Time Team (1994) s18e08 Episode Script
Castles and Cannons
Here on Time Team, we like to go to places where things once stood, to dig holes in the ground, to piece together the evidence and use our imaginations to work out how they would once have looked, but not today.
Welcome to Mont 0rgueil in Jersey.
A stunning fortress which, for hundreds of years, played a little-known but crucial role in the defence of not just the Channel Islands, but the whole of Great Britain.
Although it's been studied for centuries, this place has still got its secrets here under this bumpy lawn, but also right up there.
We've got just three days to unlock those secrets.
Let's hope we can make it.
It is a ridiculously steep slope.
Mont 0rgueil, Jersey's oldest castle, sits high over Gorey Harbour, protected on three sides by the sea.
Built on a steep granite bluff, it dominates not only the beaches of western Jersey, but also the approach to the Channel Islands from France.
Entering the castle, you pass through a formidable corridor of gates and courtyards, overlooked all the way by arrow slits, gun platforms and battlements.
It was never supposed to be easy to get in.
But it's the natural defence of the terrain that's really going to cause the team a few headaches.
I mean, that's a serious slope.
Yeah.
That's slightly more vertical than I was expecting! Is this the first time you guys have run this machine over this kind of undulating ground? Undulating?! Take the slack.
It's only £25,000-worth of kit! Has anybody done this before? Not on a slope this steep, I don't think anybody's been so stupid! It's not till you get right up here at the top of the castle that you begin to appreciate why it was quite so important strategically.
Look, you can see not only the beaches and the coastline, but way over there on the horizon, that is France.
Helen - location, location, location! That's what it's all about, because this is the closest English castle to France.
We may be 100 miles from the coastline of the UK, but we're only 14 miles from France, so that puts this place at the heart of politics for some of the most important times in our history.
the most important times in our history.
But why are we here, Warwick? Well, there are a number of mysteries about this castle that we want to solve.
Although we've got this great stone structure around us and we know quite a lot about it, there are bits that are missing.
and we know quite a lot about it, there are bits that are missing.
Just a minute, you've been working on this site for 30 years, surely you must have cracked all the mysteries by now? That's short in archaeological time and there's a lot to do, so there are still areas where we just need to know about the bits of the castle that have been demolished and lost over the course of time.
What would you like us to be able to identify? I'd like you tocome over here I'd like you tocome over here Yeah.
I'd like you tocome over here Yeah.
.
.
look over the wall, and look down to the green there below us.
That area, Castle Green, has got earthworks and lumps and bumps in it and clearly, there are structures down there.
Now, that area is unexplored, we know nothing about it archaeologically, and almost nothing about it historically.
If we look at this plan, which shows the outline of the castle as we understand it in the 13th century, we are very unclear about the north side.
This uncertainty at the north end of the castle is due to the later addition of the Grand Battery and of Somerset Tower.
Monstrous fortifications built in the 16th century that would have obliterated any earlier structures.
We'll have to closely examine these gargantuan walls, looking for clues in their make-up in order to find evidence of the 13th century walls and towers that complete Warwick's early castle plan.
Why should we be so interested in this period of the castle's history? It's because when this castle was built in the 13th century, that's just at the point where England has lost its lands to France, so this place is now on the frontline of one of the major power struggles of medieval Europe.
So this is what, King John? So this is what, King John? It Is, that's right.
KIng John, who was famous for getting everything wrong and losing all his land in France.
for getting everything wrong and losing all his land in France.
But in order to find out more about that, our guys are going to have to do some pretty tricky work, aren't they? 0ur efforts will be concentrated on the bumpy lawn of Castle Green, and on the steep slopes under the formidable north and west walls.
It's a relatively simple task, but with one enormous problem - the extreme terrain.
Leading the hunt for the 13th-century walls is the intrepid Geophys team, but it's slow going.
It's a bit of a climb, innit? It's a bit of a climb, innit? 0h, it is! With Geophys struggling to get results, Phil's been looking for another way to start the investigation, and he's found a small visible section of wall.
What I want to do, Raksha is, if we put the trench in here, we've got what looks like a wall we've got what looks like a wall Yeah.
we've got what looks like a wall Yeah.
.
.
and it's the wall that runs right the way along.
Now, at the back of it, we've actually got the main wall of the Tudor castle.
The question is, does the Tudor wall sit on this wall? If that Tudor wall is sitting on the top of that wall there, the Tudor one is later, this one has to be earlier.
What we're hoping is it might be the 13th-century wall.
It doesn't have to be, all we can say is, it will be earlier than the Tudors.
The crucial thing about the dating is if we can identify any of the original mortar, and so that's why we've put it in here, it's the place where these two walls come together.
John, you know how much we love to wind you up.
But I think we've surpassed ourselves getting you to Geophys that slope.
Yeah, I think the scariest thing for me is seeing Jimmy in that harness! There's lots of health-and-safety issues, we need to do it properly.
Yeah.
So it's taking time.
It's going to be a while before we get any results from that area.
It's going to be a while before we get any results from that area.
You've moved down here now? Yeah, I mean, this is more my sort of territory, nice flat lawn.
And it is likely to be associated with the castle anyway, either in its earlier phases, or perhaps ancillary buildings associated with it.
But, Mick, you're not a castle-y sort of bloke.
I can't imagine the reason that you want to come down here is because this is part of the castle.
No, I think there's a lot of possibilities that there's something earlier down here as well.
Ah.
If you mentally strip all that stone castle off the top there, you've got a promontory sticking out into the sea likely to be the sort of thing that would be an Iron-Age promontory, a prehistoric promontory, in which case, here, you might have ditches and banks cutting off that promontory.
So we might get something that's even earlier than the castle itself? So we might get something that's even earlier than the castle itself? I think it's highly likely, yeah.
Geophys is now well underway on the very promising Castle Green, but meanwhile, up on the slope, Phil is just putting in our first trench.
I wonder what he'll find.
I can't wait to get up there myself.
Maybe after lunch.
Welcome back to the fantastic Mont 0rguiel Castle here in Jersey.
This isn't a bad job on a day like this, is it? 0ur archaeologists are already under way up on that slope excavating behind those trees, but down here on the Castle Green, John, you've got some geophys for us.
Yeah, we were saying earlier it's a fantastic area to survey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The problem is the results aren't that clear.
Why's that? Why's that? We've got problems with the bedrock, it's really close to the surface, the electric currents aren't going into the ground.
Having said that, we've got some results.
Having said that, we've got some results.
You've got some big black blobs there.
That's on this higher bit of ground here.
And you can see this greener grass, I'm just wondering whether there's a ditch coming through here before we get onto this higher ground here.
So, I think, an initial evaluation trench from where I'm stood, over this potential ditch and onto this sort of possible building here.
A possible building, you don't sound that convinced? I'm just worried it's all geology, to be honest.
I'm just worried it's all geology, to be honest.
But then you always are, aren't you? So trench two goes in on Castle Green to look for a ditch that could add to the known defences of the site, and, being cut into granite, it should be easy to find.
It could be a ditch, filled up with this crushed granite stuff.
It's quite a clear edge actually.
If we're really lucky, it may even date back to the original castle built in the reign of King John.
When do we first hear about there being a castle here? Well, we first hear something in 1209, hints.
We don't have mention of castle but we've got this description from the pipe rolls and it mentions "the Isle of Jersey and deliveries "to Knights and 12 Horse Sergeants and ten Foot Sergeants.
" And also the "horses of these Knights", so clearly there's fighting men here, a garrison, so we might assume there's a castle.
We don't know definitely until 1212.
Now this is a letter from King John where he mentions, "the Isle of Jersey, Insula de Jersey" there, with its castles, that's when we definitely know there's something here.
that's when we definitely know there's something here.
Why put a castle here in the first place? At the beginning of his reign, King John of England owned most of the west side of France, and Jersey was happily ensconced in the middle of the Angevin Empire.
In 1202 he was summoned to Paris by the King of France to answer for his feudal holdings and he refused to go, so they were confiscated by the French King, and the whole of Normandy, and Brittany was taken back and Jersey became a remaining outpost.
And the island was fought over a couple of times, certainly in 1205, 1206 and again a few years later, but the ruling elite who were in charge of the island decided they were staying with King John.
You can really see it on this map, can't you, that when all this part of France was English property, then Jersey was slap bang in the middle of it, and really well protected, but as soon as this part of France goes back to the French King then suddenly Jersey is on the frontline.
Yes, and our promontory here on the east side becomes a perfect place to put a castle, because it's in the right place to put two fingers up to the French King, to say "Look, we're English".
So what was the position of Jersey by the end of King John's reign? It was still held by the English King, it was never part of the Kingdom of England, it was just a hangout from the old Duchy of Normandy.
And there began over 800 years of union.
Siding with England, though, was to cause trouble with France, making a stronghold on the island vital.
But finding evidence of that original stone castle under the massive 16th century walls is proving difficult.
Undeterred, Stewart's hunting high and low and may have found something on the north east corner.
This join here looks odd, doesn't it, this junction here, these are part of the Tudor battery on the corner.
Yes Yes We know the date for that, but that built over that wall there.
We've got a wonderful junction here, where the Tudor bastion comes up against a curving wall that must be of earlier date, that itself is built against the rock face.
Curving wall suggests tower to me, is that what you think? Tower, 13th or 14th century, part of the arrangement of the curtain wall with round towers on it as we had before the Tudors.
