The New Murrey and Blue blog

This excellent series began with a pilot last April, with Hugh Dennis and three archaeologists looking for a Roman settlement on the site of a former inn in Maidstone’s Florence Road. It resumed in February with the small team moving to Benwell, Newcastle, to locate a Hadrian’s Wall fort, followed by a Viking burial ground in Masham, Yorkshire, including the back of an existing pub. Here, one body buried facing east was re-interred in a local churchyard after Professor Caroline Wilkinson, of Richard III and Robert I fame, recreated his face, showing a resemblance to Sean Bean. They proceeded to Lenton in Nottinghamshire, to seek the remains of a priory pertaining to William I, with several householders’ permission, of course, then to South Shields for a World War Two dig, with Andy Robertshaw. Trow Point isn’t actually in a garden but a large clifftop gun emplacement from the World Wars, with some thoughts of a Bronze Age burial mound on site, although it wasn’t to be.

Each episode ended with Hugh, son of a Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, throwing a party for the local residents to exhibit their finds. This programme feels like watching Time Team, but with fewer archaeologists and a less intense atmosphere.