Archaeologists Discover Wales's Rarest 1,000-Year-Old Saxon Artifact

[00:00:08]Take a look at this photo taken in Port Skuwit, South Wales. This is Harold's Field. It's dotted with mysterious lumps and bumps, and I reckon it's going to be a real cracker of a sight. Picture the scene. It's 1065, the year before the Battle of Hastings, and Harold Godwinson, soon to be king, is riding up this slope, looking for a site for his brand new hunting lodge fit to entertain royalty. Why here? Well, it's always been strategically important. It's on the main crossing point for anyone wanting to go from England through to Wales. The Romans built here. The Welsh had a royal palace here, but amazingly no one's ever dug here up till now. Time team have got just three days to find out what really is under Harold's field.

[00:01:35]Most of us know King Harold as a loser.

[00:01:37]the Saxon king killed by an arrow in the eye at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

[00:01:43]But what many people won't know is that he was actually a very successful warrior in the years before he became king. As Earl of Wessix, he owned land that bordered Wales and personally as a big fan of Harold. I'm looking forward to finding out what he was doing here in Port Skuweit. The reason why no one's ever dug here at Harold's Field before is that way back in 1928, it was deemed so historically important that they made it a scheduled ancient monument which means nobody's allowed to excavate it.

[00:02:15]But this is Kate Smith who lives locally, don't you?

[00:02:17]>> I do. I live over the road in Sbrook.

[00:02:19]>> And Kate organized this petition. Would you like to see a professional excavation at Harold's Field? That was very enterprising of you. Why did you do that? Well, because nobody knows for certain what's under the under the field and we have a lot of very curious villagers who would love to know.

[00:02:34]>> So once we got this petition, we had to contact Kadu who are the Welsh equivalent of English Heritage, aren't they?

[00:02:40]>> Very good, >> Rick. It seems a bit odd to me that this place was scheduled in the first place given that we don't really have any idea what's here.

[00:02:47]>> Well, I had a look at our files to try and answer that question myself and the inspector who came in the 1920s would have seen what we see, the earthworks, the position, and so on. But it seems to be the place name Harold's house or Harold's Field that seems to have been the clincher to make this a protected site.

[00:03:03]>> So we start with the name.

[00:03:05]>> Yes. But we've also got a really nice piece of evidence from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and that tells us that in 1065 Harold came here and built a hunting lodge. Um but we don't know whether it was exactly in this field. We know it was in Port Skuwe. The name itself could have been attached to it in Victorian times. We've got this um fantastic drawing by the Reverend Green from 1893 which shows our earthworks looking remarkably similar to the way they look today. Um and underneath he's written remains of Harold's hunting tower at Port Skuwit.

[00:03:34]>> Look at this face. That is undiluted skepticism, isn't it?

[00:03:38]>> I just wonder if they've put two and two together. You know, they've got a field full of earthworks next to the church.

[00:03:43]They've got this reference and they've combined it. I mean actually very often we don't know what there is within an area of a schedule monument do we I mean it's obviously earth works they draw a line around it. Nobody ever looks at it.

[00:03:57]>> Well the sooner we start digging the sooner we're going to know exactly what is buried under these mysterious lumps and bumps and if they've got anything to do with Harold's hunting lodge. The first trench it's been decided is going in here across the biggest most obvious lump in Harold's field.

[00:04:15]It stands out so well in fact that we haven't waited for GeFys to survey it.

[00:04:19]Instead, they'll crack on to give us a picture of what's going on in the rest of this field.

[00:04:25]Half 10 on day one and we've already got the first trench going in, which is very good news. Unfortunately, there's some bad news as well. We've got a wounded soldier. How did we do this?

[00:04:36]>> We don't know, Tony. I mean, this is a sort of temporary measure, but I've done something to me wrist. What it means is I can't dig.

[00:04:44]>> So, what can you do?

[00:04:46]>> I can use me brain. I can I can still observe the archaeology. I can still interpret it. It'll just mean that I'll get into other people's trenches and make myself extremely unpopular, just like you do, really.

[00:04:59]>> Well, I'm sure we're going to need Phil's experience, but right now, I want to hear more about the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the evidence that connects Harold with Port Skuwit. We've got a splendid reference for 1065 which is often overshadowed by of course stirring events the following year but it's absolutely specific. In this year before Clamas Harold ordered the building in Wales at Port Skuwit and there too many goods gathered. He wished to invite King Edward here for hunt meats. So the implication is of a great hunting lodge.

[00:05:32]>> So this is before he's king. King Edward is king. Why is he in Wales in the first place? He's consolidating his his his military campaign in 1063 completely defeated the Welsh armies and the Welsh king there and it's it's asserting himself in what had been foreign land.

[00:05:50]He would have been building the most wonderful building. I mean he's immensely wealthy himself. He's he's second only to the king in terms of wealth and power of course and he wants to impress the king and the king loves his hunting even though he's quite an old man by now.

[00:06:03]>> Well, it sounds convincing but it could be very difficult to prove it was here.

[00:06:08]Because even a Saxon building posh enough to entertain the king would have looked something like this. Essentially a timber construction leaving only post holes in the ground for us to find.

[00:06:19]Worse still, it may not have been here for very long because we know it was attacked by the Welsh.

[00:06:26]The Welsh b band b together and we have a great big gang that come and and kill the builders and seize all the goods that are assembled here by Harold for hunting and building. So, we're not even dealing with a complete building, it appears.

