0:00:06 > 0:00:10This is the story of one place through the whole of English history.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15Even little Kibworth had it's Norman castle.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18It's a statement of intent, isn't it?
0:00:18 > 0:00:21This is what you've really come to see.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24To tell the tale we'll be using medieval manuscripts,
0:00:24 > 0:00:27letters, diaries, photos, and the latest science.
0:00:27 > 0:00:33That timber and all the other timbers in that range are probably felled in 1385.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37But our biggest help will come from the villagers themselves...
0:00:39 > 0:00:45..reading the texts of their ancestors, digging pits, and doing surveys of their medieval fields.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48- The other side of the hedge. - That's cheating.- No, it wasn't!
0:00:48 > 0:00:50I done that earlier.
0:00:50 > 0:00:55And for once, this is not the tale of the rulers.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58Of course, you can always tell history through the stories of King and Queens
0:00:58 > 0:01:02but it's only when you look at it through the lives of the ordinary people,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06and see how our society has developed over time,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09how our rights and duties have evolved, and how waves of newcomers
0:01:09 > 0:01:14have shaped and changed us, that you begin to understand who we really are.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27"I go out at day-break and drive the oxen.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30"It's hard work because I am not free."
0:01:30 > 0:01:34"1349, John Church, Reeve.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37"The following tenants died of the pestilence.
0:01:37 > 0:01:42"Emma Cook, Alice Arran, John Church Snr,
0:01:42 > 0:01:45"Agnes Polle, Robert Polle..."
0:01:45 > 0:01:49"I was born on March 12, 1783.
0:01:49 > 0:01:54"I had no education, for instead of school I was set to lace making."
0:01:55 > 0:01:59"I expect that you have heard that our regiment has been in a big fight.
0:01:59 > 0:02:04"The enemy's trench taken at bayonet point but Lance Corporal Fisher was killed."
0:02:04 > 0:02:07- Did you know you had family here? - Yeah.- So that's him.- Yeah, must be.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16"The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicestershire."
0:03:16 > 0:03:19It's written in the 1780s and '90s.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27And here, the first detailed account of Kibworth.
0:03:27 > 0:03:34"In ancient writing's called Chiburde, is situated on the great turnpike road from London,
0:03:34 > 0:03:41"nine miles distant from Leicester and five from Harborough, the nearest market town.
0:03:41 > 0:03:47"It consists of three hamlets, Kibworth Beauchamp, or Lower Kibworth,
0:03:47 > 0:03:51"Kibworth Harcourt, Upper Kibworth,
0:03:51 > 0:03:59"and Smeeton Westerby, now considered as one hamlet although actually two distinct villages.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02"The church, dedicated to St Wilfrid,
0:04:02 > 0:04:09"pleasantly situated on a considerable eminence amid a group of trees."
0:04:13 > 0:04:18Now, if that makes Kibworth sound like a bit of an idyll,
0:04:18 > 0:04:20of course it's not.
0:04:25 > 0:04:30It's a real place in today's Britain, the kind of place most of us live in now.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40It's got housing estates, Chinese and Indian take-aways, and traffic!
0:04:43 > 0:04:47But like every place, it carries the marks of history.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51This was the main London road in the 18th century.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55And the fancy pizzeria, the Boboli, was one of the coaching inns.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58There were seven or eight of them just along this street.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00Bricked up coaching entrance there.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03They sold more than food and drink, some of them.
0:05:05 > 0:05:12It's the same anywhere in England, you only have to look, and the stories leap out.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15That's my aunt Annie.
0:05:15 > 0:05:20And with a little help you can begin to piece together the picture.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23There'd been a telephone exchange here at sometime.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27You can watch the great events of the nation through local eyes.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31And see how our ancestors really lived.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35There's no way that William Herrick is going to be looking after his house,
0:05:35 > 0:05:37that's what you people are for.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42And whether you're reading the village newspaper from the Second World War...
0:05:42 > 0:05:44"Christmas greetings, happy family reunions.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47"Good luck and success in Civvy Street."
0:05:47 > 0:05:51..Or the treasure trove of medieval manuscripts in the school box.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54The first two boxes, the early stuff, is here.
0:05:54 > 0:06:00And the really oldest material, we're going back to the 1350s.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Our ancestors will always surprise us.
0:06:02 > 0:06:07We're not just talking about one literate man every 20 miles,
0:06:07 > 0:06:09they're all over the place.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12And they're writing and they're writing!
0:06:13 > 0:06:16But why choose Kibworth?
0:06:18 > 0:06:23Kibworth is right in the centre of the country and from the 1200s
0:06:23 > 0:06:25it's got the most wonderful set of documents
0:06:25 > 0:06:29that enable you to tell the story of ordinary peoples' lives.
