Gold In The Moat (Codnor Castle) | S15E01 | Time Team

What we call Cistercian work is done by monks it's not true, it was close to sturgeon work because it was first found in the excavations of all the great Yorkshire abbeys oh you have to call it something, it's a A beautiful little thing, a really delicate cup and only the edge that moves like it some

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s has up to eight handles. They are really peculiar little things. Matt and Faye have found some pretty fancy carved stone work on the other side of the wall, but they've been confused by the angle coming out of here that looks beveled going down this um, that's a stone work there with the corner in and coming out of this way I've just been hacking, I've been cleaning up here on the matic and it doesn't seem to come out any further this way, but the fact that it doesn't line up correctly with this input, do you think it could be a completely different structure?

Something older is a big possibility, so the challenge will be to figure out if the drawbridge belongs to a previous building, but as if we were I'm not busy enough at the end of the day, Jafiz, he came up with a new goal. I think we have become stupid. We have this chimney at the end of that building in Geophysics. Now you can see this wall line. I think we actually have a room that goes with that fireplace. I think there's a wall line that comes here and then look at this strong response here is that another building on that platform, well, that big mass could just be a coal mine, no.

Well, couldn't it? What do you think? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? It's a big wall and it's right on the edge of this really steep slope, so could it be that the actual building range goes all the way to the end of the

castle

, so if this is the perimeter wall, could it be another tower? So lay a trench tomorrow. Oh definitely, the first thing to do is go through the coal mine or

castle

. We'll find out tomorrow, starting with day two here at Codner Castle in Derbyshire, no one knows what this is. The place looked like originally and it's our job to find out, but first you've got a lovely little movie, yeah, it's got a buckle-fitting look, it's a beautiful little thing made of copper and we've got some lovely sort of decor and look, some Of us still have the decorative buckles on our belts today, that was a bit surprising.

Where he came from? It came out of the ditch here, wait, it's got all that black stuff on the bottom that we have there. We thought yesterday was evidence of coal workings, which means this trench was filled in after the wall was built and I don't quite understand it, while Phil pulls his pants back up, let's go take a look at this trench, which It is also another. puzzle because you see you have this tower here and you have a tower here and in the middle it's blocked, but presumably it originally would have been some kind of passageway, but this wall here doesn't really line up with it correctly.

If you take a look at this thing here to align it, you need to push it about a meter or so, yeah, I mean, it's disconcerting, but it's disconcerting in a good way, isn't it? I mean, what we're wondering is whether this could actually be an earlier gatehouse that predates these two round towers and maybe that feature could be the drawbridge. So what's the plan today? We have two objectives: one is to back up in this direction a short distance to try to see. If we can get the corresponding extended side, can you see there, Tony?

Yeah, yeah, so hopefully he should come back here and demonstrate conclusively how this relates to those powers. Secondly, we've done a radar survey there and we think most of it is about thirty feet wide, so what we're going to do is dig a trench further up, thirty feet, which is about one, two, three, four , near here, no, no, it's three meters short, you must have short legs out here, now, this is a What a distance, isn't it? It's a huge distance, so maybe there's even a central stone pier and maybe even with a second bridge or even like a stone causeway leading off, wouldn't it be wonderful to find out that they are? not so short just above the drawbridge trench inside the round towers at the entrance Richard has managed to find some dating evidence to help us determine the chronology of the castle.

Oh, what an amazing face, and you know, yesterday we were saying there's not much to do. date in the masonry we have something, these tops are quite distinctive, they are called shouldered lintels on the right and this is a kind of cantilevered block that I see that supports a floor there on the right and they are also called carnival arches because first It actually comes in when Edward I is building the Welsh castles at Carnarvon in 1280 and they were used for about 50 years so it also fits very well with the documentary reference because we have that first reference in 1308 which is impactful. in the middle of the term, yes, exactly right, let's look for something more interesting.