[00:06:39]>> So, the Welsh burnt down Harold the Englishman's holiday home.

[00:06:43]>> Uh, yes, there's a bit of a pattern there, isn't there?

[00:06:48]>> But for the archaeologists, this dig is about more than just looking for Saxon evidence. This ridge of higher ground was on the main route for anyone crossing the River 7. And there are clues to suggest that this field was occupied over many centuries.

[00:07:03]Local pottery expert Steve Clark has dug several trenches in the area and found Iron Age, Roman, and medieval finds all around the edges of Harold's Field.

[00:07:16]When you say you've got medieval potry from here, what sort of date is that in?

[00:07:20]>> Well, it's it's a job to say. It's it's probably 13th century, could be 14th, but there's it's not really closely datable because there's not enough of it.

[00:07:27]>> So, not Harold yet then?

[00:07:28]>> No Saxon pottery. There's there's no there's one she from southern Wales. So if we got something Saxon that would be big story. Yes. Yes. It would be really big.

[00:07:38]>> Key to understanding this site will be making sense of the lumps and bumps.

[00:07:43]Geophys are busy trying to detect what lies beneath them while Henry is collecting data to make a 3D model and Stuart seems to be studying them from every angle.

[00:07:56]He hasn't spotted anything Saxon yet, but he reckons he can see traces of something that would be later in date. A medieval manor.

[00:08:03]>> You see looking over there, that big ridge going across there. There's a low area between >> us and that on this aerial photograph, that's this bank coming across here.

[00:08:14]>> This is a very typical dam holding back water in this area in here, the area we're standing in. So, you've got quite a distinctive feature there showing up.

[00:08:24]You got this ditch going round. You see all these earthworks within here. So you're getting the feel of an enclosure going round.

[00:08:30]>> So would that be like an ornamental moat?

[00:08:31]>> That's right. Or a fish pool there. Very typical decorative feature going with a medieval mana house. The plan is to put in a trench to test Stuart's theory.

[00:08:40]>> Well, we got a big yellow digger. I don't have to use my hand.

[00:08:44]>> And if we need any digging, I'll get Bridget to do it.

[00:08:48]Phil and Bridge are going to open a trench here across these earthworks to see if Stuart's right and they are medieval.

[00:08:57]And no sooner does the trench go in at the bottom of the hill than straight away Phil spots the first find.

[00:09:04]>> I mean, how did I see that?

[00:09:07]>> Not with his eyesight, is there?

[00:09:09]>> See, you don't you don't need your hands to do archaeology. just need your old eyes. That's the w. So what we need now >> is a pottery expert.

[00:09:22]>> It's medieval.

[00:09:24]>> No, it is medieval.

[00:09:25]>> I think it is.

[00:09:26]>> When you say medieval in this instance, what what refine that a bit more?

[00:09:31]>> Somewhere around 1200.

[00:09:33]>> That would be good.

[00:09:34]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I didn't think I didn't think that early.

[00:09:39]>> No, no, it could could well be good.

[00:09:40]>> It's a bit noisy though, is it? Okay.

[00:09:42]>> Right. Then just with me will you just >> It's a great start. We've come straight down on medieval pottery dating to around 1200 AD. So Stuart could be right. And there is a completely unknown medieval mana house here.

[00:09:56]>> Oh wow.

[00:09:56]>> Yeah.

[00:09:58]>> Is what what goes on in there?

[00:09:59]>> Well, it's a bit it's a bit more degraded in there, but there's definitely the there's bits of stone coming up.

[00:10:05]>> It's a big old big old stone there. It >> is. And it's a nice >> Let's have another nibble in here, please. Ian, >> what's that wall there?

[00:10:13]>> Well, we don't know yet, but that's what it's looking like.

[00:10:17]>> Up on the top of the hill, we could be digging the very posh bit of Stuart's mana house because we've uncovered a massive spread of stones. And Matt's got his first find of the dig.

[00:10:35]>> Wall, is it?

[00:10:36]>> Yeah, it's kind of It's kind of square.

[00:10:38]It looks like that squared off piece there >> fitted in a wall or something.

[00:10:45]>> Matt reckons there's at least one large collapsed building here, but at the moment it's hard to see because of all the rubble.

[00:10:51]>> There was a few pieces of of very angular stones in the top. It's quite thick. Then we come down there almost clean mortar there and almost we have an a possible I don't know revetment or wall there. A few large pieces there, but they're all very tumbled.

[00:11:05]>> It looks like we might have another building at the other end of the trench.

[00:11:09]And I'm glad I'm not the one who's got to sort it out. That's a wall >> and dressed.

[00:11:14]>> Yes, absolutely.

[00:11:14]>> Unlike all this rough undressed rubble, this is actually >> And that's the only bit of dress stain we we found.

[00:11:20]>> Quite.

[00:11:21]>> But could this map dated 1777 contain a clue to what one of the buildings looked like.

[00:11:28]And look at the name of the field.

[00:11:30]>> Tower.

[00:11:31]>> Tower.

[00:11:31]>> Yeah. Now, I think that tower field name applies to the fact that there's these big lumps and bumps on the top here, and there was a memory that was a tall building or a stone tower, perhaps an old mana house, but there's a memory of a stone building in this field.

[00:11:47]>> Stuart now believes that most of the bigger earthworks are part of the medieval mana house. And this is an exciting discovery in itself. It's possible that these lost medieval buildings could be very early, perhaps even dating back to the period just after the Norman conquest. But as well as digging the manor, we also want to investigate the preconquest history of this hill. So where do we put our next trench in search of some Saxon evidence?