0:06:29 > 0:06:30But it doesn't stop then.
0:06:30 > 0:06:38In the industrial revolution, it's got canals and railways and framework knitting and factories.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41In other words, in this one place
0:06:41 > 0:06:44you can tell the whole story of the nation.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52The search began one summer Saturday morning.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54In answer to our advert on local radio,
0:06:54 > 0:07:00250 villagers gathered at the village hall to help us search for their past.
0:07:05 > 0:07:11First they were going to dig more than 50 archaeological test pits across the village.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18And they had to do it professionally, supervised by the experts.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20APPLAUSE
0:07:23 > 0:07:26This is going to be a brilliant weekend. It's fantastic to see so many people.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30The record booklet is effectively, it's this thing here,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33it's a pro forma recording system.
0:07:33 > 0:07:40You'll be digging your test pit, which is a metre square, in a series of 10cm slices.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44Each of those 10cm slices we call a context.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47Good luck, have fun.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51Now, like most places in England,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55Kibworth is only recorded for the first time in 1086, in Domesday Book.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Before then, its history is a blank.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02So what could archaeology tell us about its beginnings?
0:08:02 > 0:08:04That was our first task.
0:08:04 > 0:08:09This is part of the old medieval village of Harcourt here.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14This whole three villages at the moment is complete darkness really,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16in terms of what we know about physically what's there,
0:08:16 > 0:08:21what really was going on. If we can do 50 test pits that just throws the lights on.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26It's knockout, isn't it? We've got phenomenal documents for this bit, not bad for that.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37The Home Guard used to practise here, and there were some unspent bullets just around this area.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39I'm hoping to find something good.
0:08:43 > 0:08:44Tape measure just there, darling.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50- Yes, it must have been bigger originally.- You're doing great.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Hi, everybody.
0:08:53 > 0:08:58That's a bit of clay pipe, for example, so again this ordinary Victorian,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01early 20th century household. They're the precursors to cigarettes.
0:09:02 > 0:09:07We found shoe heels and belt buckles and stuff.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11We keep on finding rocks.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14We found some pieces of pot!
0:09:14 > 0:09:16That's the tibia from a sheep.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21At the start, our clues were just broken bits of pottery,
0:09:21 > 0:09:25but it's amazing what an expert can get out of them.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28What we've actually got is pretty much every major pottery type
0:09:28 > 0:09:31- going back to about 1450.- Fantastic!
0:09:31 > 0:09:36Earliest bit we've got is that, which is Midland Purple, that's about 1400, 1450.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38It could be as early as 1350, it's one of those types
0:09:38 > 0:09:41we haven't got nailed down, but it's certainly post-Black Death.
0:09:41 > 0:09:46This place has been occupied certainly since 1400 I'd say, and maybe even 1350
0:09:46 > 0:09:51because you've got this, which dates to about 1470, 1500.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55That, which is about 1580, 1600.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59That's about 1680 to 1700, that's 1720 to 1750.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04And then you've got the 19th century stuff as well. So, bang, full house!
0:10:04 > 0:10:10So, a 650-year run of pottery in these trays.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15'And then one piece got us all excited.'
0:10:15 > 0:10:17Very nice. Let me just dry it off.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20If that's what I think that is....
0:10:20 > 0:10:25It's a piece of really, really beaten up Samian ware, 1st or 2nd century.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29- I cannot believe it! - So that's Roman.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33'By the afternoon, we'd got more Roman.'
0:10:33 > 0:10:35Yes, OK.
0:10:36 > 0:10:43Lots of cobbles and we found some teeth, three teeth in the other layers.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47- And some Roman pottery. - Yeah, Roman pottery - two pieces.
0:10:47 > 0:10:48Roman? Wow.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53- So did you dig those up yourself? - Yeah.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57- So, has it been fun? - Yeah, it's been amazing, really fab.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01I've never seen these two concentrate so much in our lives.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04Roman pottery.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06Cor, gosh, it's all beautifully bagged.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14That is great, 4th century maybe?
0:11:19 > 0:11:25So it was only the first day and we already had Roman, Iron Age,
0:11:25 > 0:11:28Beaker people, and prehistoric flints.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36- So, how's it been, Richard? - I've kind of lost the will to live, to be honest with you.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41Yeah, that's natural clay with iron pan in it.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43You'll be delighted to know you can stop.
0:11:45 > 0:11:50But, of course, serious archaeologists just put the kettle on.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Back in the Coach and Horses that first day,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04we already knew that people had lived in the village for thousands of years.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10Absolutely fantastic, the more you know about the village,
0:12:10 > 0:12:13the more you find out about the village, the more intriguing it gets.
