Time Team

As a curtain-raiser for the 1998 series of Time Team, which started in January 1998, Tony and the team gathered. The first Time Team special to air took a look back over the last five years. Over the years, viewers have flooded the series with queries as to what happened after Time Team finished their three-day investigations – were the sites further excavated, were finds available to see in museums and how did local people react to finding an important archaeological find on their doorstep? Time Team returns to a few key sites for updated reports and the Team members also remember their favourite moments and finds.

This pre-Christmas special offers a taster of what is coming up in the next series – and provides an update on previous Time Team digs. Presented by Tony Robinson from York's Barley Hall, where a Medieval Christmas celebration is in full swing, the show tells what has happened at many of the digs featured in the last series.

Last year, on this bleak and beautiful stretch of Norfolk coastline, a local man made an extraordinary discovery. Walking the beach at low tide he found a bronze axe head. Nearby, was a mysterious circle of eroded timber posts half buried in the sand, and in the middle of the circle was a huge upturned tree stump. It’s utterly intriguing nothing quite like it’s ever been found before and everyone wants to know who built it, what it was for and what it originally looked like.

This king was called Arthur, and his stories known to us all. But actually he’s shrouded in mystery, some people say that he was a chivalrous medieval king. Others, a gritty Dark Age warrior, others again, that he never existed at all. Time Team are setting out on a quest of our own to see if we can find out who he really was. It’s a journey back in time through centuries of myth and legend, on the way we’ll visit sacred lakes, pull our own sword from the stone and uncover the very first archaeological host.

I’m in a remote farm in the Orkneys on a little hillock called Mine Howe. For years there have been stories around here of tunnels under the roads and mysterious underground rooms, which have never been satisfactorily explained until about six months ago when an extraordinary discovery was made. Acting on stories of a lost secret chamber first found in 1946, a local farmer and his friends set out to rediscover it. What they found was extraordinary. A set of stairs made of stone, disappearing into the earth and leading to a dark and secret chamber. A set of stairs leading into a hillock’s unique. And now the whole archaeological world is agog, everyone wants to know who built it and when and what it was put there for.

Time Team takes a trip from the Palaeolithic to the present and plots the nation's past through the finds and revelations made across the last seven series. The Team pays a visit to classic UK archaeological sites, such as Grimes Graves and Bede's World, and examines key digs from programmes past to look at how archaeologists have interpreted the nation's history.

This special programme looked behind the scenes at some of the things that you don't usually see in the normal Time Team programmes.

Welcome to what used to be the quiet backgarden of Coventry Cathedral's offices. Quiet that is, until Time Team kick-started an excavation into St Mary's, Coventry's first Cathedral which was ruthlessly destroyed by Henry the Eighth during the reformation. Over three days in 1999 we uncovered the remains of a building which would once have rivalled any Cathedral in England and yet work on this fantastic site had barely begun.

Time Team has been following an excavation in Ely, Cambridgeshire, for a feature-length documentary screened on 17 May. It has uncovered a remarkable picture of Ely in past centuries: channels where boats used to moor to load and unload goods; a medieval kiln with huge quantities of high-quality pottery finds; and a number of buildings fronting the road at Broad Street.

If you think archaeologists with their strange haircuts and their bizarre dress sense and their obsession with all the rubbish from ancient civilizations are a funny lot, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Phil and I are in Montana, in the wild west of the USA. And every summer, what seem like half the eccentrics in the universe turn up here to dig for even larger remains from times even longer ago. We’re here to meet the dinosaur hunters, we wanna find out what they do, and how they do it and hopefully even have a go ourselves.

I’m right at the top of Canterbury cathedral and a few hundred feet below me, the most ambitious urban archaeological project the country’s ever known, has just begun. One eighth of the entire ancient city is gonna be excavated to make way for a huge new shopping centre. The Big Dig as its known locally is right down there in the centre of town. So it should be jam packed full of exciting archaeology from the present day, back to the Romans and maybe even beyond. The Archaeologists are up against the clock though. The developers want them off site as quickly as possible. The Time Team are gonna be following the progress of the big dig both onsite and behind the scenes and were gonna be helping the local team to reconstruct the 2000 year story of this historic piece of Canterbury real estate. Oh… And we’ve got just nine months to do it.

