The Missing Cathedral and the Diabetic Prior (Full Episode) | S7 EP7 | Time Team (Coventry)

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:09]This is Coventry Cathedral, and this is the earlier one which was bombed by the Luftwaffe during the war. But, there's actually a third cathedral because under this row of houses lies St. Mary's, Coventry's first cathedral, which was destroyed in a fit of pique by Henry VIII.

[00:00:27]Now, we've got some remains of the west end.

[00:00:31]And we've got some remains of the east end.

[00:00:36]But, what Time Team wants to know is what went on in the middle.

[00:00:40]And as usual, we've got just 3 days to find out.

[00:00:58]>> [music] [music] >> Medieval Coventry was one of the most important towns in Britain. The massive St. Mary's Cathedral, built soon after the Norman Conquest, reflected that power and wealth. Now, almost 900 years later, this is what Priory Row looks like.

[00:01:32]Time Team have been asked by Coventry Council to excavate this site because they're redeveloping most of the area into new public gardens.

[00:01:40]There are no surviving contemporary illustrations of St. Mary's while it stood. So, this is our last chance to find evidence under this ground and use it to recreate just what that great cathedral looked like 500 years ago. But first, with Coventry Council's help, we've got to find exactly where that evidence is.

[00:02:00]So, where are we on your map, mate?

[00:02:02]Well, we're we're about here and it says John F. Kennedy House, which is over there. We're on the grass out in the front here. So, we're just about there.

[00:02:09]And where would that be as far as the cathedral's concerned? Well, you you know that we've got these bits left. So, if we put this It's posh, isn't it? It's overlay, you see. We put that over the top. There's the west end, which is over there with the scaffolding in it.

[00:02:22]>> Yeah. And there's the east end bits, which is up against the uh the 1950s cathedral.

[00:02:28]They don't make much sense. So, we've got this third layer, which is the suggestion of what how that might fit in with the Priory Church and the cathedral. Why are we digging here if we know what it looks like?

[00:02:42]>> Well, we don't because a lot of this is conjecture based on ideas and antiquarian accounts and so on.

[00:02:49]And of course, this lot is not the cathedral. This is the monastery that's attached to it. So, it is unlikely to be the cathedral where we are now. It's more likely to be the cloisters or somewhere like Yeah, the cloisters and the buildings where the monks lived.

[00:03:03]>> Well, surely we've got a problem. We're in the middle of a town. I mean, apart from this little bit of grass, there's all this kind of built-up area. Probably Well, thanks to the church authorities, we're free to dig down through this terracing.

[00:03:18]But, we do have another problem.

[00:03:20]Geophysicists aren't getting the results they expect. The urban environment, with its network of pipes and electrical cables, are causing John and his team major problems. Well, I'm not actually seeing these wall lines as marked on the map.

[00:03:34]We've surveyed over that area with resistance. We've done near surface and looking at greater depths. It's a bit worrying if we know there are walls here and they're not on any of the plots.

[00:03:46]That's geophysics. I know it's geophysics, but uh yeah. No, that's that's totally unfair. I mean, we'll we'll explain it once we see it.

[00:03:54]>> And they aren't having much more luck up on the terraces. New radar from America and the depth of the site have also conspired against them.

[00:04:02]But, time's moving on.

[00:04:04]So, Mick decided to get digging using our conjectural plan of the cathedral and the attached monastery as a guide.

[00:04:11]We're putting in three trenches to start with.

[00:04:14]Trench one, on the grass outside the John F. Kennedy building. Trench two, on the lower terracing. And trench three, at the top of the terrace. Why are you digging here and here? Well, this this ought to be in the cathedral church. And we ought to be somewhere where these huge pillar bases are to support the south aisle. So, that's on this level here. Then it drops down this terrace here. So, this this lower terrace here, we're looking for the the the door coming in from the cloister into the cathedral. And that's leading in from the cloister area down there, which is where Karenza's trench is in front of the chapter house.

[00:04:51]>> Yes. Over the over the bottom there. So, coming into there and then into the church up [music] here.

[00:05:06]We want to make a three-dimensional [music] computer model of St. Mary's.

[00:05:10]And digging these trenches will help our graphics team start work on how the cathedral looked because finding walls, or for that matter not finding walls, should tell us how accurate our initial plan is.

[00:05:22]Richard, how can you work out what the whole cathedral looked like when all we've got is the two little bits on either side of this building? Well, two things help us, Tony. One is those remnants themselves have details on them which allow us to expand into the areas which have been demolished. The second thing is of course a number of other great churches survive in this country intact like Lichfield, which help us to have a reasonably intelligent guess about the general plan, especially the cruciform shape.

[00:05:49]The other main bases we've got to go on are the chapter house, which is being partly excavated again now.

[00:05:56]>> So, we definitely know that the monks actually lived and worked on on this side of >> That's That's absolutely right. I think we have enough evidence from previous excavations that they lived in this cloister area or around it.

[00:06:07]And we can confirm that part of our Priory plan because under the watchful eye of George Demidowicz, Coventry's chief conservation officer, trench one has just revealed a wall.

[00:06:17]>> found you a wall, but is that what you're expecting?

[00:06:20]>> This wall here that you can see against the trench is possibly the north wall of the chapter house. This wall here.

[00:06:28]Right, that does fit that area.

[00:06:30]>> It's fitting quite well. What hasn't turned up yet is the west wall.

[00:06:40]What sort of things might you find over the next 3 days which would give you a clue as to whether or not it was Premiership material? Oh, I think it is already. The sheer size of this building means it it is it is of that quality.

[00:06:52]Physical size alone indicates wealth and status. Now, some stones may also carry wall painting on them. And then of course, there'll be all the other archaeological artifacts may come up which may tell us more about the monks' style of life, the liturgy, and so forth. I like well-defined walls myself.

[00:07:08]I'm itching to get a defined wall, yeah.