Is it the first time you've seen it this morning? Is it the first time you've seen it this morning? The first time this morning, when the ivy was stripped away we found something that has never been drawn on any plan or described before.
Wow.
So we've now located an original 13th century corner tower underneath the 16th century defences.
But round the corner, Phil's strugglIng to take trench one anywhere near as far back in time.
Phew, quite a challenge getting up here.
Phil, what's the purpose of this trench? To see whether we can establish the date of this wall.
And have you done it? And have you done it? Not yet, what we have found is we've got the outside edge of it plummeting away and then across here, we've got the main core of the wall.
What we'd like is to put this wall to go underneath and be earlier than the main Tudor bastion wall.
So at the moment you've got no dating evidence? Not really, not for the wall, but what we do have is rather unexpected dating, it's this.
Water pipe, or this pipe that's running through here which we think is probably a relic of the German occupation.
Why do you think it's German? Why do you think it's German? Well, apparently everybody that digs around the castle says the one thing you always find is relics left over from the German occupation, it seems that's the best bet for that.
So you've got some pretty robust dating from the 1940s, now you've just gotta back to 1300s? Yeah, and there are two ways that we're gonna try and approach that, firstly it's see if we can establish whether this wall goes underneath the buttress, and the second way is actually to look at the mortars.
What would be significant about the mortar? What would be significant about the mortar? Well, according to Warwick, the 13th century mortars tend to have quite a lot of shell in 'em, whereas the Tudor mortars, they're a lot more gritty.
But he also tells me that there are miscellaneous mortars, we've just gotta hope that we haven't got one of them.
No sign of the 13th century down in trench two either.
The rock cut ditch is deeper and wider than anyone expected but it's producing little to help us date it.
Although this might not be the only ditch down here.
Stewart thinks he's stumbled upon another one near the castle gate.
And after clearing the brambles, he calls in Jimmy with his radar for confirmation.
If he's right, this is yet another unknown defensive circuit around the castle.
If you follow the contour around it, you can see a ditch comes round here and it heads down towards where the drawbridge for the original medieval castle gate was.
So really, this ditch ought to be part of that original 13th century castle defences.
So it should be just outside the 13th century stone walls there.
It is, yeah, it's clearly, it's on this side of the castle.
This is the weakest side down here, you could easily come up here.
And get to the base of the towers to undermine them and so, I think it needs some form of defence round here, and to be able to prove this is part of those original defences would be great.
The radar that we've done across it shows it's about a metre deep.
So we should get some dateable material from that, shouldn't we? I hope so - given where it is at the base of the slope, should be all sorts of material in that ditch, shouldn't there? should be all sorts of material in that ditch, shouldn't there? OK, let's get on with it, then.
We'll get on with the tea! There was rumours of cake, you know, before we started filming this.
You'll be lucky! So trench three goes in to see if there is a second ditch cut below the western wall.
If Stewart's right, it should run tightly butted up against the lower slopes of the castle, parallel to John's ditch.
But the question remains, where's the wall that should go with it? Stewart has a hunch, and is about to boldly go where no landscape investigator has gone before.
With a beady eye, he's clocked something 30 feet up.
Can you see all the masonry is different to the battery above it? Encouraged by the daredevil antics of the rest of the team Good luck, Stewey.
Good luck, Stewey.
Thank you.
He heads off up the rock face.
Confused by such an up-and-down archaeological site, I catch up with Mick to get my head around what's going on.
So Phil's looking for a 13th century wall up there.
Yeah.
Down there we've been digging for some ditch.
But suddenly I find that you've opened another trench here? Well, it's another ditch, you see, coming through here by the earth works, so we wanna know the date of that one as well.
But, given the magnificence of these castle walls, there's a bit of me that feels disappointed you're just digging for ditches.
But the castle walls are just half of the defensive system.
As well as each line of stone wall, there would have been ditches at the front as part of the other part of the defensive circuit, so we need to look at those as well.
And do you think all those ditches will be the same date? And do you think all those ditches will be the same date? I'd be very surprised If they were, because the walls are all of different dates, and so you'd expect correspondingly different ditches to be dug.
After all, this is the weak side of the castle, the rest of it's defended by the sea and rocks, this is the side you can come over land to it so you're gonna have to revise your defence strategy from time to time, dig another load of ditches.
It's hard for me to concentrate solely on Mick because while he's digging down into the ditches, Stewart perversely, is swinging in the air about 30 feet above our head.
Stewart! Hello! What you doing up there? Having a look at this masonry here.
You see this, this block here, can you see there's a band of masonry going that way? Yeah.
This is very different to the stuff that's on top of it and it goes in a curve.
This is earlier than that, that's Tudor, so this has got to be earlier, and it looks like it's the corner of a round tower.
Could that be the 13th century wall that we're looking for? It looks very probable.
Well, the castle is beginning to give up its secrets.
Although very slowly, and it's hard work, isn't it? It is, yeah.
It is, yeah.
Who knows what we're gonna find tomorrow.
Normally, on Time Team, I try and finish a part with a cliff hanger but, just can't think of one! 0h, god! Beginning of day two, here on the island of Jersey, where we're looking at the awesome Mont 0rguiel Castle and trying to unpick some of its secrets.
Yesterday afternoon, John suggested we put in a long, thin trench here because we'd started looking at the defences in front of the castle and he thought there might be a defensive ditch running along there, and maybe some sort of building over here, so Matt, what have we found? We do have this ditch here, it's a huge one cut into the rock, nearly five metres across, it's been backfilled and then re-cut again at that end so they keep using it, but down at this end of the trench, there's nothing.
Any dating evidence at all? We've got a few bits of pottery coming up Any dating evIdence at all? from the fills of the ditch, but nothing firm yet.
John - bit frustrating, slightly inconclusive.
Well, no, the ditch is good.
I mean, I wasn't sure about the building but we've done some more resistance and radar, you can actually see, we've got another massive ditch showing in both data sets, and they're both showing another huge ditch.
Where's the ditch? Where's the ditch? Well, you can actually see it in the grass, the dark green lush grass.
This is just over here, yeah? Yeah, that depression there.
The ditch is running through there, now is that related to the castle or is it part of this promontory fort that we talked about that might be here? So do you wanna dig it? We've got to.
It looks promising, but I must admit there's part of me that thinks we've gone a bit ditch crazy on this dig.
So trench four goes in on Castle Green to investigate John's geophys.
A third ditch would mean the approach to the castle was very heavily fortified.
But will it relate to the 13th century, or could it be much, much older? I shall laugh if this turns out to be a prehistoric site.
And we've got a socking great medieval castle behind us! We're now unearthing diagnostic and datable artefacts across the site but they're just not doing much to take our story back in time.
Second World War? German barbed wire, I would think, yes.
Frankly, so far the finds have been a bit disappointing.
You can see this is obviously late 19th century ink bottle.
"Desultory" is the word that springs to mind.
"Desultory" is the word that springs to mind.
Definitely.
Except that, Phil, you've just turned up with stuff from your trench.
Absolutely, Tony, most of what we've been getting is the debris that's been thrown over the walls, but we do happen to have some bits of pottery, which we're pretty sure are a lot earlier.
What do we think about that one, 0lga? Right, well, this definitely is our first piece of prehistoric pottery, and I imagine it dates to the Iron Age.
But you see, if you want early, Tony, really early .
.
look at a piece of flint.
This stuff is actually gonna throw our story back probably to 4,000 BC, something like that.
But we don't really want to throw our story back We want to throw our story right back to the beginning! I know you want the early stuff, Fred Flintstone, but we're trying to date the earliest castle up here.
Have either of you seen in the pottery anything that could be, say, 13th century? No, not yet.
No, not as yet.
But we haven't got down to the critical layers yet.
Sure.
Stewart's now confident he's located a bit of 13th century castle high up, wedged under the corner of the 16th century walls.
So he's back up his rope, recording the archaeology with a little eagle-eyed help.
with a little eagle-eyed help.
'Hello, this is Stewart.
' I can hear you, Stewart.
I've found some new wall up here, which is really, really nice, it's a curving bit of wall going round this crag and it's got mortar in it, with the crushed burnt limpets in it that Warwick was saying are likely to mean it's 13th century.
If I give you a couple of positions, can you plot 'em for me? First one now, where I am.
'0bservation stored.
' Right, I got that, Stewart.
Where my left glove is now, Henry.
'0bservation stored.
' Encouraged by this medieval discovery, Stewart follows the base of the vast 16th century wall in the quest for more.
We're walking on a wall of ivy at the moment.
Yeah, follow behind me and if we have to go on our bums to scale across, no problem.
0K.
0K.
Now there's a few stingers just down here.
0K.
Now there's a few stingers just down here.
0K.
Bingo! Concealed under the ivy is a second tower.
This is really good.
So in addition to the north-west corner tower, we can add a second 13th century tower just along the western wall.
Everything we're finding on this site is geared to war and defence, suggesting this castle has seen some serious action.
Looking up at it, you really do get the most amazing sense of how difficult it would've been to storm a castle like this.
How many layers of defence there are, it's all absolutely bristling with defences, isn't it? But the stone castle, once it's built in the early 13th century, it doesn't stay static, it's constantly being added to and remodelled over the years.
and remodelled over the years.
Constantly, cos the castle and the island are constantly under attack.
I've been trying to make a list of what's been going on, and I've got attack after attack after attack, and there's this big one in 1294, isn't there? Yes, about 1,500 people believed to have been killed at the time, probably about 10% of the island population.
That's terrible, isn't it? That's terrible, isn't it? It would have made a difference.
