Alice Roberts
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This was shown on BBC2 over three consecutive Mondays, featuring an all-Italian excavation of the abandoned city and the British volcanologist Dr. Chris Jackson. It featured the familiar story of the two-day eruption and pyrochastic flow killing thousands, including Pliny the Elder, before they could escape as many ran from the lava towards the sea…
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Digging for Britain (series 11)
Alice Roberts, bags, bath houses, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chedworth, defences, digging for Britain, docks, dodecahedrons, Domesday Book, Dorset, Dover, Enfield, evacuation, Exeter Cathedral, flint tools, forty hall, Gloucester, Grampians, gun emplacement, Henry V, Hereford, Imber, Kent, Leicester cathedral, Lincoln, Lowther Castle, Marshes, mosaic tiles, mudlarking, Norfolk, Northampton, norton disney, nunneries, Owain Glyn Dwr, Platonic solids, postern gates, pubs, Roman Britain, roundhouses, Scotland, Septimus Severus, shoes, Smallhythe, Snodhill Castle, Strathclyde, Syston, timber, Tintern Abbey, trade, Trellau Park, Wales, Waterloo, William II, WW2 defences, WyeAs another year dawns, it must be time for another series of Britain’s archeological highlights, divided into five regions. This time, it started in the north with Carlisle Cricket Club hosting a dig associated with the bathhouse of the emperor Septimius Severus, a particularly steep part of the Grampians and Lowther Castle, a site that…
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Royal Autopsy, a documentary series dealing with the recreated post-mortems of Charles II and Elizabeth I….
Alice Roberts, autopsies, Bethlem, Bezoar, blood letting, Brett Lockyer, bronchopneumonia, Charles II, Chelsea Physic Garden, clocks, Edmund King, Elizabeth I, emetics, executions, four humours, hair analysis, Hartshorn, Henry VII, James VI/I, John Dee, Jonathan Goddard, malaria, Mary Stuart, microscope, Nell Jones, parotitis, Rainbow Portrait, renaissance, Richmond Palace, Robert Cecil, Royal Autopsy, Royal Society, scars, sepsis, Sir Charles Scarburgh, Sky History, smallpox, Spanish fly, stroke, succession, sugar, syphilis, teeth, toxicology, Wellcome Collection, white leadI confess to having doubts about watching this two-part series on the Sky History channel because I envisaged CGI overkill with odious (but hopefully by then dead) parasites etc., and so I started viewing with the firm intention of stopping the moment it became too horribly wriggly and gory. No wriggles, but the gory…
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Wanted …
Albert Dock, Alice Roberts, ampitheatres, anchorites, Anglo-Dutch Wars, Anglo-Saxon burials, animal bones, Antony Bek, Auckland Castle, Bishop’s Stortford, Blitz, Cat Jarman, chapels, Cheshire, Civil War, cobalt mines, Coleshill Manor, copper, Cornwall, debased coinage, demolition, digging for Britain, docks, Dorchester, Dorset, Edinburgh, Elizabeth I, English Channel, fire, fireplaces, flint tools, forts, Harlaxton Hall, Haverfordwest, henges, Henry VIII, hill forts, Holyrood Park, HS2, Hull, Iron Age, Isabelle German, Islay, jewellery, Lincolnshire, Liverpool, Loftus, Londonderry, matriarchy, Mercia, midlands, Mint, Neolithic Era, Old Coppernose, osteoparosis, Oxford, Peterborough, piermasters, prince bishops, Priories, recolouring, rheumatoid arthritis, Robert Greville Lord Brooke, Roche, Roman baths, Romans, roundhouses, Rutland, Rutland mosaic, salting, Scarborough, shields, sieges, silver plating, South Blockhouse, spiral staircases, Stane Street, Streethouse, Stuart Prior, syphilis, The Anarchy, Thomas Hardy, Tower of London, Vespasian, Victorians, volcanoes, Wessex Archaeology, Western Isles, Wiltshire, York, YorkshireDigging for Britain is back, just twenty hours into the New Year, for series 10 (excluding a few specials). Alice Roberts is still the host, with Cat Jarman and Stuart Prior. The first episode included a Roman road in Bishop’s Stortford, an Iron Age matriarchy excavated in Dorset and a Lady of the Mercians (but…
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Not what you expect with a water bill!
Alice Roberts, Anglian Water, Cat Jarman, Cerne Abbas Giant, churches, digging for Britain, Hadrian’s Wall, HS2, ichtyosaur, industrialisation, Iron Age, Leicester, Norman architecture, Northern Ireland, Onyeka Nubia, Richmond Castle, Rochdale, Roman mosaic, Roman plumbing, Rutland, Rutland Water, Salisbury Plain, Stoke Mandeville, World War TwoI also received this from Anglia Water about the “Rutland Sea Dragon”, an ichtyosaur found near Rutland Water. It featured in episode four of Digging for Britain, the latest series of which was shown over two weeks in January. As ever, Alice Roberts was the main presenter, alongside Dr. Onyeka Nubia and Dr. Cat Jarman.…
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I have just watched an episode of Digging for Britain (2014, series 3, episode 3, entitled “North”) in which Alice Roberts presented a section about an archaeological dig that had at that time been going on for five years at a large 15th-century hall owned by Sir John Conyers. Sir John had served both Edward…
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Britain’s Most Historic Towns (2)
“Tudors”, Alice Roberts, ATS, Ben Robinson, Black Death, Bristol, Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral, Cardiff, Channel Four, Charles I, chocolate, city walls, coal, defences, Demonology, Dover, dressing up, Dunkirk, Edwardian era, England, English Civil War, Flodden, France, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, Georgian era, gin, Henry VIII, James III, James IV, James V, James VI/I, Magna Carta, Marquess of Bute, Mary Stuart, New Model Army, Oxford, Peasants’ Revolt, Plantagenet era, real tennis, Rough Wooing, Sauchieburn, Scottish Reformation, Second World War, Siege of Oxford, slavery, Solway Moss, St. Augustine, Stewarts, Stirling, Stirling Castle, Thomas Becket, witchcraftThis excellent Channel Four programme, presented by Professor Alice Roberts, with Dr. Ben Robinson in the helicopter, has returned for a new series. The early venues were Dover (World War Two, visiting the underground base, concentrating on the retreat from Dunkirk and subsequent Channel defence, meeting some survivors, wearing ATS uniform and riding in a…
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Britain’s most historic towns
“Tudors”, Alice Roberts, Battle of Bosworth, Belfast, canary, Channel Four, Cheltenham, Chester, ducking stool, Earl of Oxford, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, executions, fools, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Francis Kett, Henry VII, Henry VIII, heresy, Jasper “Tudor”, justice, Kett Rebellion, Lollards’ Pit, Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Low Countries, Mary I, medieval clothes, Morris dancing, Mousehold Heath, Norwich, Norwich Guildhall, pubs, punishments, Reformation, refugees, Robert Kett, Shakespeare, sumptuary laws, weavers, Wensum, Will Kemp, Winchester, YorkThis excellent Channel Four series reached part four on 28th April as Dr. Alice Roberts came to Norwich, showing streets, civic buildings and even a pub that I have previously visited, describing it as Britain’s most “Tudor” town. She began by describing Henry VII as “violently seizing” the English throne (or at least watching whilst…