[00:07:13]And it looks like Phil may get what he wants sooner than he expected. It's just after lunch on day one, and trench two has just turned up something rather interesting. We've got an amazing lump of masonry. Look. I mean, that looks got to be a wall, isn't it? Look. Look. You see how far it's going down on that side? It's going straight on down there.

[00:07:31]Well, it's on the right of the line there.

[00:07:33]>> the same line, yeah. But, look at that face.

[00:07:36]And that's going straight down. That ain't just an isolated rock. And you've got lovely red mortar in the top, isn't it? It's all mortared in? Is there any Is there any carved bits come out so far? No. No, I mean, I should think we can expect that though. Yeah. I mean, we we we're probably just looking at the core of the wall, aren't we? They would have robbed the faces off them, yeah.

[00:08:01]One thing we're having no luck with is Coventry's weather. One minute there's bright sunshine, the next hailstones.

[00:08:13]Let me just travel a bit, Caroline, just to I'm sorry?

[00:08:17]So, I really prefer hail to rain cuz it doesn't soak in.

[00:08:31]Full of difficulties today. Well, with the weather and the cables, somebody can see how many we've got coming in and out. We've not made quite such good progress as we might have done. I'd hoped we'd got this all opened up. But, we have found some really nice bits and pieces. We've got lovely bit of decorated floor tile there.

[00:08:47]And the other really nice bit we've got This has been tucked away in here to protect it from the worst of the weather, which is more privileged than the rest of us have had while it was hailing.

[00:08:58]Has been a bit of painted window glass.

[00:09:01]You see the pattern in red on that?

[00:09:03]Yes. It's a little border of something.

[00:09:04]I think that's probably the edge of the paint there. And there's There's certainly something in there. Why do you want to dig here? What other kinds of things might we come up with?

[00:09:13]The chapter house is a very important building in the monastery. Probably next to the church, it was the most important building.

[00:09:19]Not only because that's where the administration and the organization of the monastery took place. And the other thing of course is it's where a lot of the the priors, the number two in the monastery, are actually buried. So, we might find bodies? Yeah, I mean, we could easily find the grave covers either just inside the chapter house or sometimes just outside them, Richard, as well. You'll You'll enjoy that.

[00:09:41]Thank you.

[00:09:42]>> [laughter] >> Finding a prior's grave could tell us a lot about how the monks lived. But in the meantime, our glass find is a cause for excitement. Coventry has a bit of a reputation for painted glass. A native of the city, John Thornton, was one of the great medieval glass artists. And other examples of 12th and 13th century glass still exist at Coventry's Guild Hall.

[00:10:05]And that's where Victor's gone to gain inspiration for our own tribute to this great art. With the help of experts Rodney Bender and Colin Telford, we plan to make our own painted glass window according to the instructions set out in his book on divers arts by the medieval monk and craftsman Theophilus.

[00:10:23]We've only got 3 days to recreate a window that would have taken weeks to make in the Middle Ages. But we're going to stick as closely as possible to Theophilus's methods, and that means Mickey's about to learn a new way of cutting glass. This is not a bad place to be. Is this where you've been all day, Victor? You've been hiding here all day in [laughter] the hail and snow.

[00:10:43]Isn't that right?

[00:10:44]I haven't thawed out yet. Frozen. So, what are we going to do then?

[00:10:48]Right. Well, we're going to get you cutting some glass. And we're going to start a thermal crack like we've done here. Now, I don't know if you can see that.

[00:10:54]>> Yeah, yeah, I can see that. You can see it running around there, yeah. Um so, the idea is to start a crack with a hot iron and then to get it to follow the hot iron um around.

[00:11:03]Um you what you need to do is place it on the edge.

[00:11:06]When it cracks When it cracks you will hear a little tink.

[00:11:12]Oh, yes, I heard that. This seems a very sort of slow and you know, cumbersome way of doing it considering that there were presumably masses and masses of windows to do.

[00:11:22]Speed wasn't everything in the Middle Ages. No, this is true. I mean, they they they would have had the design painted on a board like this, would they? And That's right, exactly like this on a whitewash board. And all the work um it's a working drawing essentially. All the work would have been done over that board even down to when when it's being leaded up. Huh.

[00:11:41]It's almost like seeing ice form, isn't it? It is, yeah. You keep moving and you you'll find that uh >> it's it's uh And you there is a certain amount of control there as well, you notice so that it's not it's not totally random as you might expect.

[00:11:55]Oh, he's a natural.

[00:11:56]>> Good lord, look at that. I wouldn't have believed that.

[00:11:59]Right, I think we can probably just break that last little bit out. Right, there's about an eighth of an inch left there.

[00:12:04]Okay. It's come out a little bit. I can see uh Presumably this is very expensive stuff in the Middle Ages, so we can't make a mistake with it.

[00:12:12]>> It would indeed, yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:16]Ooh. Ooh, there we go.

[00:12:18]So, there we are. Crikey. That's pretty Well, I know I knew there was a lump there when I went I I took a And we've lost a bit of a point off the end there, but >> okay. The lead will will be all right.

[00:12:28]>> So, I've now got to do this line here.

[00:12:30]Yep. So, I've only got another 3 hours to go for this.

[00:12:33]>> [laughter] >> Right, let's have the iron then. Let's carry on.

[00:12:38]Back at Priory Row, trenches one and two continue to be some of the most generous first day trenches we've had on Time Team. As well as helping us build a 3D model of the outside of the cathedral, we're now also getting details and clues as to how the inside looked. Ah, look at that. Oh, part of a column, isn't it?

[00:12:56]Look at that. Looks like part of a large shaft. Yeah.

[00:13:00]I mean, it is so well preserved, isn't it?

[00:13:02]>> Yeah.

[00:13:03]You said you were hoping that this wall might be more than just the foundations.

[00:13:07]Has it lived up to your expectations?

[00:13:09]>> More, much, much more than we ever anticipated. I mean, the first wonderful thing about it is that we thought we'd have to dig about 3 m to get it. And what's happened? Look, it's just underneath the surface. That there is the core of the wall of the cathedral.

