Time Team

I was up on a remote, bleak moorland top in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in mid-July filming an episode of Time Team for broadcast in February 2009.

 It was a lot of fun and a very interesting experience. Each episode is filmed over 3 days. Basically there is a proper archaeological evaluation carried out with Phil Harding taking the lead in directing one or more of the trenches while John Gator and Stuart Ainsworth give suggestions on where to place trenches. At the same time 3 film crews are making a TV programme. Two separate crews connected by dirt and the past. They intersect regularly through the days - either led by the TV crew who have pre-arranged interviews and discussions to film or by the diggers when they make discoveries and have a part of the story to tell.

The main Time Team characters are mostly real archaeologists who can turn on TV-friendly lines when called upon. Tony Robinson, the only trained actor, is a master at this. One moment getting his coffee cup rained in to, the next smiling and asking the 'right' questions of one of the archaeologists with just a few minutes briefing.

Despite the daily torrential rain everyone remained good-natured and a decent evaluation was carried out. The programme is about navvies on Risehill Tunnel, part of the Carlisle to Settle line. As someone who has spent some time researching navvies through archaeology it was a great opportunity to see a navvy site being excavated, to see some of my ideas being tested and to be able to interpret the features and finds based on my experience at Tin Town. It was also great to catch up with some archaeological friends I've not seen for a while - Stuart Ainsworth, Francis Pryor and Deborah Anderson.