[00:12:15]what we've got on top almost like a like a big courtyard, but there are areas in here where there are much lower earthworks which don't quite fit that that same pattern.

[00:12:25]>> They're almost interesting because they're blank in fact.

[00:12:28]>> Yeah, they're blank and they're very low and they just don't feel the same substance as the other ones.

[00:12:33]>> The gez survey looks like it's showing more medieval buildings, but it could also be natural sandstone.

[00:12:39]>> The only way to find out is put another trench in.

[00:12:42]>> Yeah. You see, I think the problem is in a way we don't want to know about the things we can see because these are going to be medieval or later stone or or solid structures. Whereas if we're talking about something early that might be timber built, the sort of things that would be contemporary with Harold, you know, late Sax and early Norman, they're either going to be underneath these or are they going to be in the rather more blank areas. So, in a way, we ought to be looking, like you're saying, in the blank areas because that's where we might see the post holes and timber slots of of earlier structures. Trench three, it's decided, will examine this geopys blob, but also extend into a blank area to see if we can find any trace of earlier occupation.

[00:13:30]So, trench three gets underway on top of the hill.

[00:13:35]And it doesn't take long to reveal the source of the geophys black glob.

[00:13:40]>> There's bits of mortar coming up.

[00:13:42]>> A spread of mortar and rubble, probably from the medieval mana house.

[00:13:47]>> I don't think they're in situ.

[00:13:49]>> So, we can take those out then.

[00:13:51]>> Yeah. In some ways, finding a complex of posh medieval buildings here isn't surprising because mana houses were often built on important Saxon sites.

[00:14:01]Essentially, it was a way of showing that a newly conquered area was under new management. Harold, in fact, may have chosen this hill for his hunting lodge because it had long been the site of a Welsh royal court.

[00:14:14]We could be digging the top of many layers of history in this field. We've talked a lot about the medieval manor and about Harold's hunting lodge, but before that, we've got this possible Welsh royal court >> which was here for a lot longer. What would it have looked like?

[00:14:30]>> Well, we don't quite know. There's been a lot of work done on fleece sites in North Wales.

[00:14:35]>> What is this thing called?

[00:14:36]>> Fleece, the royal seat of the kings of Gwent.

[00:14:41]>> Once again, we're talking about a fancy wooden building built possibly as early as the 7th century.

[00:14:48]The evidence for it comes from a historical text, the life of St. Tus, which tells how the king of Gwent went in search of a new royal site.

[00:14:58]The king is on his horse, which he rides without bridal or halter. So, the horse miraculously is guided by God to a spot uh as the nearest we get is well nigh to the banks of the seven. But more specifically, when he arrives here, the horse scratches the ground and lo and behold, a spring bursts forth. And at just at that point in the life, we have a little bit of verse inserted which is often an indicator of a much earlier source. So it it it's it it makes the whole thing much more credible. Uh observe the signs of God. Here the horse stands. Here is the place to abide. So God is by God to to find a place here.

[00:15:38]What a very good horse. It's like Champion the Wonder Horse on Lassie, wasn't it?

[00:15:43]>> There isn't a spring here now because they all dried up when the seven tunnel was built, >> but it was described by antiquarians and it's shown on this 1777 map.

[00:15:54]>> There's the church on here.

[00:15:56]>> Yes.

[00:15:56]>> And there's it's labeled the springs.

[00:15:59]>> Yes.

[00:16:00]>> Another one. And there's the real and our dam is somewhere down here. Well, it sounds a bit dodgy to me, but the archaeologists seem to believe it.

[00:16:08]>> But the problem, Tony, is is, you know, it's the usual one of how do you find timber buildings of that early medieval period.

[00:16:15]>> Yeah. Another clue to why this site became an important place is in the name itself, Port Skuwit, which in Welsh means the harbor below the woods. Hard to imagine now because the village is half a mile inland, but in ancient times it's thought there was a tidal creek here linking Port Skuwit with the seven estury.

[00:16:37]Tomorrow we're planning to try and find the creek, but it could be that Phil's trench here on the lower ground has already picked up some evidence of it.

[00:16:46]>> Well, across the whole trench is this clay. This clay is the aluvium. This is water lane deposits. And look what we've got down here.

[00:16:55]Now that piece of pot >> Yeah.

[00:16:57]>> is actually in the alovvium.

[00:17:01]>> Steve, have you got any idea what this is?

[00:17:02]>> Yeah. It's Seven Valley wear. It's It's Roman. It's second third century.

[00:17:07]>> Wow. It's quite distinctive stuff.

[00:17:08]Really?

[00:17:09]>> You want to get it out?

[00:17:10]>> Sure. Have a go.

[00:17:11]>> Yeah. Take it.

[00:17:11]>> You're not allowed to touch it, right?

[00:17:13]>> I can do it with my left hand, but I can supervise.

[00:17:18]>> Oh, it's really claggy. This clay, isn't it?

[00:17:21]>> Old piece though, is it?

[00:17:22]>> Yeah. Do you reckon this is in situ or is it just been dumped here?

[00:17:27]>> At some stage the Romans were here and it's got dropped in to the silt and then gradually the silt has build built up and up and up.

[00:17:36]>> It's so gluey.

[00:17:38]>> I'm glad it's not my wrist that's doing that.

[00:17:41]>> Here we are. It's coming away.

[00:17:44]>> Take 500 years.