2000 years ago, London didn’t exist. It was created by the Romans in the first century AD. They settled just over there in what we now call the city. It started as a simple bridge over a river, but within a hundred years had become a bustling city with a population of 30,000. But it was a long way from Rome, and Londinium has always been considered a bit of a frontier town, an unsoffisticated outpost perched precariously on the very edge of the Roman empire, until now. Over the last nine months, archaeologists from the Museum of London have been working on a site right in the heart of the city, and what they’ve discovered, suggests that Londinium was in fact one of the most soffisticated and advanced cities in the whole Roman empire.

HMS Victory, probably the most famous English warship of all time. Everyone knows the story of how the Victory, under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson routed the French at the battle of Trafalgar and how Nelson died a national hero. Quite rightly, this is a perfectly preserved piece of our maritime heritage, but what happened to the other ships under Nelson’s command, where are they? Well, the simple answer is, they’re all long gone. Either destroyed in battle, lost at sea, broken up or just rotted away. Well, maybe not quite all. This is a story about the underwater excavation of one of Nelson’s lost ships. It involves Nelson’s mistress, Emma Hamilton; her husband, amateur archaeologist, Sir William Hamilton; a priceless collection of antiquities; a shipwreck and the discovery and raising of one of the most important pieces of maritime art ever found in British waters.

Ten years ago university lecturer, Mick Aston was teaching archaeology to classes of just 30 students. Now, thanks to television, Mick, Tony and the team reach an audience of over 3 million. Time Team, Channel 4's award winning archaeology show is ten years old.

A team of expert engineers, archaeologists and craftsmen are about to join forces in an epic archaeological experiment, to build a full size working replica of a Roman water lifting machine. At almost 4 meters in height, capable of raising 7000 litres of water per hour, this was ancient cutting edge technology. But no-one really knows how it worked or what it really looked like. What we do know is that the machine has to be installed and working in the Museum of London in three months time.

Digs at Great Easton, Leicestershire; Wolverhampton; Barnet; Oakamoor; Preston; Cheltenham; Upminster and Groundwell Ridge in Swindon.

The team followed ARCUS, the Archaeological Research and Consultancy at the University of Sheffield, on some of its excavations into Sheffield's industrial past. Early death, deadly machinery and the worst man-made disaster in British history were revealed as Time Team documented the work of the archaeologists who have spent more than six years digging through the remains of a city that was once the biggest producer of steel in the world.

Loch Tay, and the kind of view that draws people to Scotland. But the landscape isn’t the main attraction for archaeologists Nick Dixon and Barrie Andrian, who are much more interested in what they can see in the shallow waters around the edge of this loch. In this time team special documentary, you’ll be submerged into the world of underwater archaeology, and visit an Iron Age house that hasn’t been seen since prehistoric times. Are you ready? Stand by to dive into the Iron Age.

Hidden away in Kent is an architectural gem. A house that has some how survived with a little bit of every fashion imposed on it over seven centuries. This is Ightham Mote near Sevenoaks, bits of it date back to 1320 and officially it’s the most complete moated medieval manor house in the UK. At least it was until the National Trust started it’s most ambitious and expensive restoration project to date. Since 1989 this building has been literally taken apart brick by brick and beam by beam revealing the hidden history of the house for the first time. In this special Time Team documentary you will discover along with me that this is a totally different kind of archaeology. You’ll learn something about the twenty generations who lived here and see some of the things they deliberately hid away.

60 years ago on D-Day, the allies invaded Nazi occupied France. The invasion force made up of a 150,000 US, British and Canadian troops, was the largest in the history of western civilization. The Americans were to land on Omaha and Utah beaches, Canadians on Juno and the British on Sword and Gold. Almost half of the total troops were British and among them were the 400 infantrymen of the first Dorset regiment. They landed here on Gold beach on the 6th of June 1944, and this is the story of their day.

It might not seem it, but this damp piece of unprepresessing scrub is at the heart of one of the most important discoveries in British archaeological history. Just below the surface here, diggers found the tomb of an Anglo-Saxon King, crammed with ornate finds from across Europe, and that was just the start, of a fascinating detective story. Who was this mysterious King? Archaeologists have spent the last twelve months unpicking this site and pouring over the finds trying to find hidden clues which could reveal the identity of the person who was buried here, and Time Team has been with them all the way.

Tony Robinson, Phil Harding and Guy de la Bedoyere tell the story of the discovery of the only Roman circus ever found in Britain, just outside Colchester's Roman walls. They investigate the history of the circus and explore the rough, tough world of chariot racing.