[00:13:23]On the outside, we we we've even got the facing stones. We've got about three courses of them.

[00:13:29]So, why are you so confident that this is the wall of our cathedral?

[00:13:32]>> It is bang on line with where we wanted it to be. It's there's no question about it. So, out there is the outside? That's right. And I'm and I'm standing in the cathedral. And you see in here, this is going to be our big problem tomorrow.

[00:13:46]That is not another wall. That is just an enormous piece of masonry which has come crashing down. You see how it's tipping in? It's just fallen down on top of all this demolition rubble. What we would love is some in a nice floor underneath. There's got to be a floor underneath. All this rubble shows the cathedral was well and truly decimated.

[00:14:06]In fact, the only sizable remains left above ground are these remnants of the west front entrance.

[00:14:12]But why was Coventry Cathedral reduced to such a state when so many other medieval cathedrals survived Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries?

[00:14:20]Robin, what happened to this cathedral we're looking at? Well, the snag is that it was not only a cathedral, it was also a Benedictine priory.

[00:14:29]And so, when Henry VIII decided to dissolve the monasteries in the early 1500s, uh Coventry went as part of that grand purge.

[00:14:40]In most cases, the priory or abbey church survived. Um but when he offered it or his commissioners offered it to the people of Coventry, either they couldn't afford it or didn't feel they could stump up enough money to buy it.

[00:14:53]This didn't go down too well with Henry.

[00:14:55]He had a particular dislike of Benedictine monasteries like the one at Coventry because of the wealth they possessed. Add to that the two large parish churches already in the town and the fact that the diocese had another more king-friendly cathedral at Lichfield, and St. Mary's fate was sealed.

[00:15:11]They decided to demolish it, get the lead off the roof.

[00:15:15]These places were used as quarries.

[00:15:19]All a lovely amount of building stone that didn't need to be hacked out of the ground available for sale or basically and and gradually it I I suppose got recycled as the city of Coventry.

[00:15:34]Well, your trench is coming along, isn't it? What have you got here? Well, we're turning up a lot of walls now. You see, we're getting really nice straight walls and they're all looking very square. Um we've had some fantastic finds as well.

[00:15:44]Masses of window glass. These are just the best bits. Some lead there. Look at that. You can see the the pattern showing up on that. Beautiful little acorn there.

[00:15:51]And our experts told us it's all medieval as well.

[00:15:55]Beginning of day two in Coventry and over in Karenza's trench, the hunt's on for the chapter house and hopefully we're going to find some evidence of ancient burials. In Phil's trench, we want to get down onto the medieval cathedral floor. And here, we were going to dig a big long trench looking for one of the central piers that would have supported the cathedral roof and for some evidence of the main crossing place of the cathedral underneath the big central tower. But as you can see, we've done no digging whatsoever. What's gone wrong? Where's your big trench?

[00:16:28]>> We have got done some digging. Look there.

[00:16:30]>> [laughter] >> Oh, terrific.

[00:16:32]It's just exploratory at the moment. As soon as you cleared off to Lichfield, we're going to get on with this.

[00:16:36]>> Yes.

[00:16:37]Got off to see a proper cathedral.

[00:16:38]>> [laughter] >> With trenches one and two well underway and Phil finally starting trench three, I'm off to Coventry's sister cathedral at Lichfield to find out more about how our building might have looked.

[00:16:55]Wow, it's so big. I had no idea that it would be this kind of size. Would Coventry have been this kind of size?

[00:17:01]>> Coventry was longer than this, in fact.

[00:17:03]So, I know that it's bigger, yeah. And would it have had the same kind of elaborate front? We don't know about that. No excavations have thrown up any remains of statues. Um we must assume there were some carved figures around the main door area. And this is the west end, isn't it?

[00:17:16]>> And this is the west end.

[00:17:17]>> We've actually got a bit of west end.

[00:17:19]>> foundations just like this at Coventry.

[00:17:21]That's right.

[00:17:27]While our graphic designer Maya collects information for our computer model of St. Mary's, >> [music] >> Stewart's back in Coventry with George and Victor.

[00:17:36]He's trying to work out how the land around the cathedral looked 600 years ago.

[00:17:41]But it's not an easy task as modern day Coventry bears little resemblance to its medieval counterpart.

[00:17:48]You have to imagine that street's not there. That's a completely modern street. Yeah.

[00:17:54]So, this is the main body of the church.

[00:17:56]That's right.

[00:17:57]>> And that's the nave? That's right. We call this the nave. And is this bit at the end of these chairs the central crossing? That's right. It's the central crossing. So, where would our trenches be?

[00:18:05]>> Our trenches are in the left hand area of that. Underneath the pier with the pulpit. It's the equivalent position.

[00:18:12]Just just sort of here somewhere.

[00:18:14]>> Yeah, that's right.

[00:18:15]So, this is the central crossing, right?

[00:18:18]That's right, Tony. Now, on our plan, our our trenches on the terraces are right in this area here. Um is the upper trench. And then also in the lower trench on day one, we found a length of wall there of the nave.

[00:18:32]>> And where does that relate to this?

[00:18:34]>> the equivalent of that piece of wall there.

[00:18:36]>> This over here? That's right. That's the one.

[00:18:39]Yes. So, what are we looking for now?

[00:18:41]>> So, now in the upper hole on the on terraces, we're looking for the imprint of this pier.

[00:18:47]That's a big 'un, isn't it? It's huge size. That's right. There are three more as you can see at Lichfield, and we'd expect that. They normally support a great crossing tower. And what can this tell us if we find anything? Well, from the imprint of the pier, you can see there are these projecting moldings that rise up. We call shafts. They can tell us quite a lot about the height of the building. For example, on that side, they rise to the full height of the crossing. And then on other sides, they give arches lower down like the ones in the nave.

