Dig Uphill

Archaeology and geology by Lois

I’ve written several times about the iconic TV programme, Time Team – and I do mean iconic. It was an archaeology programme which ran for twenty years, and had a wonderful and varied team of archaeologists, surveyors, artists, craftsmen and women who specialised in recreating old artefacts in the way thy were originally produced, and a presenter who was enthusiastic in the way he pulled the programme together. The premise was that the team had three days to explore a site and try and answer a question such as ‘was there a hill-fort here?’ ‘where did this Roman road go?’ where was the site of a certain famous battle?’ It was informative, exciting, inspiring, never patronising, never ‘talking down’ to the viewer and must have inspired countless thousands young people to go on to study archaeology, and countless hundreds of thousands of other ordinary people in an interest and passion for digging up the past.

Our little village on a small river estuary has a significant but mostly forgotten past, a cave containing the bones of hyenas, tigers, wolves and pre-ice-age creatures, a pre-Roman settlement, a Roman wharf, a ship building yard for King Alfred’s fleet, traders, smugglers, fishermen… and plenty of legends – did Jesus really arrive here with Joseph of Arimathea? Was St Patrick born nearby and snatched from the hill above the village by Irish pirates?

Great excitement because one of the star of Time team is here in our little village, digging up the past in a Hidden Somerset excavation of the ruined church upon the hill, old St Nicholas’s church.

Uphill Feb 16th 2014 (28)The church, which lost its roof in the nineteenth century, is supposed to be of Saxon origin… will the dig discover the truth of this?

 

dig uphill 9.9 (6)Maybe Time Team star Phil Harding will help discover the truth. he’s digging a test pit helped by a local volunteer.

The dig, unlike the TV programme, is going on all week and there will be a display of all that is uncovered on Saturday. Despite my love of and interesting archaeology, this is the first time I’ve ever witnessed an excavation. I was fascinate, and stood all day watching them work, despite it being so very cold, really hoping they would ask me to help! All I did was carry Phil’s mattock!

I shall be up there tomorrow, whatever the weather, but this is the result of Phil’s work today:

dig uphill 9.9 (1)

11 Comments

      1. mariathermann

        You’ll have to keep us all updated with your Time Team progress. I mean, will you get to hold Phil Harding’s famous hat or will you even be trusted with one of their wee brushes….sifting through history with a paintbrush!

        Liked by 1 person

      6. Lois

        Actually… one of them turned out to be a mutton bone, perhaps left over from a Sunday roast… but we did find an eighteenth century pipe stem, so maybe after the funeral they all had a pipe of tobacco and a mutton sandwich and then finished interring the late beloved!

        Like

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