Time Team travelled to Brimham, in the Yorkshire Dales, to meet Chris and Barbara Bradley on their farm and solve a challenging archaeological jigsaw puzzle.
There is evidence of at least 1,000 years of farming on the land that now makes up Chris and Barbara's farm. The walls of the farm outbuildings are partially built with religious-looking masonry – some with Latin inscriptions – and the cows have uncovered what look like stone walls in the fields. Where did all this stone come from and what once stood where the farm is today?
This is the seventh programme in the 2006 series of Time Team. The web pages to accompany this programme will go live to coincide with its screening at:
Originally posted by Tetricus: We'll be expecting some "behind the scenes gossip" from Pam
It was great fun working with the team, everyone was very friendly and the on-site catering was awesome ! It will be very interesting to see what makes it into the final edit and what the conclusions were once all the post-ex and computer reconstructions were put together.
Originally posted by AJ ap Hywel: I want to know where (which buildings) all that stone came from in the garden boundary walls.
From what I could tell most of the boundary walls on the farm were made up of local rough-hewn stone, as you would find in most of the dry stone walls around the area. The walls were typical of those built during the major enclosure periods when most of the farms in the area were established and helped make the landscape of the lower Dales that we see today. Of course there were probably some re-used ones from the medieval buildings here and there in the boundary walls but I suspect is more likely that the majority of the dressed stone from the demolished buildings would be have ended up being used in more substantial buildings like houses and barns.
The best yet!! Fantastic archaeology, and so interesting. Why though, so few pottery finds? In the majority of excavations, the place is overflowing with them?
Don't know about retiring somewhere away from the farm, I'd love to retire to the farm!!
I thought it was odd they went out of their way on the prog to state there were no finds in the square building in the cow field. We did actually have a number of pottery sherds, including some which were identified by Mark Newman on site as Humber Ware dating to the late medieval period. On the C4 TT webpages there is a lead object (in 2 parts) which was also found in this trench (by me!) and Mark thought to be some sort of stained glass window fitment.
For the summing up Tony did a nice piece to camera whilst sitting on the gate by Phil's trench. I was disappointed this didn't make the final edit !
I liked the computer reconstruction of the big house they came up with. On site it was really hard to imagine what the place would have looked like with a substantial medieval building slap bang in the middle and although what TT came up with is just guesswork, whatever was there must have been big and impressive. It would be interesting to know if the local heritage group are going to try and do more work.
This reminded me of the programme the BBC did a couple of years ago, Time Flyers (the one with Mark Horton, Dave MacLeod and Joe Caruth). They were at Fountains Abbey, talking about the various local industries, which would have been run by the Lay Brothers. I wonder if this site was used for a purpose, other than just farming ?
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My favourite bit was how the original building structures and elements had been fitted into the current layout - and that was rushed through in 2 minutes! I'd been waiting for that bit for most of the programme... Maybe it was a bit too "House Detectives" for TT.
Originally posted by Jenni: My favourite bit was how the original building structures and elements had been fitted into the current layout - and that was rushed through in 2 minutes! I'd been waiting for that bit for most of the programme... Maybe it was a bit too "House Detectives" for TT.
It looked like the sort of programme where there was so much they could show, that everything had to cut right down.
Well, I enjoyed that one. Like last week's, there was a nice puzzle to solve, some floundering trying to solve it, and by the end of the prog a fair bit of guesswork had to be employed to round things off in the time available. I could have lived without the cringeworthy role-play of Matt as a lay brother (did it really teach anyone anything?) but I enjoyed the architectural expert's analysis of the farm buildings - more of that would have been good. Bit puzzled at the lack of documentary references regarding such a substantial building - I'd have thought there'd be something, given the suggested link between this building and the tower that Abbott Marmaduke Huby had built at Fountains.
Originally posted by Bugzy: ..........I could have lived without the cringeworthy role-play of Matt as a lay brother (did it really teach anyone anything?) .................
Not a lot, methinks. I always worry when they include things like this, as it usually means the dig site isn't producing the goods.
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Either the program editing was naff or the team went round in circles some of the time. No wonder, give the enormity of clues and jumbled geofizz. If only Beric Morely had been there...
One thing I did notice was the way Mick Aston seemed to be in seventh heaven with this site throughout the show.
Originally posted by Tetricus: I wonder if this site was used for a purpose, other than just farming ?
Possibly:
Fountains’ main non-agricultural industry was lead-mining.(129) Lead was an extremely important resource that was necessary for the manufacture of piping and brewing vats, and for use in roofing and window tracery.(130) In the late twelfth century, Fountains acquired a number of rights to mine lead in Nidderdale from Roger de Mowbray and his wife, Alice de Gant. These included mines at Bewerley and Dacre, where the abbey had granges, and the right to mine all metals in the forest of Nidderdale.(131) The hamlet between Dacre and Pateley Bridge, that is today known as ‘Smelthouses’ (and was formerly part of Brimham grange), refers to its medieval past, for the monks of Fountains had lead-smelting works here; their mill was on the spot today called ‘Lead Wath’
Originally posted by Hudson: It looked like the sort of programme where there was so much they could show, that everything had to cut right down.
As others have since commented, there were bits that they did show that perhaps they might not have bothered with!
Yes, personally I wouldn't have bothered with the lay brother part. However at the start of the series people were complaining at the lack of cameos so some people must have wanted it.
Instead of the cameo they could have included some of the other scenes that were filmed. There were quite a number of scenes shot in the cow field trench, discussing the possible uses and dating of the building. Although they did show something of the stone survey there was more that could have been, including some with the 'local' archaeologists drawing and recording in the fields.
One little thing I will share - the scene in the garden with Phil having a pint at the end of Day 1 - this was done in around 4/5 takes in quick succession and Phil downed a pint for each take. It was strong ale and the laughs were completely genuine rather than scripted by the time Brendan (the director and an Irishman) was satisfied !
Originally posted by Hudson: Yes, personally I wouldn't have bothered with the lay brother part. However at the start of the series people were complaining at the lack of cameos so some people must have wanted it.
I was the one who started that hare running ... but I said in a subsequent post that it was the experimental archaeology-type cameos that I wanted to see, and that I considered that the sort of piece we saw yesterday to be re-enactment not experiment. And I totally agree that they add little or nothing either to the programme or to the viewers' knowledge!
One little thing I will share - the scene in the garden with Phil having a pint at the end of Day 1 - this was done in around 4/5 takes in quick succession and Phil downed a pint for each take. It was strong ale and the laughs were completely genuine rather than scripted by the time Brendan (the director and an Irishman) was satisfied !
How much of it was scripted originally and how much is scripted generally?
I'd been waiting for that bit for most of the programme... Maybe it was a bit too "House Detectives" for TT.
