The BEST episodes of Time Team
Every episode of Time Team ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Time Team!
In this popular and (literally) groundbreaking programme, Tony Robinson and a team of experts travel the country to investigate a wide range of archaeological sites of historical importance.
#1 - Manchester - Rubble at the Mill
Season 13 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/5/2006
Rubble at the Mill - The birth of the Industrial Revolution in Manchester. The team set to work uncovering Manchester's first cotton mill, built by one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution, Richard Arkwright. Over three days the team uncover the remains of a complex factory as they search for the heart of the first mill: a revolutionary steam engine that was decades ahead of its time.
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#2 - Glendon Hall, Northants - The Bodies In The Shed
Season 13 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/22/2006
The Bodies in the Shed - Glendon's lost graveyard. Tony and the team return for a new series, visiting Glendon Hall in Northamptonshire to unravel the mystery of the human skeletons found under an outbuilding. In November 2004 Martin Hipwell was working in the garden converting a Victorian brick shed. He had to stop rather suddenly because as he dug up the old floors he came across a whole host of human skeletons. He contacted the local unit, Northampton Archaeology, who revealed 11 burials inside one of the buildings. They removed seven sets of human remains. But in another barn the builders discovered yet more remains. They left these undisturbed and Martin got in touch with Time Team. Before Martin carried on his building work he wanted to know who these people were and where they lived. All these burials were aligned east-to-west. They were closely packed and some had been buried on top of others. The density of the burials, the orientation and the lack of finds and gravestones suggested that these were the graves of medieval Christian peasants. Bone analysis indicates that these people suffered from lives of hard labour and poor nutrition. Could they have been inhabitants of the lost medieval village of Glendon? And what happened to Glendon's church dedicated to St Helen? Could the piles of old architectural stonework in the garden be a clue?
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#4 - Rise Hill, Cumbria - Blood, Sweat and Beers
Season 16 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/1/2009
Time Team visits the Yorkshire Dales to investigate the Risehill camp settlement, inhabited by the Victorian railway navvies during the construction of the Settle-to-Carlisle railway On a wind- and rain-swept Yorkshire moor – 'the most exposed site Time Team has ever dug on,' according to Tony Robinson – lie the remains of a settlement built by a tough, nomadic community that existed on the very edge of society.
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#5 - Burslem, Stoke-On-Trent - Wedgwood's First Factory
Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/3/1999
Everyone knows the name of Wedgwood when it comes to pottery, and this is what they have in mind, this blue and white design, it’s famous throughout the world. But few people know that it was here in Burslem on the outskirts of Stoke-On-Trent, that Josiah Wedgwood’s climb to fame and fortune first began. This is actually the site of his first factory, which was at the heart of the pottery industry when it took off in the eighteenth century, but does any of it remain under the paving stones of present day Burslem.
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#6 - Turkdean, Gloucestershire - Roman villa
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/25/1998
Tony Robinson and the team return to the site of a previous dig in 1998 which unearthed a Roman villa in the Cotswolds. They discover that the villa dates from the very first days of the Roman occupation. Amongst their new finds is an entire, untouched Roman water course.
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#7 - Cornwall - Boden Iron Age Fogou (Day 3)
Season 21 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/20/2022
The final day of the Cornish dig and will the team be able to resolve whether they've found a barrow or some other structure? Elsewhere, there is news about Helen's coin and some exciting finds in Matt's Bronze Age roundhouse.
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#8 - Mont Orgueil, Jersey - Cannons v Castles
Season 18 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/27/2011
Tony Robinson and the Team head across the Channel to Jersey to investigate the origins of Mont Orgueil Castle: a fortress that came to symbolise the Channel Islands' bond with Britain. The massive castle that dominates the shore today is a Tudor structure built on earlier foundations, and it's that early castle, built by King John, that the Team are looking for.
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#9 - Applecross, Scotland - Scotch Broch
Season 13 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/16/2006
Scotch Broch - Iron Age life at Applecross near Skye. Tony and the team journey to Applecross in the north west of Scotland to excavate a broch, a monumental stone tower that was amongst one of the largest Iron Age structures in Britain.
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#10 - Isle of Man - Finds on the Fairway
Season 14 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/14/2007
Finds on the fairway.The Time Team are on a golf course on the Isle of Man to investigate the remains of a keeill - a small stone chapel. Although thought to have been built by the Vikings, new finds suggest there is much more to this site than just the Vikings
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#12 - Wierre-Effroy, France - One Of The First Spitfires Lost In France
Season 7 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/16/2000
One of the first spitfires lost in France. It was on 23 May 1940 that a young English pilot climbed into the cockpit of his Spitfire to join a formation of aircraft flying across the Channel to help defend troops retreating in the face of the Nazi advance. Paul Klipsch, aged 24, had never flown in a combat mission before; he was never to do so again. The young pilot was shot down over northern France. He had become one of the first of the 1,500 Royal Air Force pilots who were to give their lives during the early period of the Second World War. The RAF's combat report recorded simply that he had been 'Killed in Action'. The place where his plane came down, in a farmer's field outside the small French village of Wierre-Effroy, near Boulogne, has always been known. Two brothers, Auguste and René Mierlot, had seen it shot down by a Messerschmitt 110, at about 6pm that May evening. They remembered it well because half an hour later German troops entered their village. Despite the Nazi presence, local people retrieved Paul Klipsch's body from the remains of his aircraft and buried him in the village cemetery. His grave, now marked with an RAF headstone, remains there to this day. But while the time and place of this young pilot's death had long been known, we still knew little about how and why his Spitfire crashed. Time Team decided to see what could be revealed.