Three thousand years ago the River Witham, just outside Lincoln, was a busy place. In the cold wet Autumn of 2004, archaeologists were given just six weeks to rescue the fragile evidence of a major Bronze Age settlement, before it would be buried under tons of clay when the river’s flood defences were strengthened. With frequent visits from Tome Team regulars, Mick Aston and Phil Harding, this Time Team Special follows the progress of this extraordinary dig, and witnesses the spectacle of literally thousands of prehistoric finds being unearthed and analysed.

Stonehenge may be Britain's most famous henge: a massive monument and ancient construction that is shrouded in mystery. But a mile away is an even bigger henge: Durrington Walls. In a major excavation this summer, archaeologists linked the two monuments and revealed an extraordinary and sophisticated picture of Stone Age life. Can the team prove it was the start of a journey for the ancestors' spirits down the River Avon to the permanent memorial of Stonehenge? Even more remarkable, inside the henge was a huge wooden monument with 160 trees arranged in perfect circles. The piles of finds indicate the aftermath of great feasts, so to understand the monument better, Time Team takes on the mammoth task of building a full-size replica. It is impressive and the theories flow thick and fast. Could the midwinter alignment mean this may be the first recorded "Christmas", 2,500 years before Christ was born? Prod: Sian Price; Exec Prod: Philip Clarke.

Tony Robinson presents the story of the excavation of a big Roman villa in Somerset, originally discovered by Time Team in 2002 and revisited in 2005. The programme demonstrates how the villa grew from a small farm building to a fine stone building, and how that was expanded again and turned round to face the busy new Fosse Way.

In order to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE day, archaeologists from the Museum of London enlist the aid of dozens of volunteers to excavate Dorchester Street in Shoreditch, London.

A special edition of the archaeology programme to mark The Queen's 80th birthday. Tony Robinson and his team of historians are granted exclusive access to investigate three royal sites - Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and The Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Tony Robinson talks us through the renovation of, perhaps, one of the most important homes ever built: Augustus Pugin's home in Ramsgate. In the mid-19th century, Pugin reinvented a medieval style of architecture that became known as Gothic Revival. Best known for his work on the Houses of Parliament, he built the Grange in Ramsgate in the 1840s using his own money and with, as he put it, "not an untrue bolt or joint from foundation to flagpole". Amazingly, the house was about to be destroyed in 2004 when the Landmark Trust set about restoring it. Time Team follows the transformation of the property and visits other Pugin creations around the country. It promises to be an intriguing mix of Grand Designs and Restoration - what could be better?

Until about 8,000 years ago Britain was part of the European continent. Then the ice melted, rivers flooded, seas rose and, hey presto, the land that joined us to France, Holland and Denmark disappeared under water. The excitable Tony Robinson and his team of eager archaeologists set about investigating the vast, flat landscape that's now under the North Sea and the English Channel. But it's one of the most difficult archaeological sites to work on. While the local fishermen regularly bring up ancient bones from the seabed, Robinson and co merely bring up their dinner. It's worth the discomfort though: vast mammoth bones, the jaw of a sabre-toothed cat, a lion's canine and sophisticated tools are among the treasures that enthusiasts have uncovered.

The Time Team archaeologists make a 400th-anniversary visit to Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America. Jamestown is the birthplace of the United States and brought the country the English language, as well as the English legal and political system. Piles of perfectly-preserved 17th century finds are pulled up from a disused well, bringing the team closer to the men, women and children who founded.

Tony Robinson takes us on a grand tour around some of our finest stately gardens, where he visits extraordinary grottoes and fanciful follies, and uncovers sexy secrets concealed in apparently classical designs. He starts at Prior Park garden near Bath, where a two-year project is underway to reinstate Alexander Pope's Wilderness and the 18thcentury Serpentine Lake and Cascade. But he also travels to the breathtaking Hadrian's Garden near Rome, the inspiration for so much that we see in the "traditional" English garden.

Time Team reports on a prickly issue in the world of old artefacts whilst on a secret investigation into a possible Viking boat burial in Yorkshire. After metal detectorists make a major discovery of coins, silver and swords a small team of archaeologists set out to uncover the source of these remarkable objects. The programme lays bare the uneasy relationship between archaeologists and the UK's 50,000 metal detectorists, some of whom are unscrupulous when it comes to exploiting their finds. The battle lines are drawn (then pegged out, excavated and displayed) between two camps with different priorities: the archaeologists and the metal detectorists. The former want to preserve ancient relics to be studied; most of the latter do, too, although an unscrupulous few would rather make money by selling their precious finds without declaring them to the experts. The issue comes to the fore at an investigation into a possible Viking boat burial at Ainsbrook in Yorkshire.