The construction of the gateway corresponds with a period of royal favor for the medieval knights who lived here. Henry III is said to have kissed Richard de Gray in gratitude because he and his brother were the only nobleman to sign up for an unpopular crusade and in 1294 Edward I made a royal visit to Codner, an event so momentous it may even have sparked a reconstruction so that the entrance could have replaced the drawbridge which Neil now believes was surrounded. by a tower that measures 28 cen

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ters back before we start, so we go back and measure to prove it.

We need to find a similar beveled edge on the other side. Is it an angled stone line or is it a chamfer? I think so. Look. Jammy, do you have it Matt? That's where you win. I buy you that

gold

star. Let's do a quick check. Matt. Can you hold the tape over the top of the chamfer and I will measure it? It measures to the drawbridge pit 160 centimeters if we cross to the other side and you just hold it on the edge, Matt, yeah, wait, how about that? I guess what it shows is that we actually have a symmetrical tower. on both sides of the drawbridge well and I guess it kind of confirms that this is clearly unrelated to that, yeah, excellent, so this is the first part of the castle we've seen that day, although we don't know the exact date yet From the Drawbridge, we know that it was surrounded by a tower and crossed the

moat

surrounding the original castle in the upper courtyard around 1300.

It was replaced by the gatehouse which is still standing, but the walls to the west and north of the upper courtyard have disappeared. Phil moves his

team

north of the castle to find out how much has been lost for the wall to pass through. He's looking for the wall and tower in the geo fizz that he hopes is the other side of the room with the big fireplace going. at the end of the camera block oh oh that's better look that's nice and we've got another little course under here yeah come on now that one's out of place but I'm not going to hold it against ian for that's how it is and then there's a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're in business now oh look, look at that, oh, look at that, well you know what his basis is, what the hell while Phil sorts out what he found, raksha and paul.

I'm almost done in goal. It's great when there is a small hill next to a ditch because you can see the entire implant like you never normally would. Yes, and some fascinating details are emerging. What is this wall? So can you see these holes? here are the beams to hold up the floorboards, as you might think, but I spoke to our friendly local castle and he told me it's something called wainscoting, it's where you put beams on the inside of the building, it's very elegant, so it combines with high status. The castle, another fantastic thing is that there is a very small gray expanse right here and that is our first layer of occupation and we also found two pieces of pottery there.

Oh, do you have a date? Paul. Certainly these things come from Stamford in Lincolnshire. let's stop doing it around 11 50. Actually, you're joking, but that was long before the first record of there being a castle here, not that they actually started appearing around the time of the Norman Conquest, so it could be so early. In theory, well, that's a bit exciting, isn't it? This date takes us back to at least 1201, when Henry Degray married Izzold and the Norman heiress, who brought the family cod, no parks and some money, and it seems that we have found their house and the entrance could have been the Neil's drawbridge over the

moat

, it seems so, right?

If you had an intact stone face that is very similar to the core of the structure that we have there, look at that look, that look. I mean they are heavy stones, right? We should measure the distance to the front of the bridge abutment so Neil can get out his tape measure again and figure out how far the drawbridge would have to extend to cross the moat, which is 7.4. meters, okay and if we go, I will return to where the radar detects a large block of masonry that is approximately here, what is that distance matte? That's 13.9, well 7 and 14 in round numbers, yeah, and maybe what we have here is a Center Dock Yeah, I think Brian was saying the longest span you could have with wood is about eight meters, so a stretch would fit perfectly for exactly this, right?

And to the north, in the upper courtyard, the line of stones that Phil found earlier. It looks like it could actually be the castle's perimeter wall, but it's a pile of mysterious semicircular stones that confuses him. Reg Rick, come here. I mean, you don't know what it is either. Amir, yes, it is semicircular. He's supposed to be shooting someone else. scene, look at that, what are these things? A dock base, it's not just a thick thing, look, they're layered, look, there's one there, I can even stick my paddle in between it and then there's another one there, it's probably about an inch, inch and a half. thick and then there's another one there and a fourth one that goes down and they're still going down a lot and they're semicircular.