[00:19:13]I mean, this is a solid piece of masonry. It's not just a a raft of mortar or anything like that, is it? And it's horizontal, so I I don't think it's uh another piece of collapsed masonry.

[00:19:24]I think we might actually got it. I think we really have.

[00:19:27]Wait till Mickey hears about this.

[00:19:30]Phil de McAston.

[00:19:32]Listen, Phil.

[00:19:34]I reckon if you can get yourself up here, you'll get a wonderful sight.

[00:19:37]>> Yeah, I think we've got the pillar.

[00:19:39]Okay, I'm on my way.

[00:19:42]Incredibly solid, isn't it? Is it is actually going down still?

[00:19:47]Hey? Definitely going down. Still going down? Going down, yep.

[00:19:51]What have you got then?

[00:19:51]>> Come and have a look at this, Mick. This is the business.

[00:19:54]Look at this.

[00:19:56]Look at that. Oh, yeah. Cracking that.

[00:19:58]>> look how deep it's going. And you've got an edge there as well, haven't you?

[00:20:02]I mean, it might be partly smashed by that point. I don't think so. I know it's coming right the way across here, look. Look at the size of it. Look at the size of it.

[00:20:10]>> Well, it should be huge. Well, if it's if it's one of the crossing >> going.

[00:20:15]It's still going. So, you haven't got the edge that side yet?

[00:20:18]>> No, nor on that side there. It's enormous, isn't Well, I was just saying it ought to be 3 or 4 m in each direction if it's going to support the tower.

[00:20:25]So, it doesn't surprise me it's going that far.

[00:20:28]>> It is it is huge. Yeah. And look, it's again just under the surface. And look, we're getting great pieces of masonry as well. Look at that. And that noise that looks like Norman stuff, doesn't it?

[00:20:38]Yeah. Nice to hear you say that. Yeah, no. And that could be. Yeah.

[00:20:43]Okay, so what are you going to tell the rest of that out?

[00:20:46]And then we've got to go back that way, look.

[00:20:48]>> I think I might hang about and watch that cuz we might see the other the other side if it's coming out. Yeah.

[00:20:53]What is our Eric?

[00:20:55]>> [laughter] >> He's he's just coming >> Come on, what happened? He's just spilled one off all over your coat.

[00:21:00]>> [laughter] >> I have my uses.

[00:21:03]We've got some digging to do.

[00:21:10]So, it looks like we've now got our first crossing pier exactly where we thought we'd find it.

[00:21:15]But in trench one, we've lost something.

[00:21:18]The chapter house doorway discovered by Brian in his 1960s excavation. What I don't understand is that, you know, we must be somewhere in the area of where this the base of this doorway was found. And you don't seem to have it anywhere. I know, you'd think it'd be easy to find when you I mean, we're definitely in Hobley's trench here. That dark cut there is the edge of his trench. You can see it in the section there.

[00:21:40]>> Well, that line there.

[00:21:41]>> line coming down the wall. But the thing is, did Hobley leave that beautifully sculpted stone in situ and rebury it? Or did he take it away? And it's not just Mick and Carenza having problems finding things they know to be there. John and Geophysics Coventry nightmare continues.

[00:21:58]Should be on top of it now.

[00:22:00]No, I think we're already past that thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:05]Nope.

[00:22:09]But other Time Team endeavors are a success.

[00:22:12]Our attempt at making a painted glass window to the specifications of medieval craftsman Theophilus, for example.

[00:22:19]Having cut all the glass, it's time to paint on Victor's design. But it's not just a case of opening a tin. We've had to grind our own pigments, and that's just the start of it. Taking Theophilus as our guide, mix these three together in such a way that there is 1/3 of copper powder, 1/3 of green, and 1/3 of blue.

[00:22:39]Then grind them on the same stone very carefully with wine or urine.

[00:22:44]We've got some urine here. Something we prepared earlier.

[00:22:47]>> Exactly. I think once you've mixed them, I'm not going anywhere near that.

[00:22:50]>> [laughter] >> So, once this is all dry and ready, what happens to it? Right, and then it needs to go into a kiln and be fired, and it and it fuses it to the surface of the glass. We've never actually fired this mixture before, so we don't know how it's going to react in in the kilns that we're and the temperature we're going to fire at. And the only concern might be that the glass doesn't melt at that temperature.

[00:23:18]So, it could turn out a total disaster, or it could be absolutely brilliant.

[00:23:23]Talking about the glazed windows, come and have a look at this. We actually found a piece of the lead with the glass still in it. Look at that. You can look through it and see the red light through that. Look at that.

[00:23:37]Wow. What else have you got? I'll tell you what's absolutely brilliant here.

[00:23:40]We've we've come down onto the floor here, and we've got imprints of where the tiles would actually have set. This is the mortar floor. You can see the little lines there. Yeah. That's actually where tiles would have set. So, we can work out the pattern. We've got tiles like uh these coming up.

[00:23:58]So, the pattern on those little cross, little birds, and the rose there.

[00:24:01]>> flower, this, isn't it?

[00:24:04]Some beautiful examples of tiling and a good indication of how part of the chapter house floor would have looked.

[00:24:10]But trench one still hasn't given us the doorway we know to be there. The entrance to the chapter house was a great doorway with very elaborate architectural features on the side. And that side is clearly been trashed. It's disappeared. Whereas this is in situ, but it isn't what we'd expect. Right, so we're going to extend this trench back because of this tantalizing stone. What about bodies? Are we likely to find any back there? It's very common if you visit a monastic site and you go to the chapter house to find lots of grave slabs in the floor. And very often they've got the names of the the abbot or priors on them. It's as if when they held the chapter meetings, which were, if you like, where all the decisions were taken, they needed the expertise and the wisdom of the previous chaps to be in on it.

[00:24:55]>> Right.

[00:24:56]>> It's almost as if they're that that presence they're there on their graves.

[00:24:59]Time's getting on, and it doesn't look like we'll hit the floor in trench two today. There's just too much rubble and masonry to remove as we dig.