[00:17:46]>> Now we can start thinking about You have a rest. I'll get the rest of the fines out the tree.

[00:17:56]>> Well, this is our first sign that the site was occupied in Roman times. My beautifully excavated bit of pot comes from a second to third century Roman storage jar that would have looked like this.

[00:18:13]I said I thought this site was going to be a pretty good one, and it hasn't let me down so far. We started off with these earthworks. Underneath it, it looks as though we found the medieval manor and there could be all these layers underneath.

[00:18:29]Day two here at Port Skuwit in South Wales where we're trying to work out what all these lumps and bumps are about. Yesterday we found what we think is a medieval manor right on the top of that hill. But this place is called a Harold's field. So, we're hoping we might have Harold Saxon Hunting Lodge underneath the medieval manor, but it's more complicated than that. There's so much history here. We could have a Welsh royal court, under the Saxon, below that, a Roman villa. Below that, something prehistoric. But what really intrigues me is that we discovered yesterday that in this low ground down here, there used to be a creek which flowed into the river 7. So once he's sorted himself out, Stuart's going off.

[00:19:09]Off you go, my son. In order to try and map the creek. Later on, we're going to put a trench in somewhere around here.

[00:19:16]We've got our work cut out today.

[00:19:19]We've got three trenches underway so far. And in Matt's trench, we've unearthed two buildings which we think were part of a medieval mana house, but we don't know how old it is or when it went out of use.

[00:19:32]>> It looks like we might have something else coming through here, you think?

[00:19:35]>> Yeah, possibly. Yeah, these big big stones cuz behind you they're all quite small and roughly, aren't they? But just cleaning up these, it looks like they're quite they're pretty hefty. I think we might have our second second wall in the trench.

[00:19:45]>> Phil's trench was put in here to investigate the earthworks at the bottom of the hill. Yesterday afternoon, I excavated this beautiful piece of second to third century Roman pot from over there. But Phil said that this end of the trench, where I couldn't see anything at all, had got more potential.

[00:20:02]Were you right?

[00:20:03]>> Absolutely, Tony. The reason this has got so much more potential is we've got more layers here. We've actually got strategraphy and this is where the crucial part of the trench is going to be. You see your piece of 23rd century pot came from this aluvium down here.

[00:20:19]Now the important thing is we've also had pottery from up there. Medieval pottery dated to 1200. The point is we've got all these layers in between that will tell us the story. Often when you two say that there's strategraphy, I can't see anything. But I have to say even I can see that you've got one layer down to there, then you've got this dark layer here and you've got this mud below it.

[00:20:43]>> Exactly. So what we want to know is what is going on in the middle bit. And if we can get more bits of pottery, we can actually fill that gap in between the Romans and the and the period of 1200.

[00:20:56]>> So part of that gap would be our Saxon Harold hunting lodge. Well, it would, but I mean, you know, let's be a bit cautious because we have hell's own difficulty finding stuff between the Roman and the medieval anywhere.

[00:21:09]>> Well, that's great, isn't it? We've got a trench here that's cutting into the hill and allowing us to see the earlier history, but Mick's telling me that we might not be able to prove that one of these layers is Saxon. I don't really understand why won't we get any Saxon finds? Well, certainly in in terms of of pottery, which is, you know, archaeologists rely a lot on pottery, there just doesn't seem to be any about for six >> right from year period, >> right from the end of the Roman Empire through until Norman time. Why? What happened to the pots after the Romans left?

[00:21:42]>> Well, it's a very interesting question and and we can give you a very feeble answer.

[00:21:47]>> It's the end of the market economy. The Romans had a number of centers where they mass-produced pottery in Oxfordshire in uh Dorset and so on and those disappear. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that they're using wooden vessels >> which rot away >> which rot away.

[00:22:05]>> I mean where you get a a wet a wet context that preserves wood the vessel the wooden vessels are there on mass. So if we want to find evidence of the time between the Romans and the medieval manner, what are we likely to get?

[00:22:20]>> The most satisfying thing we would get is is either some post holes or timber slots or something like that which would demonstrabably after the Romans and before the Norman period >> preferably with radiocarbon >> with something like bone or something that would give us a radiocarbon date that would nicely come out at 900 plus or minus 50. That would be the ideal.

[00:22:44]But you know, we're all cynical enough to know that that's that's a long shot.

[00:22:49]>> Well, they may be cynical, but I'm not giving up on Harold yet. Surely there must be something Saxon to find if the hunting lodge was in this field.

[00:23:00]We're certainly checking the finds very carefully. Steve, our pottery expert, is examining everything under a microscope.

[00:23:08]And this is the earliest medieval pottery we found so far.

[00:23:12]>> So, how do you go about identifying a piece of pottery like this?

[00:23:15]>> Well, first of all, it's cooking pot.

[00:23:17]You can see that there's soot on the outside and lime on the inside >> from the water.

[00:23:22]>> From the water, the cooking. Yes. They put them in the fire.

[00:23:25]>> Identifying pottery is all about recognizing the shape, type of clay, and the various extras added to it.

[00:23:32]This has a purple tinge because of the high iron content in the clay and it's typical of pottery made in Ham Green near Bristol.

[00:23:41]Sand has been added to the clay as a temper to prevent it from cracking in the fire >> of a cooking pot.

[00:23:47]>> And that's what we can see up on the screen, isn't it? These these rounded grains and things are obviously obviously sand. And what's this great lump?

[00:23:54]>> It's also sand as well. It's it's a quartz grain which is subangular. But these these here which is we got really excited because in Wales these are generally 12th century.