So who's attacking at that point? So who's attacking at that point? Er, the French.
Ah, no wonder they're not terribly popular! This is where I say I'm quarter French.
Sorry, sorryI And then moving on into the 14th and 15th centuries, there's several sieges at that point, so I suppose, what are they doing, building up with the great big towers and hurling missiles, trying to break through the walls.
Presumably, that's standard siege warfare in those days.
So were the walls ever actually breached? So were the walls ever actually breached? In 1373 the French broke through the outer wall, but they couldn't take the keep.
They said their ladders weren't long enough and the foundations were too strong.
You'd think they would send home for a few more ladders, wouldn't you? Gotta go back to France for that! Henry.
I wonder if you'd do a bit of modelling for me.
Right.
Not, not in that way! Stewart thinks he's located a defensive earthwork down below the corner of the 16th century Grand Battery.
A large pointed platform seems to sit on top of the rock cut ditch, jutting out into Castle Green.
And you've got this big, flat sort of earthwork that comes and lies on the slope.
Hm.
Well, to me, that looks like it's an outwork or a bastion.
Some form of defence covering this sort of weak area out here.
There's that sense of a triangle isn't there, which is by Yeah.
Well, what would be really good if you could model that.
Yeah.
See how it fits in with the line defences and the topography, see whether it is a defence work.
Under orders, Henry gets cracking.
But he's not the only one surveying the castle.
We've got a very flashy piece of kit on site this week.
Ben, all our techy people are really excited about what you're doing, what exactly is it? This is a 3D laser scanner and we're actually using it to digitally document the castle at the moment.
How does it work? It fires out a laser beam, and any surface that it hits, it calculates a three-dimensional point in space and it does this thousands of times a second, creating a rich point cloud of data which is an exact replica of the castle.
Why do we need a 3D model of the castle? I've got eyes here, I can see the castle, I've got a camera here, that can see the castle as well, why do we need you? We can use it to create accurate measurements at any point within the castle.
So if we scan the exterior walls and then go inside and scan the internal rooms, we can then create measurements throughout the building.
So you can actually take slices, as it were, out of the castle? So you can actually take slices, as it were, out of the castle? We can, once we've scanned the whole thing we can slice through at any point, horizontally or vertical, and create sections throughout.
Trench three has now bottomed out and has thrown up some useful pottery.
What date do you reckon that is? 15th century.
0h, right at the bottom! 0h, right at the bottom! Yeah, right at the base.
Right, I just expected it to be 13th century or something like that.
Well, we thought medieval, so it's later medieval, but Right.
Unless it's been washed down, or cleared out but, from the evidence, it looks like it's 15th century.
But we have got rubble and other bits coming out.
Yeah, that's a cracking section you've got there with all those tip lines, isn't it? We've got mortar and stone there and it looks like some form of building was here or up there somewhere initially.
So if that's the bedrock there, presumably something sat on the top of that platform there, didn't it? sat on the top of that platform there, didn't it? It must have done.
So to confirm whether there was a structure sitting on this platform, Phil's dragged over to take a look.
And trench five slowly exposes a small but solid wall on the granite spur.
Henry's contour map is also revealing evidence of a defensive structure, confirming Stewart's suspicions.
That's where we put the trench over the big ditches is there, isn't it? That's right.
And the platform's over in this area here? And the platform's over in this area here? That's right.
You can actually see, there's an earthwork, part of that ditch coming through.
That's just showing it in colours representing difference in height.
Whereas you see more if you model it by slopes, so the blue areas are the steep bits of slope and the red areas are flat bits, and that way you can just see how dramatic that platform is as a flat area.
Look how dramatic that slope is coming down here.
That is classically what you'd expect from an outwork round a castle.
So, at some stage, an arrowhead bastion was buIlt over the earlier rock cut ditch.
These gun platforms gave great angles for defensive fire and were popular through the 16th and 17th centuries.
This is all positive stuff, but none of it has anything to do with the 13th century.
Time to join the boffins for a cup of tea to find out what's going on.
Gentlemen, I'm really struggling with the archaeology of this castle, mainly, I think, because it's got the big Tudor castle all over it, and it's hard to see anything else, but our first goal was to find the early castle, the 13th century one, how have we done there? We have found a tower on the rock behind us, we have got a very nice 13th century tower, base sitting on the rock there.
We found a fragment of another one, part way down the west side, and we've got the known one at the south-west corner, so we've got the whole of the west side and all the 13th century plan there is complete.
But where we're sitting now, the ditch in that trench.
And this wall behind us, that isn't 13th century, is it? It doesn't seem to be, it's just possible that ditch here is part of that, it's undateable.
The only thing we can say is, it's overlain by this earthwork which we're sat on, which appears to be a gun platform of what 16th century in date, something like that? 16th century in date, something like that? Most likely, yes.
So that ditch there is earlier than that, but it could be as early as the 13th century, but chances are it's somewhere between.
What I'd like to do is put another section across it over there, to test cos that had very little information in it, just see if we get any dating from that one.
So Mick orders a second section across Stewart's ditch.
His hope being trench six will provide an early date for this ring defence.
Back over in trench five, Warwick's dating techniques render Phil shell-shocked.
Warwick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know you were saying about that shelly mortar and if you had shells in it, it was 13th century? Look and look and look again, there are whole shells in the mortar.
Yes, they're shells, but that's not shelly mortar.
But that's mortar with shells in it! Yes.
Therefore that must be shelly mortar, that must be 13th century.
This is mortar with occasional shells in, complete shells.
Now this is a piece of real shelly mortar, which Stewart found up there on the battery a little while ago where the mortar is full of broken and crushed shell that's been in a limekiln and is burnt, and that's what you see, all those dark bits are fragments of limpet shells that have been crushed and burnt in a limekiln, that mortar doesn't have it.
So this mortar with shells in is 13th century Yes.
And this mortar with shells in is not 13th century, but shelly mortar is definitely 13th century.
You've got it.
I'm losing the will to live.
All day long as far as the archaeology of Mont 0rguiel's concerned, confusion has reigned, but thankfully, at last the mists seem to be clearing, and hopefully, by the time we go tomorrow, we'll be able to tell the full story of this castle.
Mind you, this being Time Team, there's bound to be a few surprises along the way.
Beginning of day three here at Mont 0rguiel Castle in Jersey, and actually we came here to do a pretty straightforward job, which was to find a couple of 13th-century walls so we could identify the original castle on this site.
But as the days have gone on, the archaeology's got more and more complicated.
We've not only got our 13th-century stuff, we've got 15th century, we've got Tudor, we've even got prehistoric.
Quite frankly they'll probably have to rewrite the guide book, because what we're finding is really awesome.
Well, there's a lot of activity going on around here! Yeah.
We're trying to sort out these defences still.
Yeah.
Phil up there, look, is on the top of this, which appears to be a sort of early gun platform and would have gone straight on up, but he's also picking up material that's coming from the 13th-century tower at the top so he's got theyou know, the early mortar cascading down.
Um, this down here, this is where this ditch that is interrupted by this gun platform, thIs lower one, is carrying on round - remember we were digging this to get more dating material? remember we were digging this to get more dating material? Hang on.
This is highly confusing.
Up the top is 13th, 14th century.
Up the top is 13th, 14th century.
Yeah.
Here that you're calling the gun platform, presumably this is Tudor Here that you're calling the gun platform, presumably this is Tudor Yeah.
.
.
and then underneath it we've got this ditch which is, best guess, 15th century? best guess, 15th century? Probably.
We're getting dating material out of it now, over there, so we shall learn that.
I don't want to make it even more complicated, butI will! What about down on the castle green, where we thought we had prehistoric? Where Matt is, has got peaty material in the bottom with bits of timber.
I think it might be prehistoric.
It would be nice if it was Iron Age or something to do with defences, but any dating early on would be useful.
Do you think we can sort all this out by the end of the day? I think so, yeah.
But I think we've got a particular job to do because normally all our all the things we find are spread out over a fairly flat site.
Here we're spread out up the side of the hill, and to know that this bit here is one date, but a bit slightly higher than it might be earlier, is all a bit odd really, so we're going to need Henry to go round and plot everything, I think, to make sure that we understand the relationships between it all.
'And early finds from the ditch extension 'support our military story.
' So where have these come from? They've come out of the stuff being scraped off the top from this trench here, so they've come off the spoil heap.
Right, 0K.
Well this one is the bottom of a sword scabbard, you can imagine that on a leather scabbard.
And from its construction, I'd put it in the 17th or maybe even the 18th century.
So you can imagine the leather of the scabbard coming up there.
Now this one, though, this is very interesting.
It's a French jeton, of I think the 15th century.
I'll have to clean it up to be sure.
It's hard to see, but you can just about see on this side some fleur-de-lys, a cross of fleur-de-lys.
'These "jetons", or counting tokens, 'were minted in their thousands across Europe.
'0ften featuring ornate design, they were used for complicated 'arithmetic on a lined board, rather like a two-dimensional abacus.
'Back in three dimensions, our survey of the castle 'is nearing completion, 'and should help us make sense of this topsy-turvy site.
'And trench two has now hit rock bottom - 'although the pottery is definitely medieval and not prehistoric.
'But what of the building Phil was sent to investigate?' 0ne of the big mysteries for us since we got here has been this wall here.
Doesn't seem to be the same build as the big Tudor castle up there, nor were we convinced that it was necessarily part of the original 13th-century castle.