Can I enter your trench? Yes, yes, well, it's not a trench at all, my God, my God. that sounds like they look like they have a tool, yes they are well made. I think of two possibilities: one is some kind of semi-column that leans against the wall as they are now stacked or maybe if they rotate 90 degrees it could be facing it sounds something like that and it is just good waterproofing going over it sheds the water yes exactly , I mean they don't seem to have ever been used because they haven't been exposed to much erosion, yes, but there are some strange things on this site where it seems like things are planned or never finished or planned finished but then scrapped very soon after while Phil faces the north wall in the drawbridge trench.

It seems that the dock that Neil thought was in the middle of the moat might actually be the other side of the moat. The further back this material goes, the more likely it is that this is not the pier, it is actually the solid bridge abutment that extends to where the drawbridge pit is. I don't think we've gotten to where the anomaly is. Are we in no? It's under my cockpit, so let's just ride it and see if we actually get to that really big spot. anomaly and see how it relates to this material, then this means there would have been a wooden bridge over the moat under attack, the degrees could have burned this as a first line of defence, then there was a drawbridge over the moat which would have been elevated on a pivot and if the intruders got that far there would probably have been a port kallus.

This elaborate defense seems to fit the image of the ranks because these were soldiers who appeared in every battle from Agincourt against the French to the Scottish Wars and the Crusades and we hope to find some of their rooms next to the missing west wall, where the the digging phase yeah look at these of course well I think what you have here is part of a plaster wall surface it has this nice smooth surface on one side and if you turn it over and you can see the impressions of the wooden laths that the plaster would have adhered to if you had that, what could this feature be?

This kind of semicircular feature coming in buts against the wall, yeah. It looks like it could be a circular staircase. Yeah, I was hoping you'd say that's great. In the last two days we have discovered so many pieces of walls and windows and finds from different phases of the castle that my head is spinning. It's time to take stock of what it all means. Well, we can add some meat to that picture. We can give you some phases. We have the oldest part of the standing structures of this elegant from the front of the gate here with the round towers now.

From the diagnostic evidence, it's pretty clear that it's around 1300 1320 something like that and from there we know that this wall here of the lower courtyard because it hits that tower will be later, maybe 100 years later, behind us, the big camera block here. It is not as modern as the brick chimney than it seems because those brick chimneys from 1500 say they were inserted into an existing fabric, so it is probably also around 1400,so we have those two basic medieval phases at least if this red is around 1300 that ties in nicely with the first reference to a castle on this site, but what about the archaeology?

Well, we have eruptions building here the portis type of shelter that probably goes through that red phase there in In Phil's trench, we have another room of that building, maybe a difference with a curtain wall and here, where the excavation phase we are starting to see evidence of a structure, but what really excites me, Tony, is getting some evidence of a previous occupation inside the goal. Lodge we have some pottery that seems to go back to the 12th century from the floor now that doesn't go with the red phase which must be an earlier phase because we have a much earlier entrance tower that predates the round tails on that façade, so the archeology suggests structures before 1308, what kind of building it could be, it could be another castle, castle, fortified mansion, I'll just look at that entrance, tony, you know, it's a monumental entrance, it has a drawbridge. it suggests an important structure to me, definitely Yeah, the archaeologists were hoping that the phase ladder might be part of this structure, so if that's the ark, I mean, it's a lot bigger than a ladder, isn't it?

Possibly four meters if you project the line with The light fades quickly. The second day ends with another enigma. We came here looking for a castle. Now we have many castles. Tomorrow we'll go down to the pit to see if we can find evidence of one of the first. phases and up here we're going to shift our attention to the inside of the castle to see if we can find the rooms where the degrees actually lived and all that tomorrow at the start of the third day here at Codner Castle in Derbyshire and we have a drawbridge. the first drawbridge that we have dug in time

team

, this hole here is the shaft in front of which the drawbridge would have sat and you can imagine that in the medieval period, before that entrance was blocked with stones, knights in armor charged through it and cross the drawbridge, except if you imagine you would be totally wrong because that part of the castle is much later than the drawbridge.