[00:25:08]But all three trenches are still throwing up fantastic evidence for our cathedral reconstruction.

[00:25:13]>> hell of a face down, isn't it?

[00:25:15]So, why couldn't geophysics detected?

[00:25:18]I know, Mick, if we get plaster over there, what the hell are we going to get here?

[00:25:22]John, we've found more walls than I think we did in the entire last series, and yet you haven't been able to find any of them with your radar, have you?

[00:25:30]No, it's it's actually been quite embarrassing, to say the least. What's the problem? The problem is there's too much rubble.

[00:25:37]And the rubble, we can't see the difference between the wall foundations and the rubble. There's also all the pipes going across, the electric cables.

[00:25:43]It's not an easy site from our point of view. So, are you going to just pack up your stuff and go home? Well, I feel like it, almost. But no, we've got some good targets now. We're going to look for graves within the chapter house below the floor surfaces because we should get good responses from those.

[00:26:02]This just isn't John's day. As he sets out to regain some pride for geophysics, Coventry's notoriously unpredictable weather takes a turn for the worse.

[00:26:13]John, do you think there's any chance that machine will be able to find any graves or whatever under here? I'm hoping I'm going to find a plastic.

[00:26:35]As the rain continues, Victor gives us his impression of how the chapter house may have looked 500 years ago.

[00:26:42]Is that portly one on the right supposed to be me?

[00:26:45]They're all pretty portly, so you can take your All right, thanks, Abando.

[00:26:50]>> [laughter] >> This has changed a bit since you saw this morning.

[00:26:58]I know what that is. That's what we saw this morning, isn't it? Yeah, but I told you it was big, didn't I? But how big is this pier compared with the one that we saw at Lichfield?

[00:27:08]>> Well, actually, it's not quite as big.

[00:27:10]What you've got to remember is half of it's under that building now, so it goes a good way that way as well. And what can you tell about it? Well, we've got this face which Phil's exposed here where you can see pretty clearly an original face with this plaster on the wall there, Phil, isn't it? Definitely plaster. You see, just see it just peeling away from there. Not only that, look what the walls look like.

[00:27:31]Oh.

[00:27:34]God, look at that. What is that paint?

[00:27:36]Yeah, yeah. Paint. Isn't that amazing?

[00:27:39]Yeah.

[00:27:40]That's wonderful, isn't it?

[00:27:43]It's been a good day, Mick. What are we going to do tomorrow? Well, having found that big pillar over there, we're going to pursue it this way, and see if we can find the next one. That'll tell us a great deal. And in this trench here, we're going to carry on down, and actually get the floor in the church.

[00:27:57]>> sure? Yeah, I mean, we I think we've got another meter to go, but we've got this big stone to move, and then we'll carry on down there. And Carenza's trench has been fantastic today, isn't it? Hope we get some more good stuff there. What have you got here? Have you seen this yet? No.

[00:28:10]>> [laughter] >> Look at that. Aw. Isn't that beautiful?

[00:28:14]We just can't believe it. It's just fell out the trench.

[00:28:16]>> It's a rose, presumably. Yeah. Yeah. So, where is that likely to have come from?

[00:28:20]Well, Richard was saying he reckons it's a ceiling boss. So, it's been up up above like that, painted here. Yeah. I mean, it's just absolutely beautiful.

[00:28:28]It's so perfect.

[00:28:29]>> It's fantastic, isn't it? This would have been a Benedictine monastery, right?

[00:28:33]And every evening for the last 700 years, Benedictine monks have been saying the same thing all over the world at 8:00 in the evening. And tonight, the reading is by Brother Robin.

[00:28:46]Take heed that your hearts be not weighed down by surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this world.

[00:28:54]And finally, Compline prayers, which end Concede Misericors Deus, Fragilitati Nostrae Presidium, Per Eumdem Christum Dominum Nostrum. Amen.

[00:29:10]Day three in our hunt for Coventry's first cathedral. We've already found the chapter house down there, and up there, we've discovered one of the big central columns which supported the roof of the whole cathedral. And they're starting to look for where the second one might be.

[00:29:25]Why are we looking for another one, Mick? Well, there ought to be a row running off from that one down the aisle to support the nave, which is the building going off in that direction.

[00:29:34]>> Yeah.

[00:29:34]Uh and it ought We need to know where that is to pick up the intervals off them. Why is that so important? Um well, hang on, let me let me finish. If we find it a certain distance away, we'll know it's the aisle because they come at fairly regular intervals along the top. If on the other hand it's much further away, then it might be another pillar holding the tower up. In which case the whole tower would be this way.

[00:30:01]So the whole cathedral would have to shift about 20-30 ft. The middle of it would. So the alignment of this wall coming across in this trench here would suggest that there's a pillar up there for the aisle. But if there isn't then we've got a whole new ballgame up there.

[00:30:17]So we need to dig that trench to find out exactly where the pillar is and what size it is. Right, let's have a look.

[00:30:22]>> So they should be getting on with it.

[00:30:23]>> So we're going to dig a sister trench to the original trench three to solve this architectural mystery. There's no time to waste and Phil and George are raring to go. The pier if it's aligned with the west wall of the chapter house >> to come through there. And under this under this hedge. And if the middle the middle of that pier Yep.

[00:30:45]is sort of So it's in here.

[00:30:47]>> the middle's on the wall.

[00:30:49]In trench two, our seemingly endless dig for the cathedral floor has been halted as we try to remove a rather large piece of rubble.

[00:30:57]>> if we get this stone onto the board, perhaps get one end of the board up on there.

[00:31:01]You're in our way, Verna.

[00:31:04]How long's a piece of string? Well, you we tried three of us lifting it and we just about got it to waist height. So it probably weighs a little bit more than I do.

[00:31:14]>> [laughter] >> Push it. Let's go.

[00:31:18]All right.

[00:31:20]Got anybody out the trench just to grab the end of this?