Under the Queen's private lawn at Windsor Castle lie the foundations of one of the most enigmatic - and significant - buildings in English history: the Round Table. The building was lost until Time Team excavated its remains and proved its existence. But finding the building was just the beginning of the story. Built by Edward III on the grounds of what is now the Queen's private lawn at Windsor Castle, the huge building stood for only half a century, yet was a stepping stone in Edward III's success. Robinson embarks on a journey of discovery that takes him back into the heart of medieval chivalry.

The team are given access to the largest dig in the programme's history as they scour the 42-acre site of the Paradise project in Liverpool to unearth the secrets of the new European Capital of Culture. Interestingly, they discover that a similar state of redevelopment existed 300 years ago as the small seven-street town on a muddy pool was transformed from an industrial backwater into a world-class port. Whilst excavating within the new buildings sites around the Pier Head the team takes a look at the city’s maritime history.

Britain is a land of monuments and buildings stretching back over seven thousand years, and in many ways they'd reflect the history of its people. Symbols of empire and civic pride from the proud Victorians; Elegance and proportion were defined by the tasteful Georgians; and the Tudors built palaces for prestige; Roman architecture asserted military might, power and civilisation; even our prehistoric ancestors left their mark on our landscape with stone circles, mounds and tombs. But the biggest man made monuments in Britain belong to one of the most mysterious periods in this countries past. These are relics of almost a thousand years of mystrery, superstition and violence, the Iron Age. But for centuries these huge monuments have been ignored or misunderstood. Now though with new excavations and new ideas we can at last come face to face with this huge chunk of our lost history.

To mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, Tony Robinson travels to the Somme. When shelling turned the battlefield of the Somme into a hell on earth, Britain's best miners and engineers created a maze of tunnels and dugouts that would become the setting for a secret war waged underground. One of the last dugouts constructed has been drained of water, enabling the first people to enter it in 90 years. Deep beneath Flanders fields the skilled work of the elite tunnelling companies is revealed to be in a remarkable state of preservation, allowing Tony and the experts to walk into what effectively is a time capsule of the Great War.

Somewhere in the Roman empire at the end of the 4th century lived a very rich man. The man's name was Sevso. How he got his wealth and what he did during his life are lost in the mists of time. But his name endures. Why? Because he left behind one of the greatest treasures the world has ever known.

In this feature-length Time Team Special , Tony Robinson and the Team make their inimitable contribution to marking the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne. The team have unprecedented access behind the scenes at Hampton Court where they search for Henry's famous jousting yard and bowling alley. In Essex, the first palace Henry built for himself is revealed and excavated for the first time. They hunt down the site of the extraordinary temporary palace he built at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France. A stone's throw from the Vatican in Rome, they discover the Palace that Henry owned, and the one nearby that inspired his greatest feat of building at Nonsuch Palace in Surrey.

Time Team's cameras have been with the dig through those six summers. During their excavations the team discovered the biggest Neolithic settlement in Northern Europe, which suggests they have found the place where the people who built Stonehenge were based. But the digs also reveal that Stonehenge was just part of a vast ritualistic landscape where ancient peoples celebrated life and death in great man-made structures. The archaeologists believe that the landscape was turned into a huge and complex special ceremonial route for the remains of the departed as they pass into the afterworld. But these theories are only proved in their last summer of digging in 2008, as the team start to dig in the stone circle itself. The results surpass their wildest dreams and this pivotal excavation finally enables the team to reveal not only when Stonehenge was built and how it was built but, perhaps most importantly, why it was built.

Dover Castle has dominated the White Cliffs since it was built in 1180 by Henry II. But building it had nothing to do with defending Britain's shores; the story behind its vastly expensive construction is one of royal embarrassment and political prestige. It was the Millennium Dome of its day: vast, ridiculously expensive and built to show off the best we can offer. It looks like a quintessentially English castle, but is nothing of the sort; it's French to its foundations. It provides a fascinating insight into the medieval world. For years now, the castle has been empty, grey and dull: a shadow of its former self. But in 2008 English Heritage decided to undertake an extraordinarily bold piece of restoration. They planned to make over the main rooms of the castle to recreate them as they would have been in Henry II's time. It was a huge, ambitious project, bringing together historians, designers and around 150 craftsmen.