How old is the drawbridge and how does it relate to the rest of the archaeology? Well, that's what we think. We're going to find out today, Tony, all we know is that the experts on the castle tell us that those two towers date back to the early 14th century, therefore this must be before the 14th century, so we're going to get some dating evidence and that's why We're going to dig in the pit, so can you see where Matt is digging? We've got all this debris from the demolition of the tower, so let's go through that to the bottom of the moat and get some dating evidence to go with it. bridge while the rain falls, Neil and Mata search for the bottom of the moat between two stone pedestals.

The suggestion is that these could be elements of the garden from the final phase of the castle. Do you know what it is? A little marble, is it quartz? I have no idea, I mean, you're almost wondering, it could come from a statue or something, yeah, from the garden. This excavation has been so rich that at times it seems as if the castle has been about to explode to tell its story and inspired Victor to create our response. to the bayer tapestry following the fate of the degrees during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, but the most colorful character of all was henry de grey, who managed to survive fighting on both sides of the wars of the roses and was granted a leave of absence for alchemy.

So that's what we're seeing him do here, isn't it? It is in his laboratory with all his books, his mortar and his crucible. Yes, and I suppose this is partly due to the extraction of mineral resources from his Estates, yes, I suppose so, because we tend to think that alchemy is about converting base metals into

gold

etc., but in reality it was What we might call chemistry these days, right? The sad thing, I guess, is that we came to his death in 1496, he had three wives, he had several illegitimate children, but he leaves no air behind, so we have the end of the line, that's where his luck after death runs out.

From Henry, the earth passed to Zeus, who created. An Industrial Empire and Phil discovered some of the changes they made to the north end of Codner Castle, where he found the perimeter wall and an explanation for the stains on the gfiz. What we have is this circular thing here, but on the other side of On the wall there is also another circular thing, they are not a tower, but I think they are elements of the garden. I mean, they could relate to this kind of peculiar tourist landscape and these are miniature turrets or something overlooking the landscape. what it means is that at some point this end of the castle became out of use, they tore down that wall and then turned this area into gardens.

Yes, that is a small hill with a view. You have spectacular views of the valley from here. The castle and the landscape have clearly changed dramatically over the last millennium and Stewart thinks he knows this is one of my most ridiculous moments. In the 12th and 16th centuries, the Grays built and rebuilt the castle, but it was Zeus who had the big ideas at some point. I think this is at the beginning of the 16th century, they started digging a small lake in this corner and created a huge one. bank on this side and then this ditch goes down here and again all the material goes outwards to create a large terrace at the end they create a kind of mound that is a viewing point which is where it is placed as an observation platform. to look at the landscape and they do the same at the other end and everything is becoming a large fashionable garden and its style is typical of the beginning of the 16th century now what I have been able to see is that these earthworks of the garden never finished everything is almost finished, but not completely, why didn't they finish it, do you think they ran out of money or something?

I think what happened is that it became so grand that they just almost ruined themselves doing it and so the castle felt like a torment and the ruin lost its north and west walls and Phil now joined Faye on the west wall where his latest theory is that its feature is a turret oh Faye oh my gosh, look, you know, you've been telling me that you had plaster in this rubble here, yeah. well, actually I have it on the wall, look at it, there is the plaster, there is the wall, it is very, very thin, it is a very, very thin sheet, but look, it is white, it is a white plaster, but think about it if it is small turret. it was plastered, you would have had it, you could have had gleaming white walls around it, look at that floor with no view coming in too, I think it might as well be a stone floor.