[00:31:24]Gently out. Hey. Ah, well done. That's very good. Well, now it's out >> Yeah. what do they do? Well, we're going to go carry on going down through this demolition rubble. Obviously we'll sort out any architectural fragments like this until we come [snorts] to the floor. It's final resting place.

[00:31:39]All right. Phil still hasn't started the trench three extension because as it's happened so many times during this dig, the countless drains and underground services are causing problems.

[00:31:50]What we're bothered about, we got two manholes over there.

[00:31:55]And we got an electric cable running underneath here.

[00:32:07]Hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell's that down there?

[00:32:10]Good lord.

[00:32:12]It's like a grape.

[00:32:14]It is. It's a bunch of grapes.

[00:32:16]No.

[00:32:17]>> Cool, that's rather nice.

[00:32:18]>> Beautiful.

[00:32:19]It's a roof boss, Tony, I think and I mean that's just one detail of something that's going to be pretty big, probably about two or three feet across.

[00:32:25]>> And a roof boss sits how?

[00:32:26]>> other way. So we'd be looking at it up in the vault of the church like that.

[00:32:29]Yeah. Anything else in there? No, I mean at the minute we're we are actually coming back and really if we're going to get a pier we'd probably expect to get it a little bit further back and probably a little bit further this way.

[00:32:42]Now, correct me if I'm wrong. See if I've got this right.

[00:32:45]We've just found the face of a wall there. Down down by where Mickey is.

[00:32:49]Yeah, yeah. Now, until that moment we'd thought that this massive lump here was the wall and that it would be going that way. But because that's further forward than the face of that wall, we now realize it can't be the wall. In which case it is probably a buttress like the ones that you showed me yesterday relating both to the chapter house out there.

[00:33:11]>> It's on the same alignment to back down that wall.

[00:33:13]>> Right. Excuse me, who's explaining this?

[00:33:15]Up. Up.

[00:33:16]>> [laughter] >> But on the inside it's part of an arch which would come all the way over like that and plugged the other side would be where the next pier is. Is that right? And the term for that, Tony, is a respond because it responds to the pier. So that's what we've got in there. It's a respond? A respond. Is that right?

[00:33:35]I'm not sure I'm allowed TO SAY ANYTHING.

[00:33:37]>> [laughter] >> THE BUNCH OF grapes is just the latest of scores of finds that have our pot washers stretched to the limit.

[00:33:48]A lot of this is of course roof tile and floor tile. Um we've got some really nice floor tile fragments coming up. Oh, yes. Like this one. I mean this is super little shield on here.

[00:33:57]>> Yeah, and do we know who this is? Yeah, this is Edward the Confessor. Oh, right.

[00:34:00]So they've given him a coat of arms later on in fact.

[00:34:02]>> That's right. Yeah, and impressed with >> everything.

[00:34:04]>> Oh, yeah, the birds are very sweet.

[00:34:06]>> That's great, isn't it? That's superb.

[00:34:07]Now, what about glass cuz we seem to be getting vast amounts of >> We are. We're getting a lot of glass and it's all medieval and it's super stuff.

[00:34:15]>> Yeah. We've got this one here.

[00:34:17]There's a bird on it. Can you see that?

[00:34:18]Here we go.

[00:34:19]>> difficult to make this out until you get your eye in, isn't it?

[00:34:23]We've had that blown up and we can't see >> that's right. Okay, so you've got the beak here Yeah. the head and the eye and you can some [music] splashes of uh plaster or something over it. Nice to be boxed and labeled.

[00:34:35]>> cuz our glass reconstruction is basically a big bird, isn't it? It's superb. It's lovely to find this amongst the finds.

[00:34:43]And it's crunch time for our window made using traditional medieval methods.

[00:34:48]Having been painted yesterday, the pieces have been cooking overnight in one of Coventry University's kilns.

[00:34:55]They're still quite warm.

[00:34:59]Oh, that's super.

[00:35:03]Isn't that beautiful?

[00:35:04]You must be very pleased with how this has turned out, Ed. 100% as far as I can see.

[00:35:09]>> Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't call it an absolutely unqualified So what what what step do we go to [music] next? Given our short time constraints, we're we're going to move straight into leading up You don't know. Do you think it could Back at trench one, we've finally found the doorway that's been eluding us.

[00:35:26]Well, some of the doorway. The ornate decoration we've seen in photographs has gone. I I think the the previous excavators have have nicked it. Yeah.

[00:35:35]Raiders of the Lost Arch.

[00:35:37]>> [laughter] >> Oh, yeah. Oh, very droll. Very good.

[00:35:42]This is the doorway, one side of the doorway. All the decorative stonework has obviously gone from it. The other side of the doorway Somewhere over here? has also had the stone taken away from it. Yeah, it's just where Mickey is. Must be about here, mustn't it? Yeah. The decorative stonework has been robbed out, but we're confident now that the doorway into the chapter house was here.

[00:35:58]Yeah. And trench one has also given geophysics their first proper success of an otherwise miserable three days. As if you remember yesterday John actually braved the the weather and used two different techniques. So we've actually got a couple of positions which look like they may just be burial sites.

[00:36:16]Certainly something significant. One of them's about here and I guess the other one's about a meter further back so just over here.

[00:36:23]>> That's very significant because if if we've got the doorway here now They're right in front of it, aren't and I'm in the cloister, then this is the sort of area that you'd expect some of the priors and more important people to be buried. You then come through the doorway into the chapter house and on many many sites you've got these things up the middle of the chapter house. Do you think that might be what you've got there?

[00:36:45]I don't know. So for testing the geophysics we need to dig it anyway. Oh, absolutely. If we walk away and we don't test this then frankly we've done ourselves a disservice.

[00:36:54]To find these tombs, we're going to dig a sondage. That's a small exploratory trench that won't destroy too much archaeology but will give us a cross-section of the chapter house floor.

[00:37:06]Over at Coventry's Guildhall, we're coming to the end of our painted glass window.