[00:24:05]>> This cooking pot could have been brought here as early as 1150 AD less than a 100red years after Harold built his lodge here. And it was found in Phil's trench. So gradually we're moving in the right direction.

[00:24:19]We're making progress in Matt's trench as well. It looks like we're starting to get some dating evidence for our mana house. No. What have you got >> that with pots, >> it's tile? It's sort of fairly standard medieval tile. Bit thin for roofing tile, isn't it? What do you think?

[00:24:42]>> Might be from a half or something like that.

[00:24:44]>> Not floor tile, then.

[00:24:45]>> It's not floor tile. It's far too too thin. Hopefully, we'll find more clues, but at least it tells us we're dealing with a mana house that was here in the 13th or 14th century.

[00:24:56]That's very clear, isn't it?

[00:24:57]>> Thanks to some 21st century wizardry, Henry's 3D model of the lumps and bumps is helping to show up the extent of the mana house.

[00:25:06]>> He's illustrates quite well on the top the the rectangular nature of where those big lumps and bumps are, where the building is. See how clearly defined that is on Henry's model.

[00:25:15]>> I'm really pleased with that. I think it's great.

[00:25:16]>> It's good, isn't it? It shows sharp corners to it, don't they?

[00:25:19]>> It's very definite. But what it also shows, if you can swing it back, Henry, he's starting to pick up various earthworks down here. There's clearly more going on in this area that will tell us something about the history of this site. So, yes, it's it's been really helpful.

[00:25:33]>> Stuart's main challenge today is to find the silted up creek that once connected Port Skuwit to the sea.

[00:25:39]>> So, there's the site just in there, and you can see you've got the coast out here with all the mud flats. All these lines on here, these are medieval strip fields. I this wasn't flooded in medieval period because we're able to plow it, but there are areas where you can see stream channels and areas that don't have plowing on. Could this be where you could bring boats up to our site?

[00:26:01]The theory is that there was a tidal creek known locally as a pill running close to our site. It may well have looked something like this one, which is only a couple of miles away.

[00:26:13]Phil's going to help with the search for the lost creek and he's wondering what the harbor at Port Skuweit might have looked like.

[00:26:20]>> I mean, we've got these sort of well modern jetties and and bits and pieces like that. Would would they have had that or would they have just literally let it sink down in the mud?

[00:26:28]>> It would depend. We we have got examples of medieval keysides, big stone establishments, but probably the majority of times people would come into these small pills and there wouldn't be a major facility. They'd have a boat that they could bring in on a flood tide and settle on the low tide, unload, then wait for the next tide to come in and flood and go out on the next tide.

[00:26:51]Our environmental archaeologist, Emma, is taking a series of soil samples to locate the creek. It's tough going, but already she can tell us there is a silted up channel here, and it's 4 m deep in places.

[00:27:06]We're now also digging a new trench based on Emma's work, and it's been positioned here to look at what could be the edge of the creek.

[00:27:18]Meanwhile, Phil's making his way out of his tidal creek into the seven estie, and he's learning just how much local knowledge and skill was needed in handling one of the most difficult stretches of water in the country. What makes this water so special?

[00:27:36]>> It's the speed at which the tide comes in and goes out. An ordinary sailing boat cannot overcome the uh speed of the tide. The tide runs at up to 10 knots and even more on a spring tide and a boat does three to four knots. So if you don't get it right, the tide will just take over and you go down backwards.

[00:27:56]>> Have you made those sorts of mistakes?

[00:27:58]>> Okay. Really? Yes. I think we all have.

[00:28:01]If the wind drops, then you're entirely left to the tight.

[00:28:06]>> Back in Harold's Field, we're making real progress unearthing the medieval manner. I've been looking around the sides of this hill for most of today because quite frankly, the archaeology up here on the top was so complicated, I wanted to give the archaeologist time to have a really good look. The big news is that Matt reckons he's revealed a doorway into one of our medieval buildings.

[00:28:30]That's lovely, isn't it?

[00:28:31]>> Door jam coming out there. It's just come up now.

[00:28:33]>> Making a nice space for the timber door to fit into.

[00:28:36]>> Yeah. Door in there opens up.

[00:28:37]>> We've got a doorway here into one building. And we've also uncovered two walls that are clearly part of a separate building. And both walls bizarrely have been made without using mortar.

[00:28:48]>> If you build a good solid stone wall, gravity will actually hold it in place for you >> without having any mortar.

[00:28:54]>> Yeah. with no water >> until it begins to fall down because then it seems to have crashed right down the hill. Gravity assisting in its collapse >> on top of Ian.

[00:29:03]>> Yeah.

[00:29:04]>> Ian's up to his neck in rubble, but he's also finding a lot of medieval roof tile. But underneath this rubble here, we've had this layer of roof tiles, which I think means that the building was actually didn't fall down. It was brought down, demolished. They took the roof off, threw away what they didn't want. And then they took the walls down and threw down all this rubble on top of the roof.

[00:29:26]>> It's taking a lot of time, but we're slowly making sense of these medieval buildings. And up in the helicopter, Stuart's ready to report to Mick. He reckons he's worked out where the creek ran up to Port Skuwe.

[00:29:39]>> The church sits on a little promonry of high ground. Can you see? I can see the edge of that.

[00:29:45]>> Yeah. The low ground. You can trace in a channel out towards that electricity pile.

[00:29:50]>> Yes, I can see it going across the field. You see the channel to the right carrying on.