Helen has been searching rooms and items in the castle ruins in an 18th century engraving for money and she believes she has made a breakthrough. This opening here is clearly the same as this one here. Yes, it must be and that makes this piece of wall the same as this one. It's just that we only have half of it. it survived and then moved on much later, I mean this must be from the early 20th century I guess and luckily we have the opening there so now that we have a photograph we can go back to the building and say this is definitely that opening. there, that means that this thing, this opening is probably a door, yes, because of these beams, here, that's true, there is definitely a floor in that position and although we now know that the chamber block is this part of the engraving where is the door step.

It's a mystery, but Helen is on a roll, she managed to locate the wall in Raksha's trench, so that big tree grows directly on this door, which means the wall could presumably be that one, right? Yes, it should be, that's excellent. is related so yeah, so how much more do you think we have? I think probably another half, maybe a meter, almost Neil and Matt have a hard time moving forward as they dig into the moat to find the bottom of the drawbridge tower, okay? the pit is almost there to reveal its secrets with such a large amount of material coming out of the pit it is important that we thoroughly search the pile of rubble and that is why my hand is shaking why check your hand gold coin gold hammered coin look That, come here look, look, I can't stay still, I'm scared, I can't believe you're still on two feet, I can't, I almost fell, so I can't, I'm just shaking, you need to sit down. drink strong sweet tea and it's big too, right?

And given how soft the gold is and how big it is, that's absolutely incredible. Okay, let's all calm down for a moment. What do we do with it? What do we do? We clean it, which is a pretty simple process because because gold doesn't corrode, we, we, and it's in such fantastic condition, we'll be able to get a good date of where it was found just by listening to the deterioration, let's get out. The bottom line of the Neil pit is that the ditch is outside, it's outside the ditch, so is this a primary silt? Here's something we can date with, yeah, I mean, it's great context because this has come out of the really thick slime at the bottom of the pit, so hopefully you know that I sang to you before about what is dating evidence of what date is that tower, if that coin comes out of the primary silk, it's in a great position, although it's not just a date, I mean.

Don't forget that this is not just a wonderful quote, it is a gold coin, it is going to have a very high value. We've been talking recently about how people maybe aren't that rich and you know they're spending all their money. to the building are pretty rich, let me just bring you over here so you can see for a second all these people grunting over here, have any of you ever found a big gold coin before as archaeologists, this is big, it's so big. one, but not all, the tools to contemplate the gold there, oh, there, it's all stone, it's a beautiful edge, isn't it?

Phil and Faye are determined to find the other side of the turret, come on, does it curve, look and really look? Look at that look, there's actually no surface there, ah, what a little gem, Rachel, this is a pretty busy day for you looking at tickets, isn't it? Yes, we have already found a gold coin in the silver one, yes, this, um, this is it. a little silver pen and on the back you can make out it says rex skatorum so it's a scottish penny and from the look of it with these little pointy stars on the back it looks like it's alexander iii so what the heck is it ? a Scottish penny lying around well, we know the grays were fighting the English king in Scotland in the early 14th century, so they could possibly bring him back.

That's amazing, doesn't it make you wonder what we're going to do? find the next one, with time running out, Neil and Matt are desperate to get to the bottom of the pit in the drawbridge trench, Paul, check this out. We have some pottery that came out of the right, at the very base of the get rid of what do you think that kind of date might be oh, that's okay, it looks properly medieval, I mean, you're kind of 13 14 13 from the 14th century, we're getting there and now we know a little more about the other pit find.