[00:37:13]Oh, it is coming on nicely, isn't it?

[00:37:14]Yeah. Oh, you you know, I think it's [music] looking we might even get it finished today. We might do, yeah.

[00:37:21]So what we're going to do is we're going to put this piece in [music] one of these painted pieces. So go careful and break it.

[00:37:28]We're going to place that into that >> [music] >> area there. Yep.

[00:37:31]So it's just halfway over the black line, okay?

[00:37:37]And that that seems to fit nicely. Place that piece of lead over the glass first and just cut yourself a piece of lead off that will fit and [music] workable, yeah.

[00:37:47]So then push that. Yes, lovely. Here we are. If you just press that piece [music] down a bit, yes, lovely. That's the one. So the glass fits in the groove on either side.

[00:37:58]Just come up, yeah.

[00:37:59]And then take the lead away from the glass so you don't [music] damage the glass and cut it on the board. Right. So we need to take that now out. If you take that now out, you can Okay, so we put a little bit of tallow on the joint that we're going to solder.

[00:38:14]Take our soldering iron.

[00:38:21]Okay, so when we've finished soldering all the joints on that side, [music] it has to be turned over and done on the other side. And that more or less completes the process. Yes, the polish with this cloth.

[00:38:32]>> [laughter] >> Oh, it's super.

[00:38:36]Uh Mark, what what's that? Back at trench one, our search for a grave has unearthed some human remains. The problem is though they weren't where we expected them. In fact, we may have stumbled across something much more sinister.

[00:38:52]You got some bone?

[00:38:53]Yes, it's getting a bit confusing though. We've found some bits that look really very very recent, aren't they, Margaret?

[00:39:01]Yeah, we have. Like how recent?

[00:39:03]Like the sort of stuff you'd dig up out of the back garden that the dog buried a few years ago. 10, 15, 20, 50 years.

[00:39:10]If it's not archaeological, what we may have is a crime scene.

[00:39:14]So we have to call the coppers in? Well, we we have a legal obligation to notify the coroner and then the coroner notifies the police.

[00:39:21]And how can we prove whether or not these bones are old?

[00:39:25]Uh if this bone is the same as this bone, then the association of this bone within a very secure stratigraphy underneath medieval floors will demonstrate that all of this bone is still old despite the way it looks and that what we're actually looking at is some very interesting science rather than some possibly very interesting legal proceedings. So, if that bone looks new, we know it's underneath a medieval layer.

[00:39:49]>> And so, that will prove that these bones, even though they look new, are probably really, really old. So, we don't have that problem.

[00:39:56]>> So, what are you going to do? Get it out? We're going to get it out. Yep.

[00:39:59]So, trench one may have to be closed down if these bones prove to be recent.

[00:40:04]As we wait for Margaret to reach her conclusions, Phil has solved the sort of mystery we're more used to on Time Team.

[00:40:11]He's discovered the other crossing pier in trench three.

[00:40:15]I don't know whether it's going to be quite big enough, though.

[00:40:19]Do you reckon you've got the edge on that side?

[00:40:21]Uh yeah, I think I have.

[00:40:22]>> I mean, I got stonework plummeting on that ear here.

[00:40:26]Here, grab hold of this tape and let's just right, see what sort of an east-west dimension we got. Okay.

[00:40:35]Right, that's about the edge. You on?

[00:40:37]Yeah.

[00:40:38]Wow.

[00:40:40]I got about 2.7. That's good. And that one just to the east was here about 2.8.

[00:40:45]We're looking anyway, we're looking at the core.

[00:40:49]I reckon we could have the crossing. Oh, that's good. That's great.

[00:40:53]Because that's so definitely sealed, it it just shows the value of the archaeology, if you like, in this. If if we hadn't excavated this like that, we wouldn't know what we were doing. We'd have to call the coroner in and have to stop.

[00:41:06]Look at that, Caroline. And that's very, very similar, isn't it?

[00:41:09]>> So, this is the one that we think's that we thought was very new.

[00:41:12]>> Yeah. And what's one that we just >> we know isn't. We know that that one isn't.

[00:41:19]And they're very, very similar. They look very old. And there's another one that isn't.

[00:41:23]Are you happy that we're okay? It is an ancient burial. We don't have to call the coroner.

[00:41:27]>> There's part of me that's incredibly relieved because we can get on with the archaeology.

[00:41:32]But, there's part of me that would have really loved to see to suddenly become an episode of The Bill.

[00:41:39]>> [laughter] >> Drama over, it's back up to trench three, where Phil's new crossing pier is really taking shape. Is it keep going down, Phil? It's a monster, mate. An absolute monster. Look, it goes it's still disappearing underneath that manhole.

[00:41:57]It's going along nicely on that side.

[00:41:59]Look at it here, still going. Look, it's it's enormous.

[00:42:03]You sound as if you're very confident that this is the same as that.

[00:42:08]Another aisle pillar. I mean, not only that, this side along here, this edge along here is more or less exactly in a dead straight line to the uh south side of that pillar there. So, I mean, the the whole symmetry of the thing is just so much better.

[00:42:29]>> And as if to underline the point, the chapter house wall also lines up with the new pier.

[00:42:34]>> That's right. known space, whether we're going to get an extra what, five bays at least there now.

[00:42:38]>> That's really coming on now, isn't Hi, Tony. Yeah, we're we're very excited by this, actually. Um what you can see has happened is where we were thinking we had the northwest corner pier of the crossing, we now know as a result of digging today, um that that pier is actually the northeast pier of the crossing. We've now got two crossing piers. The new pier we've discovered today is the new northwest crossing pier. That's that one there. That means the nave now is shortened. It's only nine bays long.

[00:43:07]But, the conviction that that is the northwest pier, the actual one, is because it now aligns extremely well with the west front of the chapter house, which is discovered in one of the other holes.

[00:43:17]>> [snorts] >> So, Phil's find in trench three means for the first time we know exactly where the central crossing stood, and we can alter our cathedral plan accordingly.