[00:29:54]>> Yes, absolutely.

[00:29:55]>> Well, that's the line of the original creek.

[00:29:58]>> Phil's boat at the moment is here and he's looking from water level at what would once have been the entrance point into the creek.

[00:30:07]>> So, literally everything that's forming the shore now is silted up. Yes, it looks like featureless mud flat, but in fact that's changed with the new medieval seaw wall coming in and could have been our pill during the early medieval period.

[00:30:22]>> Colin, if you were coming into a harbor here, what can you can you tell me?

[00:30:26]Would it be a favorable place for a harbor?

[00:30:28]>> Well, yes. First of all, the tide would have pushed you nearly right up here, having bounced off the English stones.

[00:30:35]And then the last little bit with a westerly wind as we have now, you would have just sailed straight in, which is exactly what we're doing. And if we go very much further, we're going to be on the shore.

[00:30:47]>> We better turn around and go back.

[00:30:48]>> Ready?

[00:30:58]Well, that's great. We've located the long-lost creek that once connected Port Skuwit with the seven esturie, allowing boats to reach here from places like Bristol, just across in England and the wider world beyond. But was the creek still flowing when our mana house stood proudly on this hill? The news is that we've got enough pottery now to date these medieval buildings.

[00:31:21]You got a good good idea because the the pottery is a lot of it's from Bristol and it's it's a type of pottery which doesn't come in until the second half of the 13th century and and goes out in the 14th.

[00:31:32]>> And how does late 13th century time with history? Well, actually very very well because the one and only reference we have to Port Skuwe after Harold's time is here dated 1271 survey of the forest of Wentwood and one Matthew Denaband is resident here in a house at Port Skuwit.

[00:31:51]And he's got three privileges. House Boot, the right to cut timber to build houses. Hay boot the right to cut timber to build fences. And fire boot, the right to cut certain types of timber for his house fire. Well, now we really are getting somewhere. We've got a 13th century mana house and the name of someone who lived here at the time. We also know it was pulled down in the 14th century, well before the creek dried up.

[00:32:17]In our trench here at the bottom of the hill, much of the day has been spent investigating this ditch, which we can now confirm also belongs to the medieval manor. But it's meant that we haven't had time to investigate the layers Phil pointed out to me this morning.

[00:32:33]With Roman pottery at the bottom and medieval at the top, we could have a layer of Saxon history in the middle.

[00:32:40]I've been promised we'll definitely find out tomorrow.

[00:32:45]Day three here in Port Skuwit in South Wales and our last chance to find evidence of Harold Saxon Hunting Lodge thought to have been in this field. What we've learned so far is that many of the big lumps and bumps here belong to a 13th century mana house which is causing a lot of excitement at the moment.

[00:33:04]>> There's all this work stone coming and we found this lovely work bit there.

[00:33:07]>> Look at that.

[00:33:08]>> So we took that out. I think it's rubble and underneath another one the same and another one the same. All stacked up.

[00:33:13]>> What about What about that as well?

[00:33:14]>> Oh. Oh yeah.

[00:33:15]>> There's two more there. Look.

[00:33:18]>> Well, that that's that's that's fantastic. That's the side of a doorway, I would have thought.

[00:33:21]>> Ah, door the door jam.

[00:33:23]>> Well, yes. And you you've presumably got a stack of them.

[00:33:26]>> These stones were part of the door.

[00:33:28]Slowly, we're starting to build up a picture of what these buildings look like.

[00:33:34]>> Can you see it stick?

[00:33:35]>> Oh, yes. Yes.

[00:33:35]>> So, I guess maybe those or similar stones would have been out would have been on there.

[00:33:39]>> That would make sense as that's the doorway there and you're coming into something this way.

[00:33:44]>> Yeah. And if you're coming into something, then presumably this earthwork and this parched grass is is the inside of it.

[00:33:54]>> I just wonder if this isn't the tower >> that the fields named after.

[00:34:02]>> Well away from the medieval rubble, we're going to have one last stab at finding some earlier structures on this hill. Our last trench is going in here.

[00:34:11]If we're lucky, this bit of the field might not have been built on in medieval times, and we might come straight down on some Saxon evidence.

[00:34:20]>> That's nice. Medieval, isn't it?

[00:34:22]>> That is nice medieval.

[00:34:24]>> That's very nice. What? 13th century, I think.

[00:34:27]>> Still early then.

[00:34:28]>> Yeah, that's nice.

[00:34:30]>> There's so much good archaeology here that Phil will be happy whatever we find. But personally, I'll be disappointed if we can't find anything to prove the Saxons were at least here in 1065 AD.

[00:34:44]I'm told my best chance is in this trench.

[00:34:47]Here, we've exposed a series of layers in the slope of the hill that could allow us to get at any Saxon evidence if it's here.

[00:34:56]>> Oo. So, how you getting on then, Tracy?

[00:34:58]That's looking interesting.

[00:35:00]>> Yeah, it's not what we expected. We were peeling off this redeposited clays forming the terrace.

[00:35:06]>> Yeah.

[00:35:06]>> To find the earlier ground surface.

[00:35:08]>> And is it coming off easily at that level?

[00:35:10]>> It is. It's just peeling off of this.

[00:35:15]>> That is definitely the level, isn't it?

[00:35:17]>> But what we didn't expect was this yellow degraded sandstone.