In the 18th century the Royal Navy was the most successful fighting force in the world. To maintain this status it desperately needed better ways of looking after its sick and wounded, so in 1746 it decided to build the best hospital the country had ever seen, near the Portsmouth dockyard at Haslar. Costing £100,000, it was the biggest construction project in the country, and for over 250 years Haslar treated sailors from The Battle of Trafalgar to the Gulf War, until in 2009 the hospital closed its doors on the sick for the last time.

Also known as 'The House of Kings', Westminster Abbey has stood at the heart of the nation for nearly 1,000 years, surviving the Civil War and Reformation. While visitors marvel at the royal paraphernalia and the majesty of the architecture, it remains at the core of the Establishment, and still plays host to the Coronation. For a century, the Cosmati pavement - a huge, mystical mosaic floor in front of the altar at the centre of which the Coronation Chair is placed - has been covered by carpet. Now Time Team cameras are allowed unprecedented access behind the scenes at the Abbey as this extraordinary piece of living history is revealed. As well as exploring the story of the Cosmati pavement, the Team also have access to a night-time search under the floors for lost tombs and graves, a shrine that still attracts pilgrims after 800 years and the 1,000-year-old faked documents that gave the Abbey the right to host the Coronation in the first place.

Tony Robinson, Mick Aston and Phil Harding follow digs around the UK that uncover a vast array of archaeology and provide fascinating insights into our Viking past. Three centuries of Viking occupation left an indelible print on the British Isles. Their legacy has shaped the Britain we live in today and the Vikings have had a huge influence on our culture; from the way we live to the words we use. The Vikings are notoriously known as fearsome, axe-wielding warriors who relished their reputation as bloodthirsty invaders, and the discovery of mutilated skeletons in this Time Team Special does little to alter this reputation.

The Battle of Bosworth was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses. It was the beginning of the end of three decades of treason, rebellion and dynastic warfare. Against huge odds, Henry Tudor won the day to take the English Crown. It was a turning point in English history, the end of the Middle Ages and the savage beginnings of the country we recognise today.

Tony Robinson joins a dig in France to investigate a terrifying British weapon that may have been used to fire burning oil at the Germans in the Battle of the Somme.

Tony and the Team help investigate the Saxon roots of Bamburgh Castle, high on rocky cliffs in Northumberland above the vast North Sea beach and with the magical island of Lindisfarne visible in the distance. It's been a seat of power for thousands of years and has long held the attention of archaeologists. The Team are at Bamburgh to help the Bamburgh Research Project, which for a decade and a half has been digging through 1000 years of history to uncover the Saxon roots of this fortress. Bamburgh was once home to the 'Bernician Kings', Anglo Saxon overlords who ruled great swathes of Britain. Could there be a unique stone-built hall under the carefully manicured lawns of today's castle? As the Team hear stories of brutal death and financial wealth, and examine finds of gold jewellery and stone thrones, Phil and the diggers edge closer to a tantalising discovery.

Tony Robinson and geophys boffin John Gater look back over 200 digs at the extraordinary achievements of cutting-edge geophysics technology, which has uncovered lost Roman villas, tombs, temples and ancient monuments, as well as a host of old broken tractor bits and enigmatic ditches. The science of geophys has changed out of all recognition: 20 years ago the team huddled around a dotmatrix printer as it slowly produced a geophysical picture of an abbey hidden underground; now they can produce complex three-dimensional images of whole buildings within minutes. In an effort to finally understand what geophys actually means, Tony buries 10 objects in a field and challenges John to use his technological arsenal to identify them all, without digging. Can geophys now tell the difference between a bicycle and a toilet?

Tony Robinson traces the story of the female warrior as he follows an excavation in Norfolk that may hold clues to what happened to her tribe, the Iceni, after their defeat at the hands of the Romans. The presenter visits Caistor St Edmund to investigate whether the Empire crushed Boudica's people or if she herself led them to destruction.

Tony Robinson and Mick Aston dig out the best bits of over 200 Time Team episodes to tell the story of how our domestic lives have changed over 10 millennia. Until about 10,000 years ago our ancestors moved from site to site setting up house where they could find food and water. Then everything changed. People realised they could control the land, stay put and build more permanent and more comfortable houses. Tony and Mick reveal how those very first houses evolved into what we know today, and find out how settling down changed the way we live.