0:12:13 > 0:12:19You don't realise the heritage that a village like Harcourt or Beauchamp has.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23I had no interest in any of this before you all came so it's been really...
0:12:23 > 0:12:25a revelation, hasn't it, I think to all of us.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29The bit I liked was the little bit of flint we had, the little chipping.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33And I just imagined the little stone-age man sitting on top of our hill
0:12:33 > 0:12:36just chipping away and looking at a similar view.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44But a village is more than bricks and pot sherds, it's a living community.
0:12:44 > 0:12:51And we know from Domesday Book that Kibworth was already a community in 1086.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53So how did that happen?
0:12:53 > 0:12:56How far back does Kibworth really go?
0:12:56 > 0:13:00Was it a village under the Romans?
0:13:00 > 0:13:04After all, Leicester nearby was an important Roman city.
0:13:06 > 0:13:11To try to find out more, I went back to the first archaeologists.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15Back in the 1700s, there were discoveries made in Kibworth,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19a horde of Roman coins, and even a Roman inscription lost long ago.
0:13:22 > 0:13:23Just have a look at this.
0:13:23 > 0:13:30Here's the Ordnance Survey map from the 1880s, which actually marks one of these discoveries.
0:13:30 > 0:13:37Here's Kibworth Harcourt and in the 1810s,
0:13:37 > 0:13:38and then in the 1850s,
0:13:38 > 0:13:43on this mound in the middle of the village, behind the allotments,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46the Munt, fragments of Roman pottery were discovered.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49And you see they're actually marked by the Ordnance Survey here.
0:13:49 > 0:13:56And they also at the same time dug a derelict medieval windmill mound
0:13:56 > 0:14:00on the edge of the village and found more Roman pottery.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04And close by there in the late 1960s,
0:14:04 > 0:14:12a coin of the Emperor Constantine was discovered from the 330s along with fragments of Roman roof tiles.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17So had there been some large Roman building in that area?
0:14:17 > 0:14:21If we're going to search for a Roman predecessor to Kibworth
0:14:21 > 0:14:25then my guess would be that's where you should look.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40And who better to help us than the local experts,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42a group from neighbouring Hallaton
0:14:42 > 0:14:47who are specialists in detecting what lies beneath the soil.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50ELECTRONIC BEEPING This is a magnetometer.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55What it specialises in doing is detecting changes in the earth's magnetism
0:14:55 > 0:14:58caused by the presence of buried archaeological remains.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06Where this technique is at it's best really is at identifying things like
0:15:06 > 0:15:11the presence of ditches and gullies, pits, wells.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16But more often than not it's the individual plots within which buildings may be found.
0:15:20 > 0:15:26I'd brought with me an account from a local journal of finds made here in Victorian times.
0:15:29 > 0:15:37"1863, large bell-shaped barrow surrounded by a ditch north-west of the village, east of the road.
0:15:37 > 0:15:42"Opened early in the last century...", which is early 1800s,
0:15:42 > 0:15:46"..and again in 1863 - fragments of bone, Samian pottery,
0:15:46 > 0:15:51"a layer of black soil, ashes, pieces of burnt wood, pieces of Roman pottery and a pavement."
0:15:51 > 0:15:55- So there is a Roman villa or building site somewhere here, isn't there?- Yep.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59All sorts of clues.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06Oh, that's pretty good, let's process that one a bit more.
0:16:11 > 0:16:17Oh, it's fabulous, here's our 60m wide, 200m long strip
0:16:17 > 0:16:23and there in the top left-hand corner is the mill mound, clear as a whistle.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25And coming down at the bottom part,
0:16:25 > 0:16:28a whole series of rectangular enclosures,
0:16:28 > 0:16:31classic ditches that we see on a Roman farm or a Roman villa.
0:16:31 > 0:16:36Well, this afternoon we clearly need to do another strip about 20m wide down this end
0:16:36 > 0:16:38so that we can get the rest of the mill mound
0:16:38 > 0:16:41and the south-western corner of our Roman settlement.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44Then we're going to extend as far across this field to the north
0:16:44 > 0:16:47to see what else we can find.
0:16:49 > 0:16:56We did this field, picked up about 13, 14 bits of Iron Age pottery, which is quite a lot,
0:16:56 > 0:17:01and there were these rib bones which were definitely human at the time.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03They turned out to be pig bones later on!
0:17:06 > 0:17:09But those pig bones led the Hallaton Group
0:17:09 > 0:17:14to the greatest Iron Age treasure ever found in Britain.
0:17:14 > 0:17:21In 2000, they unearthed bowls, bracelets, ingots and thousands of coins.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23The Hallaton Treasure.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27It was buried near Kibworth at a shrine of the ancient British people
0:17:27 > 0:17:31who lived in this area, the Corieltauvi.