[00:35:20]>> The top layers, which have now been removed, dated to 1200 AD. They were put down to create a terrace on the side of this hill. And it looks like similar terracing has been going on in much earlier times. Could this be evidence of activity here in the Saxon period? Mick tells me it's rare to find Saxon pottery, but we have to hope for some dating evidence as Tracy carefully unpicks these layers.

[00:35:46]>> A worn coin of Harold. I think >> I'll do my best.

[00:35:51]>> Thankfully, I'm not the only one who's optimistic about finding some trace of the last great king of the Saxons. Our historian Sam is backing me all the way.

[00:36:00]>> Oh, absolutely. And looking at the historical context here, I'm I'm sure he was here. I'm just waiting for the archaeologist to prove it.

[00:36:07]>> Yeah, exactly. It's not our fault.

[00:36:09]They're a bit slow.

[00:36:10]>> Victor's got him hunting. Is that just because he built a hunting lodge or did he really like hunting?

[00:36:15]>> Oh, he undoubtedly liked hunting. It was all part of the territory of being a great warrior and a war leader because it was such great training for mobility over land, lines of approach, all this sort of thing. That's why it's always associated with with warriorship and rulership.

[00:36:30]>> What we all remember about 1066 is him losing the battle of Hastings. But in fact, after he became king at the beginning of 1066, he started off being really successful militarily, didn't he?

[00:36:40]>> Oh, he did very well. One of the greatest victories of all time over an invader was the battle of Stanford Bridge >> where he defeated the Vikings.

[00:36:47]>> Exactly. Harold Hardyrada. And it was it was an alltime success but of course overshadowed by the dramatic events of only a couple of weeks later uh at down at Hastings >> and he nearly won at Hastings.

[00:36:58]>> Oh, it was such a close run thing. It was like a lastminute goal really.

[00:37:02]>> But if it hadn't been for that stupid arrow in the eye, Harold could well have won and would be now as famous as Queen Elizabeth or Henry VII.

[00:37:10]>> Yes, it would have been the the beginning of a great line >> and he just looked up at the wrong moment.

[00:37:16]One thing we have found that was here in Harold's time is the old river creek that allowed boats to reach here from the sea. Emma's soil survey has shown us that it was at least 4 m deep and likely to be just as wide. This trench put in to test Emma's results found this edge of the creek. Emma's now working here trying to find the end of the creek, but I'm a bit confused. Stuart's told me there was a huge pool of spring water in this area held back by this causeway that acted like a dam. Well, haven't I got that right? That that's absolutely right. But we think that causeway going across there is a late much later than the Saxon period well into the medieval period. But before that, the creek came up through here. So take that away. The creek came up here. And what you've got is this the land rises up where you get to to where the the fence is over there.

[00:38:10]Yeah. And this area here looks be to be where that creek comes through and joins the land. So asked Emma if she do some green to see what she could find.

[00:38:19]>> And what you got?

[00:38:20]>> I found some sand. Tony.

[00:38:23]>> You said that like it was Christmas.

[00:38:26]>> I'm so glad.

[00:38:27]>> Start made me very happy I have to say.

[00:38:31]>> And there we go. Yeah, that's exactly what that's beach. That's beach sand.

[00:38:36]So, this is the place at which the water would come up to where you would bring boats up to, drop them on the beach, settlement growing around around the head of that. This is exactly what you've got. This is absolutely brilliant stuff that has done here.

[00:38:49]>> Rediscovering the tidal creek has allowed Henry to create a 3D model to show the approach to Port Skuwit in Saxon times.

[00:38:58]>> Right. What you're actually seeing here is the 1940s aerial photograph over the top of the topography. But what the work that Emma has been doing and some of the map work's been doing has shown is just how wide this area of wetland with creeks running through it would have been running right up to our site here.

[00:39:11]>> You'd have been able to bring a vessel up this creek up here right into the landing spot there in the in the Saxon period. No doubt about that at all.

[00:39:21]>> It's fantastic. But then so is the news from this trench because a few minutes ago Tracy turned up. Guess what? Two bits of pottery from one of the lower layers of the trench. Could they be Saxon? He's just said to me that he's feeling cautious but excited.

[00:39:39]And we've got all these these books here of stuff called chepsto wear and lots of little fragments of pottery. Why are you excited?

[00:39:49]because the fabrics are so distinctive really under the microscope there's limestone angular limestone there's quartz but that fabric with the quartz with the vertical rim is identical to the to this one in chapstone >> okay so we found something that is like something that's been found in chess chepto what's the significance of it >> well it the dating >> and what is that dating >> late 11th early 12th century this is great excited what we want >> we're very close to the congress late 11th century. When you say late 11th century, could it actually be before 1066?

[00:40:23]>> I I wouldn't have thought so, but it's it's almost certainly Norman. Anyway, >> it's a rare find. Unfortunately, the wrong side of the conquest, but it means the layer it came from dates to the late 1000s and traces still digging down into what could be earlier layers.

[00:40:43]The news from the trench we opened this morning, by the way, is that we didn't find anything Saxon. Just a couple of ditches dating to the 12th century. But that may not matter now because this trench continues to surprise us all.

[00:40:56]>> Oh, hang on. Ah.

[00:41:00]Hey.

[00:41:00]>> Ah, indeed. It looks like we've got another bit of potential Saxon pottery.

[00:41:13]It's back to the microscope. I have to say, I never thought I'd be so interested in a few scrappy old bits of pot. And Sam, in the excitement, has turned into a geologist.

[00:41:23]>> It's it's it's it's olytic lang.