The East End was once home to the most advanced shipbuilding industry - and best workers and shipyards - in the world. A century and a half ago, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Britain's most famous engineer, was about to launch a ship five times bigger than any that had ever been built before, the most revolutionary vessel the world had ever seen: the SS Great Eastern. Pioneering the transition from sail to steam and timber to iron, Brunel and East London's ship builders created vessels that were bigger, faster and tougher than ever before. But this launch was a disaster. Brunel went from hero to laughing stock overnight as his leviathan stuck on the slipway. Brunel died not long after. Today archaeologists are scouring the banks of the Thames to discover why launching such a big vessel proved a complete disaster. Examining the slipways, they hope to discover what went wrong and how it affected shipbuilding in London for ever.

Tony Robinson and the Time Team cameras join archaeologists as they dig the site of William Shakespeare's house, New Place, in Stratford on Avon. There's little of it above ground now, but records show it was Tudor Stratford's biggest private home, with up to 20 rooms. However, in 1702, New Place was demolished to make way for a grand Georgian pile. But, with the site now accessible, the archaeologists aim to show for the first time not only where Shakespeare really did live with his family but also how grand his house was.

In July 2009, amateur metal detectorist Terry Herbert found an Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard worth over £3 million in a Staffordshire field. The hoard was saved for the nation by Stoke on Trent and Birmingham Museums, who, with the aid of a lottery grant and public donations, purchased it jointly. Two years ago Channel 4 told the story of the discovery of these golden, richly jewelled objects. Now, with the initial phase of the post-excavation process nearing completion, archaeologists are beginning to unlock the secrets of the hoard. After further digging and carefully unpicking the jumble of finds, experts from the museums have realised there were over 3500 objects buried in this small area with the gold alone weighing 11lbs. Thanks to their painstaking restoration work and application of the latest scientific techniques, they can understand the function of these objects, begin to explain how and why they came to be here, and pinpoint the origins of the hoard's raw materials.

For thousands of years, nomadic tribes roamed freely across Britain. But by 5000 BC they were starting to settle down, and a landmark of the south west - the Dorset Ridgeway - became a magnet for thousands. For many experts, the Ridgeway is as important as Stonehenge in understanding the lives of our prehistoric ancestors. The ridge of high land running parallel with the coast between Weymouth and Dorchester has been an important place for people since the Neolithic period, from 4000 to 2000 BC. Time Team investigate, and reveal how the latest scientific advances are shedding new light on the way our Stone Age ancestors lived. The extraordinary range of monuments on the ridgeway make it one of the richest archaeological sites in Britain, and Time Team's journey along its length is a journey through thousands of years of human occupation.

As the last glaciers retreated, a tsunami hit the NE coast. A sandy layer was deposited all along the NE Coast of Britain. A variety of experts have been investigating this event. Tony joins all their research together.

Lincoln has been dominated by its castle for over 1000 years. Its high stone walls and gatehouses were built to impress the locals with Norman power, and it has housed medieval dungeons and Victorian and Georgian jails. Extraordinarily, today the castle is still a centre for justice and punishment, containing an active court. As part of a £19million refurbishment programme, a preparatory archaeological dig at the castle is revealing new secrets about the horrors of its early jails. Sir Tony Robinson and the Time Team cameras have had exclusive access to the dig

Today's submarines are vast, billion-pound, high-tech monsters with a nuclear payload that can level cities. But the story of Britain's first submarines began over a century ago, with inventors risking life and limb in a range of bizarre contraptions.

The site of the Battle of Hastings is reputed to be at an abbey built to commemorate the battle, yet historical and archaeological evidence fails to support this site. Time Team examines three potential alternatives.

Seven hundred years ago the world's first lunatic asylum opened for business in Bishopsgate, London. It soon became known as Bedlam Hospital. Even today, it's a name that conjures up images of madness and terror. And, as Tony Robinson discovers in this Time Team Special, Bedlam's reputation is quite justified.

High above Dartmoor stands a windswept and spectacular country home that looks as ancient as the landscape it's set in: Castle Drogo. But this remarkable building was only constructed 100 years ago, the last castle ever built in Britain. Today, this landmark building is under serious threat. In their biggest current project, costing £11m, the National Trust is restoring the castle, replacing almost the entire roof before the building rots to pieces. Time Team has exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the hugely ambitious restoration project.