And in a way it sort of seemed to be a bit isolated on its own here, but whatever was it? Phil, have you managed to solve the problem for us? We have, Tony, and we've always known that this wall went round and actually butted onto the bedrock on that side - well, we've dug into here, and we can show that this wall butts directly up against the natural.
So this is a totally free-standing tower, and we reckon that it's exactly like one of those over there.
I've talked to Warwick - we know it's not 13th century, we've seen the mortars.
It's not the shelly mortars, it's mortar with shells in it.
It's probably 15th century, and it's almost certainly part of that defence over there.
What was It for? What this tower is doing is covering this lower ground in here.
You've got people up in here - defenders with guns and bows and arrows - but it's literally like a big pill box, that is designed to keep people off those lower slopes.
And this is new stuff? No-one knew about this before? This is crucially new stuff to the whole development of the castle.
Helen? Yeah? Big structure up here - looks like it's defensive, 15th century How does that tie in with the history? Pretty well really - particularly if it's connected with that tower which was built by Richard Harliston, who arrives at the castle at a really peculiar moment.
During the Wars of the Roses, somehow the French had got hold of the castle.
And Harliston is sent to relieve it for the English.
Hang on.
So that's the Brits sieging their own castle? Yeah, absolutely! I know - it's kind of backwards.
But anyway, the French get driven out, and Harliston sets about updating the castle.
Now, this tower here - you can see it's got the arrow slits but peeking through the trees is what looks like a window.
Now, that is a gun port for the modern artillery.
Now, this tower also looks like it was built for artillery, so they're part of the same defensive system.
That does make sense, doesn't it? You'd have a tower there guarding the front entrance, and one here checking out the rear.
guarding the front entrance, and one here checking out the rear.
Absolutely.
It all ties together.
'These new defences, along with those of the 16th-century refortification, 'show that the castle was under constant threat.
'And Stewart believes Mont 0rguiel's defensive evolution 'mirrored developments in weapons technology.
'So he's mapping known medieval fire power against the castle's walls.
' Their effective range from the arrows is about a hundred yards.
I can just sort you out a hundred yards 'Just marking out this distance of death is chilling.
' I'd never think I could be killed by an arrow or a crossbow from that distance.
By the time you get to the 15th century and they're starting to use muskets, you've got a different order of beast to deal with, and you've got these musket balls coming at you.
And their penetrating power is such that at this distance the ball wouldn't just kill you, It would go straIght through you, out the other side, and take two or three people out the other side! There'd be chunks of meat flying everywhere, a bone behind the person that's been hit first By the Tudor period, when you're getting the cannon coming in, suddenly they're going to do you a lot of damage at 2,500 yards.
'And this firepower could be aided by geography.
' Looking at the levels, the top of that's lower than the top of the hill here.
So I think the natural hill is probably better as a defensive position than the top of the castle.
How far away is that? The crest of the hill here is about 300 yards.
If you're on top of that hill and you've got cannon, you can pound the castle quite easily.
This would be a horrible place to be, wouldn't it? Shall we move?! 'We've now established there's no ditch in trench four, 'but as it turns out, Castle Green 'still did its bit for the war effort.
' Although we haven't found the big ditch that we were looking for, what we have got is an 0GS, or old ground surface, with early medieval pottery in - then at this end we've got this great big feature, but only one side of it.
Now, we think it's a quarry pit, and they're removing all the natural wind-blown sand and things in here, and they're mixing it up with stone to make a kind of mushy paste almost, with big bits of stone in, and they're using that for the wall core - and in the time of about the 1470 rebuild to the castle.
I haven't heard the word "prehistoric" mentioned once.
No - and neither is there in that trench over there, where we've got 14th century at the bottom, 15th century halfway up.
There's nothing prehistoric down here at all.
But you got us all excited about the possibility of prehistory! That's right, yes, and there's no evidence.
There is prehIstoric stuff on the top of the base of the castle - that's where the prehistoric site must be.
'But how far back in time have we pushed this site? 'The answer lies in trench one.
' Where's Ian? Ian, you've got a visitor.
I said, "Where are you?" They said, "I think he's still in that trench up by the castle wall," we haven't seen you for two days.
I've been up here digging down on my ownsome.
What you got? What you got? Well, we've got to the bottom of this medieval wall, and underneath the wall, down into these rocks and this old ground surface, I'm back into prehistory.
How do you know it's prehistory? How do you know it's prehistory? Cos all the soil's absolutely full of Iron Age pot and prehistoric flint work.
You tried to insult me a couple of days ago by calling me Fred Flintstone - but I still love flints.
Look at how sharp that edge is across there, and it actually goes in an arrow shaft like that.
That arrowhead is probably about 3000 BC.
It's really satisfying that we've managed to nail the prehistoric part of the story to here, isn't it? Absolutely - but I know you're not remotely interested in it, all you're interested in is the medieval stuff.
And when I talked to you a couple of days ago and we talked about why we've put this trench in here, I said we wanted to find out which of these two walls was the earlier and which was the later.
And I said there was two ways that we could do that.
0ne was by the stratigraphy, and one might be by the mortar.
And the stratigraphy we can show with this one is that this low wall here is the earlier one, and it is earlier than the big Tudor wall back there.
And it's 13th century? And it's 13th century? Ah! Now I can't tell you the date of it, because the mortar was going to be the crucial dating thing.
We do not have the shelly mortar in here, so I cannot say without doubt that this is 13th century, but it could be.
It is definitely earlier than that wall.
It is definitely earlier than that wall.
That's tantalIsIng.
So are you satisfied now? Yeah! I'm going back down again, I'll leave you to chat to Barney Rubble.
'Back to the future.
'0ur photorealistic 3D model of Mont 0rguiel is nearly complete, 'and Stewart's keen to use it as a tool 'to accurately measure the dimensions 'of the massive Tudor gun battery added late in the castle's life.
' I'm really interested in the thickness of the grand battery, for a number of reasons to do with the defence of this castle.
What's the measurement from the face of that north wall of the grand battery to the inside wall of it there? So we're looking at 12.
405 metres then.
Crikey, that's thick.
When you think that the average stone wall is probably only about maximum two metres thick.
And how deep is that from the corner, to the inside of that curve of the battery? We're looking at 23.
271 metres from end to end.
Crikey.
That's put there simply to absorb cannon fire from cannon up on the hill here - cos if it was simply a wall, say a two-metre thick wall, it would just shatter with the impact of cannonballs, so they'd need that depth of earth to absorb the impact.
'And while this huge Tudor gun platform buried much of the original 'castle, the archaeology is not entirely lost to us.
' So when do you start getting the good reflections? Just in front of where you're standing.
'At the eleventh hour, Jimmy has made a remarkable discovery.
'His radar has picked up a complete 13th-century tower 'inside the later bastion.
'That ends our investigation, and it's time to draw together 'what we've learned about the earlier stone castle 'and its subsequent development.
' What can we add to this now, that we didn't know when we started? We can confirm that there is a half round tower We've also found a completely unknown round tower A round tower there.
A 15th-century battery down here.
.
A solid half round Bastille A half round, a D-shaped 15th century 14th13th 'I think I'd better pull this together! 'Mont 0rguiel has been in use since prehistory.
'The steep-sided granite hill has been recognised 'as a perfect defensive position for at least 5,000 years.
'The site was set in stone in the 13th century, 'when a fortified keep was built on the highest point.
'Protective curtain walls and towers surrounded it - 'high up on the crest of the hill, and partway down the slope.
'In the 15th century, the castle had a military makeover.
'Two formidable ditches were cut in the rock below the hill, 'and a pair of gun towers were added to protect the gateway, 'and cover the approach to Castle Green.
'The late 16th century heralded the most substantial changes.
'Towers and walls from the earliest castle were knocked down, 'or buried under a monstrous gun battery, 'and a lofty D-shaped tower designed to protect the heart of the castle.
'The arrowhead bastion at ground level was the cherry on the cake, 'leaving Mont 0rguiel groaning under the weight of guns.
'But all this refortification was to prove futile, 'as the castle became a prisoner of its own geography.
' Henry, have you got those measurements yet? Yes, I have, Stewart.
Where I am now is just over 200 yards away from you but I'm actually over four metres higher than you.
I'm not even at the top of the hill yet, so I've got the advantage.
So you're definitely higher than me? So you're definitely higher than me? Definitely.
What you up to, mate? Well, we've been trying to work out why these defences are so complex, particularly on this side of the castle - why the castle seems to be getting higher and higher over periods.
And it's really quite interesting, because if we were standing on the 13th-century battlements on the castle, we've got the height, we've got the advantage Got bows and arrows.
Got bows and arrows.
Exactly.
So if anybody was attacking down there the effective range of a bow is about a hundred yards, which is where about Faye is just down there on the lower lawn.
If you fired a bow and arrow RIght, shall I get her? .
.
she'd be dead(!) That was pretty good, wasn't it? But then later, when they got muskets Their effective range is not that dissimilar, it's about the same distance.
So where Matt is over there That was a terrible death! But the big difference comes a little later in the Tudor period.
Cannon.
Of course, yeah.
Cannon makes the biggest difference, and you've got a hill up there Henry is where? Up there? Exactly.
If you had a cannon on that ridge at 200 yards - that's the distance - the velocity of the ball would completely smash any walls here.
So the Tudor period, they had to build this great big thick work here to stop the impact of the ball completely destroying the wall, destroying this castle.
Suddenly - he's got the height, he's got the advantage.