[00:43:26]But, our diggers confirmed other elements of the plan. In trench two, 4 m below the surface, Mick the dig is the first man to stand on the cathedral floor in over 400 years. So, that really is the floor that you're standing on there, Mick, is it?

[00:43:42]Yeah, what I've actually got I've got a plaster bedding. I've got one one medieval tile still in situ just there.

[00:43:49]Can you see that?

[00:43:50]And if you actually look at the plaster, you can see the the shadow of where the tiles used to be. Yeah. Running in there. So, I've got I've got plaster floor going that way underneath you.

[00:43:59]Yeah. Behind me, though, I've got this big piece of stone wall with whitewash on it, Yeah. which is a part of the original cathedral. So, after three days of serious digging, Time Team can now show what St. Mary's, Coventry's first cathedral, would look like were it still standing today.

[00:44:21]Because of our discoveries, we now know that the central crossing was a Norman build, while the east and west ends were of a later Gothic style. And the two crossing piers we found not only give a precise position for the central crossing, but they're also too small to support a stone spire. So, a wooden spire would have stood atop St. Mary's.

[00:44:43]And inside this massive building with its fantastic [music] columns and piers, the walls were plastered, but simply whitewashed, whilst the floor was covered in green tiles.

[00:44:57]And thanks to Stuart and Victor's work on the positioning of the cathedral, we now know it was built on the side of the hill to allow a conduit from the River Sherbourne to flow into the monastery buildings.

[00:45:10]We've achieved what we set out to do, but there's still more work to be done.

[00:45:14]Following our earlier intrigue with the Anglo-Saxon bones in trench one, we now, at the end of day three, have a major historical find. What is it? What is it?

[00:45:24]We have got a stone-lined grave cut into the chapter house floor just inside the door. It's exactly what we were hoping for. And that's just where Jeff has said they thought it would be, isn't >> It's exactly where we've all been hoping it would be. Yes. Fantastic. Could there still be a body in it, do you think?

[00:45:38]>> There could be.

[00:45:40]Uh but, it's not impossible that it might have been robbed out and sort of Tantalizing. And we've got How long we got?

[00:45:45]Just about An hour and a half left.

[00:45:48]>> Yeah, that's the slightly less good side of it. We can't leave it. We've got to carry on with it. Uh we're just going to have to do what we can and see where we've got to at the end of the day and then think about it then. But, we There's going to be building on this site. We've we've got to carry on and and we can't leave it. Oh, good luck. I'll let you get on with it.

[00:46:08]God, isn't this weird?

[00:46:09]As the minutes tick away and the tension mounts in trench one, there's some light relief.

[00:46:14]In just three days, we've made our own painted glass window using authentic medieval methods. We're going to give it to the people of Coventry as a tribute to those who lived and worked on this site all those centuries ago. So, how how did you did you think your first bit of stained glass went, Victor? Well, uh she was promised.

[00:46:32]>> [laughter] >> Back at our probable prior's grave, we're working as fast as we can, unearthing more and more of the smashed tomb lid.

[00:46:48]But, it's 7:00, day three. We've all got to go home, and we still don't know what's inside this burial chamber. So, and this is a first for Time Team. As this is such an important site, we're going to leave a team of our diggers here to work alongside the Coventry archaeologists, so we can tell you exactly what's [music] down there.

[00:47:15]>> [music] >> Day four. And the first task for Caroline, our digger, and Coventry's archaeologist Paul Thompson, is the removal of the broken fragments of tomb lid from the grave.

[00:47:27]And do you think there's been something placed in here, filled in, filled with something? What do you think? Yeah, I I do think there'd be some sort of decorative panel in there.

[00:47:35]You're looking on lines of perhaps some brass plaque or Latin inscription. Nice decorative metal that would have been very visible, very impressive. I think whoever is in here is is is quite an important, significant person. We've not got all all of it, obviously. We've only got a small amount of the stone. So, it may be that they've taken the the stone on one side, smashed it up over in the in in thrown the pieces back in.

[00:48:01]Unfortunately, there isn't enough of the tomb lid left to give us a good idea of how it might have looked.

[00:48:08]And as the day carries on, the evidence, in spite of some interesting finds, is beginning to suggest that the grave has been completely desecrated.

[00:48:16]We have a bit of somebody's femur.

[00:48:19]It's not in very good condition, though.

[00:48:21]So, that could have been messed up when we when the dissolution comes in and Yeah, who knows? I mean, somebody I mean, it's to find a bit of femur at this end of the grave where you would expect to find feet, obviously, suggests that somebody's been in here before, as I think. Mhm.

[00:48:36]But, just as we're beginning to give up hope, Come along. Yeah. Look at this.

[00:48:40]Look, I've got a void.

[00:48:42]Look, can you see? I think you've got more than a void, haven't you? I think there's bone in there.

[00:48:47]I think that might So, it looks like it ran the outside.

[00:48:49]>> This is going to be part of the skull.

[00:48:51]Excellent.

[00:48:53]It's lower jaw.

[00:48:55]It's got some teeth in it, which are rather nice ones.

[00:48:58]But, we seem to have his the jaws rolled to one side, and the skull seems to have rolled one to the other side, cuz we've got the eye orbit just here.

[00:49:12]Who was this person? What was his story?

[00:49:15]Unfortunately, a lack of records prevent us from putting a name to him, but we can tell a lot.

[00:49:20]The prime position of his grave strongly indicates he was a prior.

[00:49:25]His life wasn't without its tribulations. Forensic tests on his bones show he was overweight and probably diabetic. But, the indications are he lived into late middle age, and through luck or judgement, his tomb survived the wrath of Henry VIII, unlike the rest of St. Mary's, the cathedral in which he lived and worshipped.

[00:50:04]>> [music] >> Join Time Team on Patreon to access exclusive 3D models, masterclasses, and behind-the-scenes insights.