Can you see a hall yet?
Our site at Sutton Courtenay may have looked like an empty field, but this had the potential to be one of the most exciting three days of the series.
Buried below the surface was an Anglo Saxon royal centre, or so some of our archaeologists believed. So was this field the home of Kings over a thousand years ago or was it simply an empty field - we had three days to find out.
The cause of all the archaeological excitement was a series of five huge rectangles visible on aerial photos of the site. These were thought to show the remains of Anglo Saxon great halls, some of the most enigmatic buildings in British history.
Unlike most sites, conditions here were perfect for geophysics so John Gater and the team got straight to work. Within an hour they were producing spectacular results with a huge rectangular feature showing up right in the centre of our field. And what's more it lined up perfectly with the aerial photos. So could there be a great hall only inches below the surface? There was only one way to find out...
Phil opened our first trench at the western end of the rectangle to look for the evidence that would confirm our theories. This sort of archaeology requires a keen eye as Anglo Saxon buildings were wooden and all we could expect to find were stains in the ground left behind after the structure rotted away. But if Phil could find these faint traces of decayed wooden posts or timber frames then we'd have our great hall.
A beautiful strap end from
Trench 1
However we weren't only looking for halls on this site; the geophysics had also highlighted several anomalies that looked like Sunken Feature Buildings (SFBs for short). These structures get their name from the pit that's dug underneath the building, probably for storage - a sort of Anglo Saxon basement. There were several possible SFBs across the site and Faye opened a trench on one that seemed to lie underneath what could be a second hall.
Back in Phil's trench the soil had been cleared away revealing the outline of a colossal building. You could clearly see the stains left behind by the walls and posts of this massive Anglo Saxon hall. These were some of the most impressive stains our Team had ever seen - although outlining them with spray paint does help!
This was a rare discovery in itself but back in Faye's trench there was already evidence of a second hall. It wasn't as large as Phil's but it was, as we'd suspected, sitting on top of an SFB which was producing some fantastic finds. There were fragments of an antler comb, Anglo Saxon pottery and even a dog skull.
Our experts had been referring to this site as a royal centre, but how could we be sure that's what it was? Fortunately for us there is a one other site in England which we know to be an Anglo Saxon royal centre - Yeavering. Bede, an Anglo Saxon historian, tells us it was royal and that King Edwin, King of Northumbria, visited the site. The layout of Yeavering was just like Sutton Courtenay, strongly supporting the theory that we did have a royal centre as well.
Phil perfects his Old English
insults for the cameo
The true scale of Phil's hall was gradually emerging. We'd opened another trench at the eastern end and had uncovered what would have been the elaborate main entrance. Once inside the roof would have towered around 7 metres above your head - a truly epic structure. What's more, after comparison with England's other great halls, we realised this was the biggest one of them all.
By the end of Day Three we'd uncovered centuries of Anglo Saxon archaeology in this small field. Before the halls were built people were already living on the site in a village made up of SFBs. But around the 7th century these were replaced by the colossal complex of halls. These would have formed a royal centre and would have hosted the King and his retinue as he processed around his kingdom.
We celebrated our discovery in traditional Anglo Saxon style - by drinking heartily and practising finely honed insults on each other! Sometimes it's hard to spot where historical re-enactment finishes and standard Time Team life begins...
