local museum to record it and then returns it to the members the following month. In this way, huge amounts of valuable material have been made available to other archaeologists and historians. The metal detectorists – who have already discovered masses of important and intriguing finds on these fields in the past – will be used extensively during the Live. 1.00pm Unbelievable or what! Coracle maker Conwy Richards just happened to be paddling along the local river when he found himself passing by the Time Team Live site. Richards has made dozens of coracles over the past few years. If you're interested, he'll make you one for around £200. Sandi's Anglo-Saxon riddle The Anglo-Saxons wrote hundreds of riddles for their entertainment. Can you guess what this one describes? My nose is pointed downwards. I crawl along and dig in the earth... My guardian, at my tail, pushes his way on the plain, Lifts me and presses me on... As I advance, on one side of me there is green, While on the other my black track is clear. Answer 3.00pm Inside the church, the 12th-century arch leading into the tower is being reconstructed. According to Darren Barker, a conservator with Norfolk County Council (working with Stephen Heywood, architectural historian), the two-order Norman arch collapsed some time between 1975 and 1985. This is because one of the two abacuses – the large square pieces of masonry that held up the voussoirs, the curved pieces of stone that actually formed the arch – had collapsed when the stone jamb beneath it disappeared. All the voussoirs were stored in the English Heritage store room until something could be done with them. It was thought that three were missing but two were recently discovered buried in the store room. The still-missing third voussoir is being reconstructed on site by stone mason Alan Robinson, whose father Sidney is rebuilding the arch itself. He is using lime putty made of lime, sand and stone dust, a formula based on an analysis of the original material that had stuck the voussoirs together. Two of the voussoirs had Anglo-Saxon interlace – a typical type of carved decoration – on their backs. This means that they were probably once Anglo-Saxon grave markers, reused by the Norman church builders. The presence of the grave markers might indicate that there was once an Anglo-Saxon graveyard here, although the markers could have come from anywhere. But, said Darren, it is even more likely that the Norman builders used whatever was to hand, especially since there is no stone available locally. The backs of the carved voussoirs have been recorded, and the pieces will take their rightful places along with the others in the arch. The missing abacus has been put back with two large steel pins underneath instead of the jamb. The arch would originally have been painted with limewash, which might have been pigmented, but the traces still visible appear to be white. Pete Bellamy, archaeologist and official site reporter, informs us that, although 'masses of finds' are coming to light from the fieldwalking and metal detectoring, there is only one plastic bowl for the 20 find-washers to use. Someone is being sent to Do-It-All pronto! Trench 2 is being dug in the apse of the church. It is in the same place as a trench excavated in the 1930s but never recorded. So far the diggers - under the watchful eye of Neil Holbrook, chief archaeologist here and perhaps familiar to those who watched the Live last year at Turkdean, when Neil headed the Gloucestershire archaeological unit team – have unearthed some 14th-century glazed floor tiles and some bits of stained glass from the same period. Unfortunately, at the moment they are simply digging out the backfill from the previous trench and thus the finds have no 'context'; but the latest word is that they have more or less figured out the extent of that trench and so can concentrate on 'virgin' ground.
Trench 2	Neil Holbrook	Rev Ian Whittle
Ian Whittle is rector of the local group of parishes. The church on this site is one of two ruined churches in the parish, but it is not redundant, according to the Rev Whittle. It is still very much part of a 'live' parish and Ian officially 'owns' the churchyard and has responsibility for both the living and the mortal remains of the dead. We may be encountering some of the latter in the near future.
	Early medieval Thetford ware pottery, roulette pattern, found by fieldwalker, M5
5.00pm The aerial photograph showed what looked like a distinct boundary ditch some way away from the church and surrounding it. These aerial signs of a possible ditch were later matched by the geophysics results. Excavation has revealed a quite wide (12m) ditch that is also very shallow – only 30-40cm deep. There is also evidence of what could possibly be a later fence, cut with a sharp, vertical edge along the same line as and into the fill of the ditch. Carenza suggested that this might have been a beamed palisade. Why would the Saxons have wanted such a wide, shallow ditch, with no defensive capability? Mick Aston isn't surprised by this revelation. 'If it was a monastic site,' he says, ' there would have been no need for defence. The ditch would have simply been symbolic, delineating the boundary of the monks' domain.' The diggers' project is to excavate a number of trenches right round what we think (hope?) is an Anglo-Saxon ditch to ensure that it is indeed a single feature. This is similar to what Time Team did at Downpatrick in Northern Ireland in the last series. But the going will not be easy. It has been hard to sort out the different types of soil - what is natural, what is redeposited. In addition, below the sandy soil (which is very dry and blowing around in the stiff breeze) there is clay. According to Pete Bellamy, clay is even worse than dark sand to identify finds. 'You simply can't see what's there,' he says. 'People often leave a clay excavation to dry for a week before trying to see what's in it. Over that time, what looked like an empty trench will suddenly acquire all kinds of pottery sherds and other things, all of which had been invisible before.'
