On an archaeological dig along the route of HS2,
archaeologists have uncovered signs of occupation from the
prehistoric to the nineteenth century. Early excavations
revealed signs of bronze age, iron age, and Roman people but
what archaeologists didn't expect to find was the
well-preserved remains of an extensive Elizabeth and Garden.
With comparisons to Kenilworth Castle, and even Hampton Court
Palace, our team of archaeologists led by Wessex
Archaeology have revealed ornamental Elizabethan
Gardens of national significance. So join me as we
explore these tremendous gardens and the aristocratic
families who walked in them as we uncover the history of
Coleshill's past.
So Stuart, tell me a little bit about where we are because all I
can just see is some bricks and ground beneath me. So we're
currently in the back wing of the house so the back right or
the back right wing of the Manor House. So this is the
latest phase of the house that we know about. It's made of red
brick which is probably from the kind of late 1600s maybe
seventeen hundreds. And it's the final phase when the Digbys
are expanding the house before it finally kind of goes into
ruins and they just have tenants in the house. Are we
seeing any examples in the features that you're uncovering
of how the Digby family are expanding the property? So
we're seeing quite a lot of different examples of how
they're expanding the properties So, in this
instance, we're getting kind of red brick and this is how
they're building this area out. In other areas, we're seeing
that they're reusing stone and that can be kind of gray
sandstone, red stone, stone, and that's from the earlier
phases of the house. But we believe now that the majority
of the house was a timber-framed house and much of
that is actually gone now and we're only left with these red
brick structures at the back of the house which are the two
wings. And do we know what this room might have been used for?
So, we suspect this room would have been part of the chambers
of kind of the actual owners of the house. So, we believe you'd
be able to sit here and look out over your gardens that
extended right on into the distance behind you. They would
have had this fantastic view out over their land and into
the ponds and the moats that we have behind us as well. So this
would be in a great spot to look out over everything that
you've done and because it's slightly elevated you would be
able to see all the geometric patterns of the gardens really
well from this point. So would this position of the wing have
been uh connected to the gardens in any way by having
that special view? So it would have been there's one quite
interesting thing about this area and it's all the brick
plumps that run along to the right-hand side of us now and
what it appears to be is the external western gardens that
extends right out into the distance. They're almost split
into two different areas. So, they're split into like one
section to the right and one section to the left and it
appears that this wall was a big dividing line so it would
have forced your view down just to one section of the garden.
So, when you went into other areas, you'd be able to see
different sections of it. So, just giving you this kind of
element of different geometric patterns and kind of the
element of surprise when you have visitors to show around
your gardens. Well, and do you know any about the
status of the family who lived here? Yeah they were really
high status and we know that they did a lot of work in the
kind of the local area for the local community and kind of
with charity as well. But we know kind of the construction
methods they're using kind of the brick work is just
fantastic. And there's some really good quality sandstone
in Ashlar that we've seen here. And some of the pottery and the
glass that we've seen has been exceptional. The the kind of
thinness of the glass that we've had. I haven't seen
anywhere else. It's just so well made. And it's almost like
little pieces of stained glass windows that you would find in
the church that you can just imagine kind of in this wing so
you'd be looking out through these little pieces of glass um
that went out into the gardens and this is something that
hasn't been seen or looked through in kind of kind of two,
three, four, 500 years. So are we looking at at an Elizabethan
Manor House in this area then? So Elizabethans quite
difficult. So we know the house is here in the Elizabethhan
period but we suspect at the moment there's phases that are
Elizabethan but the majority of it might be slightly later so
we might be looking at the Jackobean periods or even
towards the reformation in those periods so it looks like
it's a consistent or consistent development over time. So
they're starting with a smaller building adding wings on over
time as their wealth increases and their status gets higher.
And I can see there's perhaps what it's like tiles or brick
in front of us. Is this is this the floor surface? So it's
quite interesting. So the ones that we're looking out kind of
at us now that these are actually the foot path leading
to the back door of the house. So you would have led walked
out from the kind of the back gardens along this foot path to
the back door that's here. And what's quite interesting is we
actually have a sketch of this backdoor um that's been kindly
sent to us and that image just shows the back door really well
and kind of this whole wall structure around here and then
vines growing up the walls creating like this really nice
kind of image of what the house would have looked like and
quite a pleasant garden that you would have had and you
would have been able to access it from this path that's right
in front of us now. Amy so I can see that we're standing in
what is now called the the great hall. Could you tell me a
little bit about the archaeology that I can see in
front of me? Absolutely yeah. So great hall generally
we've got a size of maybe about eight meters by twelve meters
long. Um and in the centre of that there is this massive
stone structure here. It would have been a bit bigger um but
what we've got left is on the right hand side er stone half
and then on the left hand side er on edge sandstone er
fireplace. So we imagine kinda like those medieval banquet
halls things like that. Is it similar to this? I think so
yeah I think you're imagining something really glamorous and
beautiful but at the end of the day, there was absolutely zero
chance of getting the smoke out of the room. So, the room would
have been really smoky. There was no sort of traditional
chimney. That all kinda happened around the great
rebuild um where they moved the chimney um and the half to the
to the side of the wall so they could actually get the um the
the smoke out but so sharp, stingy. Absolutely. Little
ages. Oh. Eating meat off the bone. A bit more like that
rather than your traditional, happy, colorful banquet. I'm
sure they had a lot of beautiful food but
realistically you would not have been able to see a lot of
it cuz of the smoke. Um yeah so this is where the Lord Lady
would have held court. Absolutely so we're thinking
more towards the northern end they would be sat um and then
uh at the southern end that's where your sort of audience
would be where they would hold whole court um and then further
further back there was a sort of screen area and that's where
the peasants would be would be standing as well. Wow. So they
wouldn't have a great view but the guys in the front that were
a little bit more lords and ladies they'd be able to have a
really nice view. Again when the fire's perhaps not lit. Um
they'd be able to see see the lord and lady. And what's gonna
happen to all this kind of dark city layer? Cuz that's
presumably contemporary to when the people were having these
kind of dark banquets. Yeah I mean the extent of it is
absolutely incredible. It's it's it's swept pretty much the
entire limit of the walls of both the the western east side.
So the idea is is that we're going to um continue where
we're standing. We're gonna continue excavating um doing a
single context method. So we're gonna take down the lay that
we're on now to reveal the full extent of the black. Then we're
going to um set up a grid system and then within each
grid we're gonna be taking bulk samples and hopefully from that
we'll be able to find out if there is anything else in there
that can tell us a bit more about the date of this. What
what could it be? Could it be like what they're eating? What
they're drinking? Yeah absolutely. Things that they're
eating. Um anything that they might have dropped at the time.
Like all that kind of thing um within a sort of microscopic
scale and also what we're seeing when we're actually um
trowling. It's absolutely beautiful to trowel. It's it
feels off and when something sort of stands out that
dramatically a bit of iron, a bit of pot, um you can pick
that out straight away. So, that kind of thing we're
finding by eye but anything we can't see, hopefully they'll be
able to tell us post excavation and just to kind of sum up what
what is it like digging on a site like this? I wish I had
words. Um honestly, it's it's so it's so incredible like I
think you do have to step back a little bit. Obviously, we
cover this up every day but when you do get a chance to
reveal it and it just looks like this. It does really take
your breath away like it's beautiful and I don't think
we're ever gonna come across anything like this again.
Certainly not um certainly not in in my kind of career. I
can't imagine that I'm gonna be able to work on a site like
this with a team like this. It's been it's been awesome.
It's been really really good fun. Um and we've just learned
so much from the area and from each other. It's been good.