So is he going to fire his cannon at us? He hasn't got a cannon.
We have.
Fire! Very funny, Stewart(!) Ha-ha
Welcome to Mont 0rgueil in Jersey.
A stunning fortress which, for hundreds of years, played a little-known but crucial role in the defence of not just the Channel Islands, but the whole of Great Britain.
Although it's been studied for centuries, this place has still got its secrets here under this bumpy lawn, but also right up there.
We've got just three days to unlock those secrets.
Let's hope we can make it.
It is a ridiculously steep slope.
Mont 0rgueil, Jersey's oldest castle, sits high over Gorey Harbour, protected on three sides by the sea.
Built on a steep granite bluff, it dominates not only the beaches of western Jersey, but also the approach to the Channel Islands from France.
Entering the castle, you pass through a formidable corridor of gates and courtyards, overlooked all the way by arrow slits, gun platforms and battlements.
It was never supposed to be easy to get in.
But it's the natural defence of the terrain that's really going to cause the team a few headaches.
I mean, that's a serious slope.
Yeah.
That's slightly more vertical than I was expecting! Is this the first time you guys have run this machine over this kind of undulating ground? Undulating?! Take the slack.
It's only £25,000-worth of kit! Has anybody done this before? Not on a slope this steep, I don't think anybody's been so stupid! It's not till you get right up here at the top of the castle that you begin to appreciate why it was quite so important strategically.
Look, you can see not only the beaches and the coastline, but way over there on the horizon, that is France.
Helen - location, location, location! That's what it's all about, because this is the closest English castle to France.
We may be 100 miles from the coastline of the UK, but we're only 14 miles from France, so that puts this place at the heart of politics for some of the most important times in our history.
the most important times in our history.
But why are we here, Warwick? Well, there are a number of mysteries about this castle that we want to solve.
Although we've got this great stone structure around us and we know quite a lot about it, there are bits that are missing.
and we know quite a lot about it, there are bits that are missing.
Just a minute, you've been working on this site for 30 years, surely you must have cracked all the mysteries by now? That's short in archaeological time and there's a lot to do, so there are still areas where we just need to know about the bits of the castle that have been demolished and lost over the course of time.
What would you like us to be able to identify? I'd like you tocome over here I'd like you tocome over here Yeah.
I'd like you tocome over here Yeah.
.
.
look over the wall, and look down to the green there below us.
That area, Castle Green, has got earthworks and lumps and bumps in it and clearly, there are structures down there.
Now, that area is unexplored, we know nothing about it archaeologically, and almost nothing about it historically.
If we look at this plan, which shows the outline of the castle as we understand it in the 13th century, we are very unclear about the north side.
This uncertainty at the north end of the castle is due to the later addition of the Grand Battery and of Somerset Tower.
Monstrous fortifications built in the 16th century that would have obliterated any earlier structures.
We'll have to closely examine these gargantuan walls, looking for clues in their make-up in order to find evidence of the 13th century walls and towers that complete Warwick's early castle plan.
Why should we be so interested in this period of the castle's history? It's because when this castle was built in the 13th century, that's just at the point where England has lost its lands to France, so this place is now on the frontline of one of the major power struggles of medieval Europe.
So this is what, King John? So this is what, King John? It Is, that's right.
KIng John, who was famous for getting everything wrong and losing all his land in France.
for getting everything wrong and losing all his land in France.
But in order to find out more about that, our guys are going to have to do some pretty tricky work, aren't they? 0ur efforts will be concentrated on the bumpy lawn of Castle Green, and on the steep slopes under the formidable north and west walls.
It's a relatively simple task, but with one enormous problem - the extreme terrain.
Leading the hunt for the 13th-century walls is the intrepid Geophys team, but it's slow going.
It's a bit of a climb, innit? It's a bit of a climb, innit? 0h, it is! With Geophys struggling to get results, Phil's been looking for another way to start the investigation, and he's found a small visible section of wall.
What I want to do, Raksha is, if we put the trench in here, we've got what looks like a wall we've got what looks like a wall Yeah.
we've got what looks like a wall Yeah.
.
.
and it's the wall that runs right the way along.
Now, at the back of it, we've actually got the main wall of the Tudor castle.
The question is, does the Tudor wall sit on this wall? If that Tudor wall is sitting on the top of that wall there, the Tudor one is later, this one has to be earlier.
What we're hoping is it might be the 13th-century wall.
It doesn't have to be, all we can say is, it will be earlier than the Tudors.
The crucial thing about the dating is if we can identify any of the original mortar, and so that's why we've put it in here, it's the place where these two walls come together.
John, you know how much we love to wind you up.
But I think we've surpassed ourselves getting you to Geophys that slope.
Yeah, I think the scariest thing for me is seeing Jimmy in that harness! There's lots of health-and-safety issues, we need to do it properly.
Yeah.
So it's taking time.
It's going to be a while before we get any results from that area.
It's going to be a while before we get any results from that area.
You've moved down here now? Yeah, I mean, this is more my sort of territory, nice flat lawn.
And it is likely to be associated with the castle anyway, either in its earlier phases, or perhaps ancillary buildings associated with it.
But, Mick, you're not a castle-y sort of bloke.
I can't imagine the reason that you want to come down here is because this is part of the castle.
No, I think there's a lot of possibilities that there's something earlier down here as well.
Ah.
If you mentally strip all that stone castle off the top there, you've got a promontory sticking out into the sea likely to be the sort of thing that would be an Iron-Age promontory, a prehistoric promontory, in which case, here, you might have ditches and banks cutting off that promontory.
So we might get something that's even earlier than the castle itself? So we might get something that's even earlier than the castle itself? I think it's highly likely, yeah.
Geophys is now well underway on the very promising Castle Green, but meanwhile, up on the slope, Phil is just putting in our first trench.
I wonder what he'll find.
I can't wait to get up there myself.
Maybe after lunch.
Welcome back to the fantastic Mont 0rguiel Castle here in Jersey.
This isn't a bad job on a day like this, is it? 0ur archaeologists are already under way up on that slope excavating behind those trees, but down here on the Castle Green, John, you've got some geophys for us.
Yeah, we were saying earlier it's a fantastic area to survey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The problem is the results aren't that clear.
Why's that? Why's that? We've got problems with the bedrock, it's really close to the surface, the electric currents aren't going into the ground.
Having said that, we've got some results.
Having said that, we've got some results.
You've got some big black blobs there.
That's on this higher bit of ground here.
And you can see this greener grass, I'm just wondering whether there's a ditch coming through here before we get onto this higher ground here.
So, I think, an initial evaluation trench from where I'm stood, over this potential ditch and onto this sort of possible building here.
A possible building, you don't sound that convinced? I'm just worried it's all geology, to be honest.
I'm just worried it's all geology, to be honest.
But then you always are, aren't you? So trench two goes in on Castle Green to look for a ditch that could add to the known defences of the site, and, being cut into granite, it should be easy to find.
It could be a ditch, filled up with this crushed granite stuff.
It's quite a clear edge actually.
If we're really lucky, it may even date back to the original castle built in the reign of King John.
When do we first hear about there being a castle here? Well, we first hear something in 1209, hints.
We don't have mention of castle but we've got this description from the pipe rolls and it mentions "the Isle of Jersey and deliveries "to Knights and 12 Horse Sergeants and ten Foot Sergeants.
" And also the "horses of these Knights", so clearly there's fighting men here, a garrison, so we might assume there's a castle.
We don't know definitely until 1212.
Now this is a letter from King John where he mentions, "the Isle of Jersey, Insula de Jersey" there, with its castles, that's when we definitely know there's something here.
that's when we definitely know there's something here.
Why put a castle here in the first place? At the beginning of his reign, King John of England owned most of the west side of France, and Jersey was happily ensconced in the middle of the Angevin Empire.
In 1202 he was summoned to Paris by the King of France to answer for his feudal holdings and he refused to go, so they were confiscated by the French King, and the whole of Normandy, and Brittany was taken back and Jersey became a remaining outpost.
And the island was fought over a couple of times, certainly in 1205, 1206 and again a few years later, but the ruling elite who were in charge of the island decided they were staying with King John.
You can really see it on this map, can't you, that when all this part of France was English property, then Jersey was slap bang in the middle of it, and really well protected, but as soon as this part of France goes back to the French King then suddenly Jersey is on the frontline.
Yes, and our promontory here on the east side becomes a perfect place to put a castle, because it's in the right place to put two fingers up to the French King, to say "Look, we're English".
So what was the position of Jersey by the end of King John's reign? It was still held by the English King, it was never part of the Kingdom of England, it was just a hangout from the old Duchy of Normandy.
And there began over 800 years of union.
Siding with England, though, was to cause trouble with France, making a stronghold on the island vital.
But finding evidence of that original stone castle under the massive 16th century walls is proving difficult.
Undeterred, Stewart's hunting high and low and may have found something on the north east corner.
This join here looks odd, doesn't it, this junction here, these are part of the Tudor battery on the corner.
Yes Yes We know the date for that, but that built over that wall there.
We've got a wonderful junction here, where the Tudor bastion comes up against a curving wall that must be of earlier date, that itself is built against the rock face.
Curving wall suggests tower to me, is that what you think? Tower, 13th or 14th century, part of the arrangement of the curtain wall with round towers on it as we had before the Tudors.
Is it the first time you've seen it this morning? Is it the first time you've seen it this morning? The first time this morning, when the ivy was stripped away we found something that has never been drawn on any plan or described before.
Wow.