You've been looking at books, you've been on the computer, you've been making frantic phone calls, what have you discovered? Well, it is a gold noble, which is the great gold coin of the time. These have a really high status. things and on the front it has this complicated design, you can see a king there and his head is sticking out through the sails, he's holding a sword upright and he's got a shield with the arms of England courted with the arms of France. standing on a ship is an exquisite little design it actually means something it certainly means yes it is apparently a symbol of the power of the English navy at a surprisingly early date when I tend to think the navy was nelson and so on but but this apparently It refers to an incident at the beginning of the 100 Years War in 1340 and then on the back you have lots and lots of symbols of power, we have crowns, lions, fleurs-de-lys and a large cross. and right in the middle of the cross is the initial h and that little h gives you a clue who it is on the front is henry, doesn't it? but which one there are many henries is henry is a fifth actually that very short lived king, oh, that's, uh, agincourt, isn't he once again in the breach and all that absolutely?

And what's really fantastic, of course, is that we have this action called linking one of the lords with Gray is in the master of Agincourt. paper and you can find more information about this on our website over the last three days, we've found more than we expected and the west wall of Faye is no different okay, that kind of alignment with the well is almost not like that. It's pretty much in line with the lower courtyard wall, but the most impressive thing is this block of masonry that surrounds this whole place and moves like this, so it's actually a round tower that has been attached to the curtain wall and I can see look the foundation that's going down and down and down is huge this way it's huge that way inside our round tower we have a ton of fires and we originally thought this was the kitchen, but what really changed our mind was this feature here that looks like be a chimney, you can actually see that it is later because it has allthose bricks that probably explain all this burning definitely, I don't quite understand, Phil, is that what you're saying is that the tower is added to this wall and I can see that it's a very clear butt joint, isn't it?

So? But down there the towers are actually integral with the wall, so how does that work? I think the front part is the most important part of the castle, you don't want it to look like a fake job, you want to see a proper reconstruction, this is the side so it's not that important, so you added a round tower to it. Richard thinks the tower was added to the west wall around the same time as the second gatehouse, possibly for Edward II's visit in 1322. And it's not over yet, we've been looking for the most important rooms in the castle and just before blow the whistle, it's I found one of them now you know, I've been blindly referring to this as a camera block for the past few days.

I'll try to find a rethink oh yeah, I think we found the great hall. Oh my God, why is it such a tall building, I thought. Naturally it was three stories, chamber above, chamber above the basement, but when you start looking for the floor beams which are quite important, you have a set of floor beams there, yes, for the first floor, none above, so you just have this huge room on the first floor level and we even know where the door is, oh yeah, there, oh me. Don't believe it, we've been looking at that door so carefully that it's the exact one engraved and we said, of course, that explains why it's such a big door, doesn't it?

This is more than we could have hoped for. the 13th century first floor great hall where henry de gray entertained king edward the first and the date relates to the romantic entry of brian drawbridge. We've done a lot of work on the moat area today and I think we've almost got a good story now excellent um we've exposed the front face of the tower yes we have a hole that's been brutally punched through the wall mm-hmm, It could simply be the drain from the drawbridge behind if water has pooled. In the airport rain, this has helped drain it back into the ditch.

Well, ultimately the good news is that Matt managed to expose the yellow natural clays and that's the bottom of the tower wall coming back. the moat, I mean, it's big, you know, it's six and a half meters wide and three meters deep, going back further we see here, now we have the abutment on the other side of the moat, you know, a very well built mortar wall, etc Going up here, you know, you get a really good perspective of how impressive that tower is and God knows what it's seven and eight feet tall. You know, think that none of that was visible yesterday.

This is how Henry de Gray and his old wife would have entered their castle in the 13th century across the moat, over a large drawbridge, passing through the gatehouse and into the great hall, but in the early 14th century the castle was rebuilt with towers and turrets on the perimeter walls, in the 15th century they extended to the lower court, but it was Zeus in the 16th century whose extravagant plans ruined the estate and left the castle in ruins. We were all really anxious that Coding Castle might have been almost completely mined, but we shouldn't have worried about a previous castle. a moat, a drawbridge, a great hall and a tower all came to light and even the rather sad final phase of the gardens which bankrupted a family certainly made us proud and of course we had a rather special find Which I'm happy to say is going to end up in the local museum in Derby, that's something you don't find every day.