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#13 - High Worsall, North Yorkshire - Medieval Village
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/1/1998
In this episode, the 'Time Team' are in Worsall, near Middlesbrough. The archaeology fanatics have just three days to solve the mystery of why the population of a medieval village disappeared into thin air.
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#14 - Codnor Castle, Derbyshire - Gold In The Moat
Season 15 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/6/2008
The crumbling ruins of Codnor Castle are a sad remnant of the imposing home of the De Grey family - knights who saw action in almost every important medieval battle including the crusades and Agincourt. Today Codnor Castle lies in ruins and there's almost nothing known of how it looked in its prime. As the remains above ground get an overdue renovation, the Time Team risk the dangers of hidden mine shafts in the Derbyshire coalfields to dig into the heart of a building that once dominated the landscape to trace the castle's history. It lives up to the team's hopes as they strike gold with a 600-year-old gold noble coin as well as uncovering a huge round tower and, for the first time in the history of the programme, a drawbridge.
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#15 - Groby, Leicestershire - House of the White Queen
Season 18 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/20/2011
Groby Old Hall in Leicestershire was once home to the legendary White Queen: Elizabeth, the wife of Edward IV. The Team are here to help the new owners, who have saved the house from dereliction, to find out what has gone on in their garden over the centuries. It's full of tantalising glimpses of archaeology: a medieval wall with a window, carved stones and what looks like the remains of a Norman castle.
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#16 - Castor, Cambridgeshire - Under the Gravestones
Season 18 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/13/2011
The Team face one of their strangest challenges ever: digging through a church graveyard in search of what could be one of the largest Roman structures ever built in Britain. Tony Robinson and his band are here at the request of the Reverend William Burke, vicar of the historic St Kyneburgha's church in Castor, Cambridgeshire. Under very close supervision, the Team must dodge the thousands of burials in the graveyard to get to an ornate mosaic floor that was reportedly discovered almost 200 years ago. It could be the missing link in a village that is crammed with massive Roman walls and old reports of exquisite finds.
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#17 - Barra, Western Isles - Bodies In The Dunes
Season 15 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/20/2008
The Team travel to the windswept island of Barra, 50 miles off the west coast of Scotland, for a unique rescue dig. This Hebridean outpost is famous for its strip of unusually fertile sand dunes all round the coast, land that has been home to settlers for the last 4,000 years. When a storm ripped apart one of the dunes, it revealed Bronze Age graves and the remains of ancient houses. The team must also work in the face of the fierce Barra winds to preserve a collection of Iron Age ornaments before they become lost forever, including the remains of a cooking pot, and tools crafted from animal bones and whale rib.
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#18 - Netheravon, Wiltshire - Roman Villa
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/9/1997
A mosaic in a partially abandoned army-barracks may be part of an ancient Roman villa. The time team head for an army barracks in Netheravon, Wiltshire, to test a theory that a Roman villa is concealed beneath the site. A colonel discovered a piece of mosaic pavement there in 1907, but until now archaeologists have not been allowed behind the barbed wire. Can the team solve the mystery before the troops return?
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#20 - Bedford, Purlieus Wood, Cambridgeshire - Rooting For The Romans
Season 17 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/17/2011
An eagle-eyed forest ranger spotted bits of Roman building poking out from the forest floor in Cambridgeshire's Bedford Purlieus Wood. And cutting-edge aerial visualisations reveal evidence of a complex of building foundations hidden in the woods. Tony and the Team investigate what these buildings were and why they were here. It's a straightforward question, but the dig is one of the most challenging of the series: it's almost impossible for geophysics to operate in the cramped woodland environment; the diggers can't see each other's trenches for the trees; and a thick layer of autumn leaves add to the general disorientation. But the Team manage to uncover substantial buildings, intricate finds and what looks suspiciously like a statue. Over three days they piece together a tale of Roman industry and trade, and what may be the key to understanding the site: the presence of a fancy bath-house.
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#21 - Esher, Surrey - The First Tudor Palace?
Season 13 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/12/2006
The First Tudor Palace? The team visit Penny Rainbow's Surrey home that is all that remains of a palace that was grand it inspired the design of Hampton Court. Over three days they piece together the story of a site that evolved into one of the most stunning buildings of early Tudor times.
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#22 - South Perrott, Dorset - The Puzzle Of Picket's Farm
Season 12 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/6/2005
Thirty years ago the Legg family took over this farm in West Dorset, almost immediately they discovered that one end of this field was difficult to plough and they put it down to the stony soil. But then earlier this year Roman finds started to crop up all over the field. Roof tile, pottery, Roman coins, broaches, what’s going on? The Legg’s are itching to know. Is there a Roman building here that could account for their broken ploughs. Time Team’s got just three days to find out and let them know.
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#23 - Islip, Oxfordshire - Birthplace Of The Confessor
Season 13 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/26/2006
Birthplace of the Confessor. The team descend upon the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Islip, the birthplace of Edward the Confessor, for one of the most challenging and intriguing excavations of the series. The villagers of Islip are celebrating the millennium of Edward's birth and want the team to discover the location of a medieval chapel dedicated to their famous former resident.
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#25 - Radcot, Oxfordshire - Anarchy in the UK
Season 16 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/15/2009
The Team are in Radcot, Oxfordshire, where they hope to uncover a long-lost fortress built in the 12th century during one of the bloodiest episodes of English history. The tiny hamlet of Radcot in Oxfordshire stands on a strategic crossing on the river Thames. Competing armies have fought over control of the crossing from at least medieval times through to the English Civil War.
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