So we've now located an original 13th century corner tower underneath the 16th century defences.
But round the corner, Phil's strugglIng to take trench one anywhere near as far back in time.
Phew, quite a challenge getting up here.
Phil, what's the purpose of this trench? To see whether we can establish the date of this wall.
And have you done it? And have you done it? Not yet, what we have found is we've got the outside edge of it plummeting away and then across here, we've got the main core of the wall.
What we'd like is to put this wall to go underneath and be earlier than the main Tudor bastion wall.
So at the moment you've got no dating evidence? Not really, not for the wall, but what we do have is rather unexpected dating, it's this.
Water pipe, or this pipe that's running through here which we think is probably a relic of the German occupation.
Why do you think it's German? Why do you think it's German? Well, apparently everybody that digs around the castle says the one thing you always find is relics left over from the German occupation, it seems that's the best bet for that.
So you've got some pretty robust dating from the 1940s, now you've just gotta back to 1300s? Yeah, and there are two ways that we're gonna try and approach that, firstly it's see if we can establish whether this wall goes underneath the buttress, and the second way is actually to look at the mortars.
What would be significant about the mortar? What would be significant about the mortar? Well, according to Warwick, the 13th century mortars tend to have quite a lot of shell in 'em, whereas the Tudor mortars, they're a lot more gritty.
But he also tells me that there are miscellaneous mortars, we've just gotta hope that we haven't got one of them.
No sign of the 13th century down in trench two either.
The rock cut ditch is deeper and wider than anyone expected but it's producing little to help us date it.
Although this might not be the only ditch down here.
Stewart thinks he's stumbled upon another one near the castle gate.
And after clearing the brambles, he calls in Jimmy with his radar for confirmation.
If he's right, this is yet another unknown defensive circuit around the castle.
If you follow the contour around it, you can see a ditch comes round here and it heads down towards where the drawbridge for the original medieval castle gate was.
So really, this ditch ought to be part of that original 13th century castle defences.
So it should be just outside the 13th century stone walls there.
It is, yeah, it's clearly, it's on this side of the castle.
This is the weakest side down here, you could easily come up here.
And get to the base of the towers to undermine them and so, I think it needs some form of defence round here, and to be able to prove this is part of those original defences would be great.
The radar that we've done across it shows it's about a metre deep.
So we should get some dateable material from that, shouldn't we? I hope so - given where it is at the base of the slope, should be all sorts of material in that ditch, shouldn't there? should be all sorts of material in that ditch, shouldn't there? OK, let's get on with it, then.
We'll get on with the tea! There was rumours of cake, you know, before we started filming this.
You'll be lucky! So trench three goes in to see if there is a second ditch cut below the western wall.
If Stewart's right, it should run tightly butted up against the lower slopes of the castle, parallel to John's ditch.
But the question remains, where's the wall that should go with it? Stewart has a hunch, and is about to boldly go where no landscape investigator has gone before.
With a beady eye, he's clocked something 30 feet up.
Can you see all the masonry is different to the battery above it? Encouraged by the daredevil antics of the rest of the team Good luck, Stewey.
Good luck, Stewey.
Thank you.
He heads off up the rock face.
Confused by such an up-and-down archaeological site, I catch up with Mick to get my head around what's going on.
So Phil's looking for a 13th century wall up there.
Yeah.
Down there we've been digging for some ditch.
But suddenly I find that you've opened another trench here? Well, it's another ditch, you see, coming through here by the earth works, so we wanna know the date of that one as well.
But, given the magnificence of these castle walls, there's a bit of me that feels disappointed you're just digging for ditches.
But the castle walls are just half of the defensive system.
As well as each line of stone wall, there would have been ditches at the front as part of the other part of the defensive circuit, so we need to look at those as well.
And do you think all those ditches will be the same date? And do you think all those ditches will be the same date? I'd be very surprised If they were, because the walls are all of different dates, and so you'd expect correspondingly different ditches to be dug.
After all, this is the weak side of the castle, the rest of it's defended by the sea and rocks, this is the side you can come over land to it so you're gonna have to revise your defence strategy from time to time, dig another load of ditches.
It's hard for me to concentrate solely on Mick because while he's digging down into the ditches, Stewart perversely, is swinging in the air about 30 feet above our head.
Stewart! Hello! What you doing up there? Having a look at this masonry here.
You see this, this block here, can you see there's a band of masonry going that way? Yeah.
This is very different to the stuff that's on top of it and it goes in a curve.
This is earlier than that, that's Tudor, so this has got to be earlier, and it looks like it's the corner of a round tower.
Could that be the 13th century wall that we're looking for? It looks very probable.
Well, the castle is beginning to give up its secrets.
Although very slowly, and it's hard work, isn't it? It is, yeah.
It is, yeah.
Who knows what we're gonna find tomorrow.
Normally, on Time Team, I try and finish a part with a cliff hanger but, just can't think of one! 0h, god! Beginning of day two, here on the island of Jersey, where we're looking at the awesome Mont 0rguiel Castle and trying to unpick some of its secrets.
Yesterday afternoon, John suggested we put in a long, thin trench here because we'd started looking at the defences in front of the castle and he thought there might be a defensive ditch running along there, and maybe some sort of building over here, so Matt, what have we found? We do have this ditch here, it's a huge one cut into the rock, nearly five metres across, it's been backfilled and then re-cut again at that end so they keep using it, but down at this end of the trench, there's nothing.
Any dating evidence at all? We've got a few bits of pottery coming up Any dating evIdence at all? from the fills of the ditch, but nothing firm yet.
John - bit frustrating, slightly inconclusive.
Well, no, the ditch is good.
I mean, I wasn't sure about the building but we've done some more resistance and radar, you can actually see, we've got another massive ditch showing in both data sets, and they're both showing another huge ditch.
Where's the ditch? Where's the ditch? Well, you can actually see it in the grass, the dark green lush grass.
This is just over here, yeah? Yeah, that depression there.
The ditch is running through there, now is that related to the castle or is it part of this promontory fort that we talked about that might be here? So do you wanna dig it? We've got to.
It looks promising, but I must admit there's part of me that thinks we've gone a bit ditch crazy on this dig.
So trench four goes in on Castle Green to investigate John's geophys.
A third ditch would mean the approach to the castle was very heavily fortified.
But will it relate to the 13th century, or could it be much, much older? I shall laugh if this turns out to be a prehistoric site.
And we've got a socking great medieval castle behind us! We're now unearthing diagnostic and datable artefacts across the site but they're just not doing much to take our story back in time.
Second World War? German barbed wire, I would think, yes.
Frankly, so far the finds have been a bit disappointing.
You can see this is obviously late 19th century ink bottle.
"Desultory" is the word that springs to mind.
"Desultory" is the word that springs to mind.
Definitely.
Except that, Phil, you've just turned up with stuff from your trench.
Absolutely, Tony, most of what we've been getting is the debris that's been thrown over the walls, but we do happen to have some bits of pottery, which we're pretty sure are a lot earlier.
What do we think about that one, 0lga? Right, well, this definitely is our first piece of prehistoric pottery, and I imagine it dates to the Iron Age.
But you see, if you want early, Tony, really early .
.
look at a piece of flint.
This stuff is actually gonna throw our story back probably to 4,000 BC, something like that.
But we don't really want to throw our story back We want to throw our story right back to the beginning! I know you want the early stuff, Fred Flintstone, but we're trying to date the earliest castle up here.
Have either of you seen in the pottery anything that could be, say, 13th century? No, not yet.
No, not as yet.
But we haven't got down to the critical layers yet.
Sure.
Stewart's now confident he's located a bit of 13th century castle high up, wedged under the corner of the 16th century walls.
So he's back up his rope, recording the archaeology with a little eagle-eyed help.
with a little eagle-eyed help.
'Hello, this is Stewart.
' I can hear you, Stewart.
I've found some new wall up here, which is really, really nice, it's a curving bit of wall going round this crag and it's got mortar in it, with the crushed burnt limpets in it that Warwick was saying are likely to mean it's 13th century.
If I give you a couple of positions, can you plot 'em for me? First one now, where I am.
'0bservation stored.
' Right, I got that, Stewart.
Where my left glove is now, Henry.
'0bservation stored.
' Encouraged by this medieval discovery, Stewart follows the base of the vast 16th century wall in the quest for more.
We're walking on a wall of ivy at the moment.
Yeah, follow behind me and if we have to go on our bums to scale across, no problem.
0K.
0K.
Now there's a few stingers just down here.
0K.
Now there's a few stingers just down here.
0K.
Bingo! Concealed under the ivy is a second tower.
This is really good.
So in addition to the north-west corner tower, we can add a second 13th century tower just along the western wall.
Everything we're finding on this site is geared to war and defence, suggesting this castle has seen some serious action.
Looking up at it, you really do get the most amazing sense of how difficult it would've been to storm a castle like this.
How many layers of defence there are, it's all absolutely bristling with defences, isn't it? But the stone castle, once it's built in the early 13th century, it doesn't stay static, it's constantly being added to and remodelled over the years.
and remodelled over the years.
Constantly, cos the castle and the island are constantly under attack.
I've been trying to make a list of what's been going on, and I've got attack after attack after attack, and there's this big one in 1294, isn't there? Yes, about 1,500 people believed to have been killed at the time, probably about 10% of the island population.
That's terrible, isn't it? That's terrible, isn't it? It would have made a difference.
So who's attacking at that point? So who's attacking at that point? Er, the French.