Carenza Lewis with Mick the dig	Sandi Toksvig with a metal detectorist	Phil Harding
Area around the church	Carenza's trench (Trench 1 – the ditch)	The top end – a harbour?
Another area of great geophys interest is a part of the fields north of the church where two anomalies meet and where Trench 3 is now being excavated. This could be the entranceway or gate into the ditch, and if this can be established, it will give us a sense of the position of other features associated with it. It has been suggested that the ditch and gate need not be Anglo-Saxon but prehistoric, which would make the gate very interesting indeed. Such places often have what are known as 'structured deposits' – middens (rubbish heaps), votive offerings and even burials. But even if such a gate turns out to be 'younger', it would have been a place where people would have passed to and fro, dropping items that might be found today. But the position of the possible gate leads to even more questions. Where was the sea in relation to it? If it was close, why have a ditch? And why have a gate on the sea side, so that the people coming to the site from the country would have had to circle right around? Perhaps the next two-and-a-half days will give us some of the answers. On instructions from Norfolk Landscape Archaeology - headed by Andrew Rogerson and ultimately in charge of the site - all the trenches are being started with very gentle mechanical digging down to 10 cm (thus removing the top soil), then metal detected, then equally gently dug by hand. These measures have been adopted because this is a particularly sensitive and complicated site. 7.20pm Stewart Ainsworth, landscape surveyor and unsung hero of Time Team, reported on what he thinks of the site towards the end of Day One. In the morning he had gone up in the chopper with Mick Aston to try to place the site within the landscape - the topography, how the land lies - and the best way of doing this is by viewing it from above. He was trying to establish whether this place, which is 7-8 kilometres inland, was once on or near the coast. By using geological survey maps and data and looking at the sedimentation and land forms, he had established that the ridge on which the church stands had once been surrounded by water. There may have also been a narrow landbridge on the ESE side, but at times of high tide and flood, the site would have been completely isolated. This makes this ridge unique along this coastline. Because of its location and form, the likelihood is that whatever activities were carried on here would have had some importance during the Anglo-Saxon period or even earlier. Waterbound sites like this one quite typically were the locations of high-status monastic establishments. The diggers in Trench 2 are still coping with the remains of the 1930s' excavations. These have included a few pieces of redeposited human bone including a skull. Although forensic archaeologist Margaret Cox donned her 'space suit' to avoid contaminating any potential DNA that might have been found within the skull, when she discovered that it had no 'context', she quickly got back into her own clothes. The excavation has uncovered part of a tile floor still in situ, thought to be at least late 16th century. However, some of the tiles, which come in two different colours, are still set in a chequerboard pattern, which implies that they have remained undisturbed and thus are older than the others. The diggers have also found some early 14th-century tiles stamped with the name THOMAS ... backwards! According to Andrew Rogerson, these were made right on this farm, about a quarter of a mile from the church. In a clump of trees was the site of many kilns for a short period in the 14th century. Much later, the Duke of Rutland became so desirous of obtaining the many tiles in the tall spoil heaps that he bought the farm to get them – truly the Victor Kiam of his time! The duke's tile collection can now be seen at the British Museum. Andrew will be bringing in more information about these tiles tomorrow – we hope to bring you the details then.
Mid-Saxon sceat minted in Domburg Holland c700-715	Second sceat, found M5	Anglo-Saxon strap end, found Q6
Mid-Saxon pin	Mid-Saxon tweezers c900	Medieval local tile with Thomas backwards
Trench 4 goes in	Edith and Emma cooking pig's trotters the Saxon way	Late Saxon stamped tile c100, found P7
Answer to Sandi's riddle: A plough