It's a race against time to excavate an ancient burial mound in Northumberland before it is lost forever through coastal erosion. In this episode, archaeologists uncover remarkably preserved human remains that challenge everything we thought we knew about prehistoric burial practices. Through excavation, scientific analysis, and expert insight, the team explores how these mummies were created, why they were preserved, and what they reveal about Bronze Age beliefs, rituals, and daily life. Packed with fascinating discoveries, cutting-edge archaeology, and classic Time Team teamwork, this special episode offers a rare glimpse into the lives and deaths of Britain’s ancient past.

Tony Robinson uncovers the truth behind some of the most gruesome events of the 19th century, when criminals would break open graves to steal freshly buried bodies.

Ancients boats have been found all over Britain. Over 2 years a replica is made of the boat found 20 years ago. The replica is paddled around the breakwater. But what were these boats used for?

In September 2021, the full team had the traditional three days to shed light on a huge villa on the Broughton Estate, originally discovered by Time Team’s Keith Westcott. But with questions surrounding the sarcophagus remaining unanswered, we’ve sent in our new Expedition Crew for a closer look. Time Team returns to Broughton Roman Villa in Oxfordshire to investigate the mysterious stone sarcophagus that originally led to the site’s discovery. Can the team relocate the burial? And what will we find? There’s a lot to do and – on this occasion – only two days to do it!

It’s the second and final day in Oxfordshire. Can all of the questions be answered in the time remaining?

Time Team’s Dr Derek Pitman and Lawrence Shaw are part of an international team investigating an ancient settlement at Vlochos, in Thessaly. This ongoing project is uncovering a thousand years of history buried just beneath the surface.

Time Team’s Dr Derek Pitman and Lawrence Shaw are part of an international team investigating an ancient settlement at Vlochos, in Thessaly. This ongoing project is uncovering a thousand years of history buried just beneath the surface.

Time Team’s Expedition Crew returns to investigate a Medieval shipwreck off the South coast of England, laden with a fascinating cargo. Derek Pitman and Lawrence Shaw spend a day with the dive team from Bournemouth University Maritime Archaeology to uncover 700 year-old secrets hidden beneath the waves.

Time Team have been invited to Aldbourne, Wiltshire, by Operation Nightingale, on the 80th anniversary since Easy Company were stationed here in 1943, shortly before D-Day. Working alongside service men and women from the US and UK, the team have just over a week to investigate the camp, once home to the iconic 'Band of Brothers

A special episode from Time Team's Expedition Crew, in collaboration with Forestry England. Between 1915 and 1920, hundreds of thousands of troops were based at Clipstone Camp, Nottinghamshire. Lawrence has assembled a team, including people from Forestry England, Operation Nightingale, Nottinghamshire Council and, of course, Time Team, to investigate a training area that's been protected by trees for nearly 100 years.

Sam Wilson, Time Team's conflict archaeologist, visits the site of an archaeological project exploring battlefields of Operation Cobra in Normandy led by Cameron Ross, the director of the Battlefield Archaeology Group. He meets the team of international archaeologists and volunteers for their 3rd season of exploring the archaeology of Operation Cobra. Operation Cobra was a major allied operation that finally broke through the German defence in Normandy in 1944. The project is the first time a World War Two battlefield in Normandy has been studied in its entirety. It involved intensive geophysics, to locate German positions in the first phase of the breakthrough as well as strategic metal detecting.

Time Team join forces with Cotswold Archaeology and the military veterans of Operation Nightingale to investigate an extraordinary Anglo Saxon site in Gloucestershire. But what starts out as a straight forward excavation of a 1400 year old cemetery, takes an unexpected turn, dialling the clock back several centuries and leaving the team scratching their heads about what exactly they are unearthing. A must watch this Christmas.

Poverty Point is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of a complex of monumental earthworks located in Louisiana, USA. Recently, a series of mound-like features were discovered in a GPR survey buried beneath the ground in the centre of the site. Time Team’s geophys wizz Jimmy Adcock travels across the Atlantic to join a team of archeologists investigating these mysterious subterranean features. Could the origin of these mounds provide the answer to why Poverty Point’s prehistoric inhabitants chose this location for their ancient city? The team has just three days to find out!