Ah, no wonder they're not terribly popular! This is where I say I'm quarter French.
Sorry, sorryI And then moving on into the 14th and 15th centuries, there's several sieges at that point, so I suppose, what are they doing, building up with the great big towers and hurling missiles, trying to break through the walls.
Presumably, that's standard siege warfare in those days.
So were the walls ever actually breached? So were the walls ever actually breached? In 1373 the French broke through the outer wall, but they couldn't take the keep.
They said their ladders weren't long enough and the foundations were too strong.
You'd think they would send home for a few more ladders, wouldn't you? Gotta go back to France for that! Henry.
I wonder if you'd do a bit of modelling for me.
Right.
Not, not in that way! Stewart thinks he's located a defensive earthwork down below the corner of the 16th century Grand Battery.
A large pointed platform seems to sit on top of the rock cut ditch, jutting out into Castle Green.
And you've got this big, flat sort of earthwork that comes and lies on the slope.
Hm.
Well, to me, that looks like it's an outwork or a bastion.
Some form of defence covering this sort of weak area out here.
There's that sense of a triangle isn't there, which is by Yeah.
Well, what would be really good if you could model that.
Yeah.
See how it fits in with the line defences and the topography, see whether it is a defence work.
Under orders, Henry gets cracking.
But he's not the only one surveying the castle.
We've got a very flashy piece of kit on site this week.
Ben, all our techy people are really excited about what you're doing, what exactly is it? This is a 3D laser scanner and we're actually using it to digitally document the castle at the moment.
How does it work? It fires out a laser beam, and any surface that it hits, it calculates a three-dimensional point in space and it does this thousands of times a second, creating a rich point cloud of data which is an exact replica of the castle.
Why do we need a 3D model of the castle? I've got eyes here, I can see the castle, I've got a camera here, that can see the castle as well, why do we need you? We can use it to create accurate measurements at any point within the castle.
So if we scan the exterior walls and then go inside and scan the internal rooms, we can then create measurements throughout the building.
So you can actually take slices, as it were, out of the castle? So you can actually take slices, as it were, out of the castle? We can, once we've scanned the whole thing we can slice through at any point, horizontally or vertical, and create sections throughout.
Trench three has now bottomed out and has thrown up some useful pottery.
What date do you reckon that is? 15th century.
0h, right at the bottom! 0h, right at the bottom! Yeah, right at the base.
Right, I just expected it to be 13th century or something like that.
Well, we thought medieval, so it's later medieval, but Right.
Unless it's been washed down, or cleared out but, from the evidence, it looks like it's 15th century.
But we have got rubble and other bits coming out.
Yeah, that's a cracking section you've got there with all those tip lines, isn't it? We've got mortar and stone there and it looks like some form of building was here or up there somewhere initially.
So if that's the bedrock there, presumably something sat on the top of that platform there, didn't it? sat on the top of that platform there, didn't it? It must have done.
So to confirm whether there was a structure sitting on this platform, Phil's dragged over to take a look.
And trench five slowly exposes a small but solid wall on the granite spur.
Henry's contour map is also revealing evidence of a defensive structure, confirming Stewart's suspicions.
That's where we put the trench over the big ditches is there, isn't it? That's right.
And the platform's over in this area here? And the platform's over in this area here? That's right.
You can actually see, there's an earthwork, part of that ditch coming through.
That's just showing it in colours representing difference in height.
Whereas you see more if you model it by slopes, so the blue areas are the steep bits of slope and the red areas are flat bits, and that way you can just see how dramatic that platform is as a flat area.
Look how dramatic that slope is coming down here.
That is classically what you'd expect from an outwork round a castle.
So, at some stage, an arrowhead bastion was buIlt over the earlier rock cut ditch.
These gun platforms gave great angles for defensive fire and were popular through the 16th and 17th centuries.
This is all positive stuff, but none of it has anything to do with the 13th century.
Time to join the boffins for a cup of tea to find out what's going on.
Gentlemen, I'm really struggling with the archaeology of this castle, mainly, I think, because it's got the big Tudor castle all over it, and it's hard to see anything else, but our first goal was to find the early castle, the 13th century one, how have we done there? We have found a tower on the rock behind us, we have got a very nice 13th century tower, base sitting on the rock there.
We found a fragment of another one, part way down the west side, and we've got the known one at the south-west corner, so we've got the whole of the west side and all the 13th century plan there is complete.
But where we're sitting now, the ditch in that trench.
And this wall behind us, that isn't 13th century, is it? It doesn't seem to be, it's just possible that ditch here is part of that, it's undateable.
The only thing we can say is, it's overlain by this earthwork which we're sat on, which appears to be a gun platform of what 16th century in date, something like that? 16th century in date, something like that? Most likely, yes.
So that ditch there is earlier than that, but it could be as early as the 13th century, but chances are it's somewhere between.
What I'd like to do is put another section across it over there, to test cos that had very little information in it, just see if we get any dating from that one.
So Mick orders a second section across Stewart's ditch.
His hope being trench six will provide an early date for this ring defence.
Back over in trench five, Warwick's dating techniques render Phil shell-shocked.
Warwick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know you were saying about that shelly mortar and if you had shells in it, it was 13th century? Look and look and look again, there are whole shells in the mortar.
Yes, they're shells, but that's not shelly mortar.
But that's mortar with shells in it! Yes.
Therefore that must be shelly mortar, that must be 13th century.
This is mortar with occasional shells in, complete shells.
Now this is a piece of real shelly mortar, which Stewart found up there on the battery a little while ago where the mortar is full of broken and crushed shell that's been in a limekiln and is burnt, and that's what you see, all those dark bits are fragments of limpet shells that have been crushed and burnt in a limekiln, that mortar doesn't have it.
So this mortar with shells in is 13th century Yes.
And this mortar with shells in is not 13th century, but shelly mortar is definitely 13th century.
You've got it.
I'm losing the will to live.
All day long as far as the archaeology of Mont 0rguiel's concerned, confusion has reigned, but thankfully, at last the mists seem to be clearing, and hopefully, by the time we go tomorrow, we'll be able to tell the full story of this castle.
Mind you, this being Time Team, there's bound to be a few surprises along the way.
Beginning of day three here at Mont 0rguiel Castle in Jersey, and actually we came here to do a pretty straightforward job, which was to find a couple of 13th-century walls so we could identify the original castle on this site.
But as the days have gone on, the archaeology's got more and more complicated.
We've not only got our 13th-century stuff, we've got 15th century, we've got Tudor, we've even got prehistoric.
Quite frankly they'll probably have to rewrite the guide book, because what we're finding is really awesome.
Well, there's a lot of activity going on around here! Yeah.
We're trying to sort out these defences still.
Yeah.
Phil up there, look, is on the top of this, which appears to be a sort of early gun platform and would have gone straight on up, but he's also picking up material that's coming from the 13th-century tower at the top so he's got theyou know, the early mortar cascading down.
Um, this down here, this is where this ditch that is interrupted by this gun platform, thIs lower one, is carrying on round - remember we were digging this to get more dating material? remember we were digging this to get more dating material? Hang on.
This is highly confusing.
Up the top is 13th, 14th century.
Up the top is 13th, 14th century.
Yeah.
Here that you're calling the gun platform, presumably this is Tudor Here that you're calling the gun platform, presumably this is Tudor Yeah.
.
.
and then underneath it we've got this ditch which is, best guess, 15th century? best guess, 15th century? Probably.
We're getting dating material out of it now, over there, so we shall learn that.
I don't want to make it even more complicated, butI will! What about down on the castle green, where we thought we had prehistoric? Where Matt is, has got peaty material in the bottom with bits of timber.
I think it might be prehistoric.
It would be nice if it was Iron Age or something to do with defences, but any dating early on would be useful.
Do you think we can sort all this out by the end of the day? I think so, yeah.
But I think we've got a particular job to do because normally all our all the things we find are spread out over a fairly flat site.
Here we're spread out up the side of the hill, and to know that this bit here is one date, but a bit slightly higher than it might be earlier, is all a bit odd really, so we're going to need Henry to go round and plot everything, I think, to make sure that we understand the relationships between it all.
'And early finds from the ditch extension 'support our military story.
' So where have these come from? They've come out of the stuff being scraped off the top from this trench here, so they've come off the spoil heap.
Right, 0K.
Well this one is the bottom of a sword scabbard, you can imagine that on a leather scabbard.
And from its construction, I'd put it in the 17th or maybe even the 18th century.
So you can imagine the leather of the scabbard coming up there.
Now this one, though, this is very interesting.
It's a French jeton, of I think the 15th century.
I'll have to clean it up to be sure.
It's hard to see, but you can just about see on this side some fleur-de-lys, a cross of fleur-de-lys.
'These "jetons", or counting tokens, 'were minted in their thousands across Europe.
'0ften featuring ornate design, they were used for complicated 'arithmetic on a lined board, rather like a two-dimensional abacus.
'Back in three dimensions, our survey of the castle 'is nearing completion, 'and should help us make sense of this topsy-turvy site.
'And trench two has now hit rock bottom - 'although the pottery is definitely medieval and not prehistoric.
'But what of the building Phil was sent to investigate?' 0ne of the big mysteries for us since we got here has been this wall here.
Doesn't seem to be the same build as the big Tudor castle up there, nor were we convinced that it was necessarily part of the original 13th-century castle.
