The BEST episodes of Time Team season 17
Every episode of Time Team season 17, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Time Team season 17!
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 - 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.
#2 - Westminster Abbey, London - Corridors of Power
Season 17 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/18/2010
In the first episode of the new series, Tony Robinson, Professor Mick Aston and the Team investigate one of Britain's greatest historic landmarks: Westminster Abbey. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of Parliament Square, the archaeologists have three days to pin down the location of a lost sacristy, a stronghold that was built by Henry III almost 800 years ago and is said to have housed the biggest collection of treasure this side of the Alps. Under the watchful eye of the Abbey's clergy and numerous tourists, the diggers' attempts to find this important building are continually thwarted by the driving London rain and centuries of later building work.
#3 - Piercebridge, County Durham - Bridge Over The River Tees
Season 17 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/2/2010
Tony Robinson and the Team get their feet wet as they examine a stretch of the River Tees where local divers have discovered more than 2,000 high-quality Roman finds. The river flows past one of the most impressive Roman forts in northern Britain, and over three days the archaeologists cast their net far and wide investigating the buildings, roads and structures around this strategic crossing. However, the big challenge is working out what was going on in the middle of the river, where most of the finds came from, and that means a variety of Time Team's finest squeezing into wetsuits and braving the fast flowing river Tees.
#4 - Isle of Mull, Inner Hebrides - A Saintly Site
Season 17 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/25/2010
Time Team descend on the Isle of Mull at the invitation of two local amateur archaeologists to investigate a mysterious set of earthworks in a forest near Tobermory. Could they be the remains of a chapel from the time of St Columba?
#5 - Cunetio, Wiltshire - Potted History
Season 17 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/23/2010
Time Team visits the heart of Wiltshire for one of their most ambitious projects ever: to investigate an entire lost Roman town. Hidden under acres of wheat, Cunetio would once have been a bustling market centre. It's also the place where Britain's largest ever coin hoard was found. In the 1970s a pot containing 55,000 Roman coins was discovered, and one of the archaeologists called in to deal with it was Time Team's own Phil Harding. Now, 30 years later, he's back to dig this massive site and to find out how much effort is required to bury 55,000 coins. Over the three days, the scale of the site pushes the Team to the limit. Hampered by driving rain, the archaeologists battle to make sense of trenches that contain hundreds of years' worth of archaeology, while the geophysics team make almost half a million readings to complete the biggest survey ever recorded on Time Team.
#6 - Norman Cross, Cambridgeshire - Death and Dominoes
Season 17 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/3/2010
The Team visit Norman Cross in Cambridgeshire, a site that is over 200 years old and housed the world's first ever purpose-built prisoner of war camp. It has never before been excavated and the team are keen to unearth the final resting place of almost 2,000 prisoners who died at the camp, but what they discover takes them all by surprise.
#7 - Governor's Green, Portsmouth - Governor's Green
Season 17 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/24/2010
Tony Robinson and the team head to Governor's Green in Portsmouth, where they search for the site of a 13th-century hospital founded by monks. Although part of the building still stands, the whereabouts of the rest of it remain shrouded in mystery - and initial evidence from the trenches makes the task even more confusing, leading to a clash between the diggers and the surveyors.
#8 - Dinmore Hill, Herefordshire - Commanding Heights
Season 17 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/7/2010
Tony Robinson and the Team climb a remote Herefordshire hill to investigate one of the biggest prehistoric sites ever featured on Time Team. Aerial photographs and dogged local investigation suggest Dinmore Hill may have been a vast Iron Age hill fort. Can the diggers find the evidence to confirm this important discover
#9 - Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire - In The Halls Of A Saxon King
Season 17 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/9/2010
In Sutton Courtenay Tony Robinson and the Team investigate a set of buildings once occupied by Anglo Saxon royalty. It's the rarest of archaeological sites and uncovers the biggest Saxon building ever discovered in Britain. Aerial photography of an apparently featureless Oxfordshire field revealed crop marks that suggested to archaeologists it was once the site of an impressive collection of 1,400-year-old buildings; but Time Team's digging expertise was needed to verify this. The trenches are big and the archaeology complicated but slowly the Team begin to build up a picture of life here over 1,000 years ago, with the help of heroic Saxon poetry. As well as stunning finds and the perplexing possibility that they have uncovered an Anglo Saxon totem pole, the archaeologists also discover a culture where heroism, story telling and drinking go hand in hand, and learn the finer points of how to insult your colleagues in Old English.
#10 - Hopton Castle, Shropshire - The Massacre In The Cellar
Season 17 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/16/2010
Tony Robinson and the Team visit the remains of Hopton Castle in Shropshire. Although it's picturesque, it was the site of a series of gruesome battles that took place at height of the English Civil War, when a Royalist force laid siege to a small garrison of Parliamentarians inside the castle. The Team use contemporary accounts and the evidence from their own trenches to separate fact from propaganda and piece together a blow-by-blow account of these violent days in 1644. The dig immediately produces evidence of battle. Over three days the archaeology begins to build up a compelling story of how the defenders fought off two attacks, killing hundreds of Royalists, before finally succumbing to the greater numbers of their enemy.
#11 - Burford, Oxfordshire - Priory Engagement
Season 17 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/17/2010
Tony Robinson and the diggers visit the picture postcard perfect Oxfordshire town of Burford to respond to a very special challenge from Time Team's own Professor Mick Aston. Invited to investigate the location of a medieval hospital in the stunning grounds of Burford Priory, Mick found evidence of even earlier archaeology.
#12 - Litlington, Cambridgeshire - There's A Villa Here Somewhere
Season 17 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/31/2010
There's a Villa Here Somewhere: Litlington, Cambridgeshire. The quiet village of Litlington in Cambridgeshire gets the full Time Team treatment as Tony Robinson and the digging team hunt for the missing remains of what is believed to be one of Britain's biggest Roman villas. A mysterious Roman building hidden in a copse and a 19th-century map suggest the next door field contains a massive villa. But little archaeological work has been carried out since the 19th century so the Team's task is to find this missing structure and help the people of Litlington put their town back on the Roman map.
#13 - Tregruk Castle, South Wales - Something for the Weekend
Season 17 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/10/2010
Tony Robinson and the Team find themselves lost in the mists of a Welsh forest as they investigate one of the biggest castles in Britain. Their task is to investigate the castle's mysterious interior and find out how this impressive structure fitted into a network of fortresses built by powerful English barons 700 years ago.