In this episode, the Time Team Expedition Crew—Lawrence, Naomi, Derek, Hilde, and a small group of volunteers—head to Farley Moor, Derbyshire, just outside the Peak District National Park. This rugged landscape of gritstone moors is rich in prehistoric monuments, from henges and ring cairns to stone circles, but the team’s focus is a single, enigmatic standing stone. Could it be a remnant of a larger, lost, Bronze Age monument? Armed with little more than their camper vans, digging tools, and cameraman Ben to document their journey, the team sets out to map, investigate, and uncover the hidden history of this mysterious site. Join us as we follow their discoveries and explore the forgotten secrets of Farley Moor.

In July 1944, an American B17 bomber aircraft, ‘Little Boy Blue’, crashed over the fields of Suffolk. Of the ten crew, just two survived, with three still officially unaccounted for. Time Team’s Helen Geake joins an international team from Cotswold Archaeology and Operation Nightingale to investigate the scene of the crash, in hope of shedding new light on the events of that fateful day. Working with the US government, in fulfilment of its ethos to ‘leave no man behind’, the mission aims to repatriate the missing airmen, and provide closure for their families. In this moving feature-length episode, the team pay their respects to the ‘Masters of the Air’.

Time Team are joining Dr Hugh Willmott from the University of Sheffield, with the Cerne Abbey Research Project, as they embark on the rediscovery of a lost Medieval Abbey in Cerne Abbas, Dorset. Destroyed at the Dissolution and hidden for nearly half a Millennia, it lies only 500 metres from the feet of the Iconic chalk hill figure, known as the Cerne Abbas Giant. Could these two incredible landmarks be connected in some way? Time Team help to uncover the richness of this incredible abbey and explore the landscape around for clues to this question.

In this feature-length Special, Derek and Lawrence return to Thessaly in Central Greece for a summer of excavation. They join an international team – headed by archaeologists from Greece and Sweden – to investigate the remains of the ancient city of Vlochos. This season, the team are digging what is thought to be a temple from the Hellenistic era – a golden age of antiquity. But is all as it seems? The team have just three weeks to find out!

In the last hour, on the last day of a dig investigating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Gloucesterhire, a metal detectorist discovered a mystery iron object in a wooden casing. With no time to investigate, the team has no choice but to leave it in the ground and return another day. Speculation was rife - could they have found a sword and a Saxon warrior’s burial? This is the story of that return visit, when the team headed back to site with one clear mission - locate and identify the iron object. But as is often the way with archaeology, it wasn’t that simple. From the off, things weren’t quite what they seemed. The team encountered many challenges and unexpected plot twists over a wet and wild weekend. And only after a lot of head scratching and painstaking excavation, were they able to finally make sense of the object and piece together its story. And that story was so much more exciting than they had dared hope!

Broughton Castle, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, is the Seat of Lord Saye and Sele and the ancestral home of the Fiennes family, who have lived there since the fourteenth century. In September 2021, Time Team conducted a dig within the grounds of the Estate which revealed a huge Roman villa set within a vast agricultural landscape. While they were there, Prof. Susannah Lipscomb took the opportunity to explore the interior of Broughton Castle and delve into its long and colourful history. Together with some of the Time Team, she investigated some of the architectural mysteries that had been puzzling the current owners for decades and found some unexpected clues hidden within the walls.

Narrated by Sir Tony Robinson, Time Team’s John Gater revisits the spectacular remains of a neolithic ceremonial centre of epic proportions at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, for the final 2 weeks of 20 years of excavations. The discovery was in part down to John when he undertook a geophysical survey in 2002 at the Ness of Brodgar which revealed a huge complex of monumental Neolithic buildings from the centuries around 3000BC. Site Directors Nick Card, Prof Mark Edmonds and Anne Mitchell take John on an emotional journey through the two decades of work and he witnesses some extraordinary finds which are unearthed in the final moments of the dig. John decides to finish the way he started and undertakes a new survey with SUMO GeoSurveys and GuidelineGeo, with extraordinary results.

The dig's archaeological highs and lows are crammed into just 60 minutes in York where the finds range from a Roman skeleton complete with hobnailed boots, a Viking's discarded leather shoe, and the pillars of a monastic hospital. But what does all the evidence show? Who were these people and how did they live?

The Battle of Bosworth was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses. It was the beginning of the end of three decades of treason, rebellion and dynastic warfare. Against huge odds, Henry Tudor won the day to take the English Crown. It was a turning point in English history, the end of the Middle Ages and the savage beginnings of the country we recognise today.