And in a way it sort of seemed to be a bit isolated on its own here, but whatever was it? Phil, have you managed to solve the problem for us? We have, Tony, and we've always known that this wall went round and actually butted onto the bedrock on that side - well, we've dug into here, and we can show that this wall butts directly up against the natural.
So this is a totally free-standing tower, and we reckon that it's exactly like one of those over there.
I've talked to Warwick - we know it's not 13th century, we've seen the mortars.
It's not the shelly mortars, it's mortar with shells in it.
It's probably 15th century, and it's almost certainly part of that defence over there.
What was It for? What this tower is doing is covering this lower ground in here.
You've got people up in here - defenders with guns and bows and arrows - but it's literally like a big pill box, that is designed to keep people off those lower slopes.
And this is new stuff? No-one knew about this before? This is crucially new stuff to the whole development of the castle.
Helen? Yeah? Big structure up here - looks like it's defensive, 15th century How does that tie in with the history? Pretty well really - particularly if it's connected with that tower which was built by Richard Harliston, who arrives at the castle at a really peculiar moment.
During the Wars of the Roses, somehow the French had got hold of the castle.
And Harliston is sent to relieve it for the English.
Hang on.
So that's the Brits sieging their own castle? Yeah, absolutely! I know - it's kind of backwards.
But anyway, the French get driven out, and Harliston sets about updating the castle.
Now, this tower here - you can see it's got the arrow slits but peeking through the trees is what looks like a window.
Now, that is a gun port for the modern artillery.
Now, this tower also looks like it was built for artillery, so they're part of the same defensive system.
That does make sense, doesn't it? You'd have a tower there guarding the front entrance, and one here checking out the rear.
guarding the front entrance, and one here checking out the rear.
Absolutely.
It all ties together.
'These new defences, along with those of the 16th-century refortification, 'show that the castle was under constant threat.
'And Stewart believes Mont 0rguiel's defensive evolution 'mirrored developments in weapons technology.
'So he's mapping known medieval fire power against the castle's walls.
' Their effective range from the arrows is about a hundred yards.
I can just sort you out a hundred yards 'Just marking out this distance of death is chilling.
' I'd never think I could be killed by an arrow or a crossbow from that distance.
By the time you get to the 15th century and they're starting to use muskets, you've got a different order of beast to deal with, and you've got these musket balls coming at you.
And their penetrating power is such that at this distance the ball wouldn't just kill you, It would go straIght through you, out the other side, and take two or three people out the other side! There'd be chunks of meat flying everywhere, a bone behind the person that's been hit first By the Tudor period, when you're getting the cannon coming in, suddenly they're going to do you a lot of damage at 2,500 yards.
'And this firepower could be aided by geography.
' Looking at the levels, the top of that's lower than the top of the hill here.
So I think the natural hill is probably better as a defensive position than the top of the castle.
How far away is that? The crest of the hill here is about 300 yards.
If you're on top of that hill and you've got cannon, you can pound the castle quite easily.
This would be a horrible place to be, wouldn't it? Shall we move?! 'We've now established there's no ditch in trench four, 'but as it turns out, Castle Green 'still did its bit for the war effort.
' Although we haven't found the big ditch that we were looking for, what we have got is an 0GS, or old ground surface, with early medieval pottery in - then at this end we've got this great big feature, but only one side of it.
Now, we think it's a quarry pit, and they're removing all the natural wind-blown sand and things in here, and they're mixing it up with stone to make a kind of mushy paste almost, with big bits of stone in, and they're using that for the wall core - and in the time of about the 1470 rebuild to the castle.
I haven't heard the word "prehistoric" mentioned once.
No - and neither is there in that trench over there, where we've got 14th century at the bottom, 15th century halfway up.
There's nothing prehistoric down here at all.
But you got us all excited about the possibility of prehistory! That's right, yes, and there's no evidence.
There is prehIstoric stuff on the top of the base of the castle - that's where the prehistoric site must be.
'But how far back in time have we pushed this site? 'The answer lies in trench one.
' Where's Ian? Ian, you've got a visitor.
I said, "Where are you?" They said, "I think he's still in that trench up by the castle wall," we haven't seen you for two days.
I've been up here digging down on my ownsome.
What you got? What you got? Well, we've got to the bottom of this medieval wall, and underneath the wall, down into these rocks and this old ground surface, I'm back into prehistory.
How do you know it's prehistory? How do you know it's prehistory? Cos all the soil's absolutely full of Iron Age pot and prehistoric flint work.
You tried to insult me a couple of days ago by calling me Fred Flintstone - but I still love flints.
Look at how sharp that edge is across there, and it actually goes in an arrow shaft like that.
That arrowhead is probably about 3000 BC.
It's really satisfying that we've managed to nail the prehistoric part of the story to here, isn't it? Absolutely - but I know you're not remotely interested in it, all you're interested in is the medieval stuff.
And when I talked to you a couple of days ago and we talked about why we've put this trench in here, I said we wanted to find out which of these two walls was the earlier and which was the later.
And I said there was two ways that we could do that.
0ne was by the stratigraphy, and one might be by the mortar.
And the stratigraphy we can show with this one is that this low wall here is the earlier one, and it is earlier than the big Tudor wall back there.
And it's 13th century? And it's 13th century? Ah! Now I can't tell you the date of it, because the mortar was going to be the crucial dating thing.
We do not have the shelly mortar in here, so I cannot say without doubt that this is 13th century, but it could be.
It is definitely earlier than that wall.
It is definitely earlier than that wall.
That's tantalIsIng.
So are you satisfied now? Yeah! I'm going back down again, I'll leave you to chat to Barney Rubble.
'Back to the future.
'0ur photorealistic 3D model of Mont 0rguiel is nearly complete, 'and Stewart's keen to use it as a tool 'to accurately measure the dimensions 'of the massive Tudor gun battery added late in the castle's life.
' I'm really interested in the thickness of the grand battery, for a number of reasons to do with the defence of this castle.
What's the measurement from the face of that north wall of the grand battery to the inside wall of it there? So we're looking at 12.
405 metres then.
Crikey, that's thick.
When you think that the average stone wall is probably only about maximum two metres thick.
And how deep is that from the corner, to the inside of that curve of the battery? We're looking at 23.
271 metres from end to end.
Crikey.
That's put there simply to absorb cannon fire from cannon up on the hill here - cos if it was simply a wall, say a two-metre thick wall, it would just shatter with the impact of cannonballs, so they'd need that depth of earth to absorb the impact.
'And while this huge Tudor gun platform buried much of the original 'castle, the archaeology is not entirely lost to us.
' So when do you start getting the good reflections? Just in front of where you're standing.
'At the eleventh hour, Jimmy has made a remarkable discovery.
'His radar has picked up a complete 13th-century tower 'inside the later bastion.
'That ends our investigation, and it's time to draw together 'what we've learned about the earlier stone castle 'and its subsequent development.
' What can we add to this now, that we didn't know when we started? We can confirm that there is a half round tower We've also found a completely unknown round tower A round tower there.
A 15th-century battery down here.
.
A solid half round Bastille A half round, a D-shaped 15th century 14th13th 'I think I'd better pull this together! 'Mont 0rguiel has been in use since prehistory.
'The steep-sided granite hill has been recognised 'as a perfect defensive position for at least 5,000 years.
'The site was set in stone in the 13th century, 'when a fortified keep was built on the highest point.
'Protective curtain walls and towers surrounded it - 'high up on the crest of the hill, and partway down the slope.
'In the 15th century, the castle had a military makeover.
'Two formidable ditches were cut in the rock below the hill, 'and a pair of gun towers were added to protect the gateway, 'and cover the approach to Castle Green.
'The late 16th century heralded the most substantial changes.
'Towers and walls from the earliest castle were knocked down, 'or buried under a monstrous gun battery, 'and a lofty D-shaped tower designed to protect the heart of the castle.
'The arrowhead bastion at ground level was the cherry on the cake, 'leaving Mont 0rguiel groaning under the weight of guns.
'But all this refortification was to prove futile, 'as the castle became a prisoner of its own geography.
' Henry, have you got those measurements yet? Yes, I have, Stewart.
Where I am now is just over 200 yards away from you but I'm actually over four metres higher than you.
I'm not even at the top of the hill yet, so I've got the advantage.
So you're definitely higher than me? So you're definitely higher than me? Definitely.
What you up to, mate? Well, we've been trying to work out why these defences are so complex, particularly on this side of the castle - why the castle seems to be getting higher and higher over periods.
And it's really quite interesting, because if we were standing on the 13th-century battlements on the castle, we've got the height, we've got the advantage Got bows and arrows.
Got bows and arrows.
Exactly.
So if anybody was attacking down there the effective range of a bow is about a hundred yards, which is where about Faye is just down there on the lower lawn.
If you fired a bow and arrow RIght, shall I get her? .
.
she'd be dead(!) That was pretty good, wasn't it? But then later, when they got muskets Their effective range is not that dissimilar, it's about the same distance.
So where Matt is over there That was a terrible death! But the big difference comes a little later in the Tudor period.
Cannon.
Of course, yeah.
Cannon makes the biggest difference, and you've got a hill up there Henry is where? Up there? Exactly.
If you had a cannon on that ridge at 200 yards - that's the distance - the velocity of the ball would completely smash any walls here.
So the Tudor period, they had to build this great big thick work here to stop the impact of the ball completely destroying the wall, destroying this castle.
Suddenly - he's got the height, he's got the advantage.
So is he going to fire his cannon at us? He hasn't got a cannon.
We have.
Fire! Very funny, Stewart(!) Ha-ha