[00:41:26]>> What's eggs? Little eggs. Um made of eggs.

[00:41:31]Dinos tiny lots of tiny tiny little eggs from ancient tropical oceans that form these limestone geological layers that the cotles >> see that that's a void. That's >> that's a very distinctive filled with mud. Yeah. So that may may well have been where there was a new.

[00:41:47]>> Oh there oolites there. I don't you you definitely would say that would you?

[00:41:52]>> Oh yeah but but you see the Saxon and the Norman have oolites. I mean we don't see that Saxon pottery in in Wales. So this is one of two types.

[00:42:02]>> This is either olitic limestone pottery from the late Saxon >> or if it's another type is early >> Norman without the eggs.

[00:42:10]>> But we don't know which yet.

[00:42:12]>> But I I there may the inclusions may be too leeched for me to say. You know, you need Alan Vince on this.

[00:42:17]>> Let's hope the inclusions aren't too leached.

[00:42:23]If you visit our website, you can find out more about Harold and probably more than you'd want to know about Saxon pottery.

[00:42:31]But right now, we're running out of time. The villagers who invited us here are turning up to see what we've been able to discover about Harold's Field.

[00:42:40]And in Matt's Trench, we're nearly ready to tell them. We're down deep enough to find the floor of this building.

[00:42:47]>> Oh, at last. Excellent.

[00:42:49]>> What is it? What are they, mate?

[00:42:51]stone.

[00:42:52]>> Yeah, it's that's sandstone. These are harder. These are limestone again.

[00:42:56]>> Strange thing. It doesn't seem to be seems to be lower than the the bottom of the wall there, doesn't it?

[00:43:04]>> This is so typical of you, Mick Aaston.

[00:43:06]We're all working away in the freezing wind over in the field and you're sloping off to the church.

[00:43:12]>> We're working away on the church.

[00:43:14]>> Rick reckons we can tell the villagers when the Mana House was built. This church dates to the early 1100s, and he's noticed it's got similar stonework to this bit, which he's lugged across from Matt's trench.

[00:43:27]>> Well, I mean, I would suggest that you could put it almost >> exactly into that doorway.

[00:43:32]>> It's the same type of stone, even though the color looks different, doesn't it?

[00:43:36]>> Same block size, >> same detailing. The windows have been added in the early 1200s and they too are a match for some of our dress stones suggesting that our mana house was altered at the same time.

[00:43:50]>> So that one yeah >> we're comparing with this one.

[00:43:53]>> Yeah. So we can by comparison with this window suggests that perhaps in the early 13th century there's a significant alteration to that great tower that Matt's working. So Mick, what do you think is the relationship between this church and what we've got over there?

[00:44:09]>> I think it's it's a very direct relationship which you see all over the country which is the mana house has the church next to it and and that's usually because they start out as the private property of the people in the mana house. It's only later they get dragged away and become the parish church.

[00:44:26]>> The church and mana house were probably built by the same stonemasons. But can we now say which bits of the mana house we've been digging up?

[00:44:35]>> I think what we're looking at here is the doorway into a 12th century tower. I mean, it is magnificent. Inside you've got the floor and then you go out through the doorway over the threshold.

[00:44:46]>> That's that big stone down there.

[00:44:48]>> That's that big slab there. And then you're outside the building. And then our trench turns right and goes down the hill. And what the trench has done is has cut through a range of buildings along that side which are later 13th century and I think probably are likely to be a stable block. They got a a central sort of walkway going through.

[00:45:08]>> We've got no later 13th century pottery from there anyway, have we? So it's not domestic.

[00:45:13]>> No, I don't think it is.

[00:45:14]>> So we know these big earthworks sketched long ago in Harold's field are not the remains of Harold Saxon hunting tower.

[00:45:22]And we can now reveal to the villagers what was under the lumps and bumps. The main building we unearthed was a Norman fortified towerhouse likely to have been three stories high. Next to it there was a stable block and these earthworks are likely to be a courtyard with ancillary buildings set around it. Encircling the hill was this deep ditch. And the impressive route in was across this causeway with the creek on one side and a large lake of spring water on the other. This was the home of the local lord, but not the center of power as it was in Harold's day because in Norman times their base was at Chepto Castle down the road.

[00:46:06]But what I hoped for was something to link this field with Harold. Did we get any preconquest pottery? We've got some of the earliest medieval pottery ever found in Wales.

[00:46:16]>> Really?

[00:46:16]>> It's very exciting.

[00:46:17]>> But is any of it proof that the Saxons were here?

[00:46:20]>> We've just got a fragment out now. It could well be, you know, pre- Norman almost certainly. But >> which bit's that?

[00:46:27]>> It's a very small piece there.

[00:46:30]>> Right.

[00:46:32]>> It's not too fanciful then to say that this could be from the time of King Harold.

[00:46:36]>> No, not at all. Because we know it's that much earlier in the sequence. Well, it's not much, but finding this from a time when there simply wasn't much pottery feels like discovering the Holy Grail. This is chaff-tempered wear, and it's Saxon. I can hardly believe it. We can tell the locals that we found evidence of activity here just before the Norman conquest. And for me, it's proof enough that Harold was here. Our historian Sam is convinced that Harold would have built his hunting lodge on this important hill, intending it to stand out as a symbol of new power to anyone arriving in the creek below.

[00:47:14]>> So basically what we've discovered is that this is a really classy place and if you didn't know it already, you're really posh people to live here.

[00:47:23]>> Thanks. Thank you very much.