0:17:31 > 0:17:38The coins even name some of their kings, Vepo and Volisios and Dumnocoveros,
0:17:38 > 0:17:42who ruled here on the eve of the Roman conquest in the 1st century.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54Over the next few days, fitted in at weekends or after work,
0:17:54 > 0:17:56the Hallaton Group mapped the whole villa.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03It turned out to have been laid out
0:18:03 > 0:18:06over a settlement of circular huts of the ancient Britons
0:18:06 > 0:18:08not long after the Roman conquest.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17You could never have imagined in your wildest dreams
0:18:17 > 0:18:21that here in this field, we'd turn up a huge Roman villa
0:18:21 > 0:18:24with all it's ancillary buildings and courtyards
0:18:24 > 0:18:28and evidence of life back in the Iron Age and the Bronze Age.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32It's a whole new beginning to the story of Kibworth.
0:18:46 > 0:18:52So there had been a community here, even before the Romans, which had continued under Roman rule.
0:19:00 > 0:19:06The finds at the villa now focused our attention on the mysterious mound in the middle of the village,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09known locally as The Munt.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14There are old stories that it was a Roman burial mound.
0:19:14 > 0:19:19And now we know there was a Roman villa nearby, could that be true?
0:19:21 > 0:19:26Could it even be the tomb of one of those kings of the Corieltauvi
0:19:26 > 0:19:28who became a local landowner under the Romans?
0:19:34 > 0:19:37There's lots of local legends about the Munt.
0:19:37 > 0:19:44Some people say it was from the time of the ancient Britons or Vikings or that it was a Norman castle mound.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48But in the 1860s there was an excavation here
0:19:48 > 0:19:54that dug a trench into the mound and 9ft down found the remain of a burial chamber,
0:19:54 > 0:20:01stone-lined, with bone and ash, and an iron lampstand and fragments of pottery.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03Roman pottery.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07So Kibworth was a Roman settlement
0:20:07 > 0:20:10and maybe the Munt was the tomb of a British chief
0:20:10 > 0:20:12living there under Roman rule.
0:20:12 > 0:20:18We'd found Roman pottery through Harcourt and Beauchamp, down to Smeeton Westerby.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24And it's easy to see why the Romans chose to live here.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28It's a wonderful little enclave.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31When you walk along the main street of Kibworth Beauchamp,
0:20:31 > 0:20:34you'd never suspect that this lies here.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36A lot of people don't know it's here.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40There was good soil, and above all, good water.
0:20:40 > 0:20:46I think there's about 20 wells just in Harcourt, along this low ridge.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48Yes, quite a lot down this road too.
0:20:48 > 0:20:53Where the double gates are, there's a well there, that holds a lot of water I understand.
0:20:53 > 0:20:55The pump used to work.
0:20:55 > 0:21:00It would work again if I had it primed but I haven't had it primed for several years now.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03When I was a little girl they used to pump up twice a day,
0:21:03 > 0:21:09the two chaps that worked here, Huckleby and Grewcock were their names.
0:21:12 > 0:21:17So that's why the Romans liked it here.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23"How lucky are you are, you Britons," wrote one Roman poet.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27"More blessed than any other land,
0:21:27 > 0:21:31"endowed by nature with every benefit of soil and climate.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35"Your winters are not too cold, your summers are not too hot.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39"And to make life even more pleasant...
0:21:39 > 0:21:46"..your days are long and your nights short, so while to an Italian,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50"the sun may appear to go down, in Britain it just seems to go past!"
0:21:53 > 0:21:59Lino opened Kibworth's first Italian restaurant, at least, since the 4th century!
0:22:01 > 0:22:06We took it on three years ago and Italianised it.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11The Boboli Gardens in Kibworth, not Florence.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14It's great, with the Munt behind you.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38But civilisations decline and fall.
0:22:38 > 0:22:46Around 400AD, the Roman Empire went into decline. There were many reasons.
0:22:46 > 0:22:52Costly foreign wars, food crises, greedy bankers, climate change...
0:22:52 > 0:22:54sounds familiar?
0:22:54 > 0:22:59In 410, the Romans pulled their garrisons out of Britain
0:22:59 > 0:23:05and soon all the achievements of Roman civilisation had gone.
0:23:08 > 0:23:15It must have seemed scarcely believable - all these great achievements of Roman civilisation,
0:23:15 > 0:23:22the theatres, the civic buildings, the bathhouse, all of them falling into ruin.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37So Britannia went back to basics.
0:23:40 > 0:23:46In history, it's always surprising how swiftly the veneer of civilisation can be lost,
0:23:46 > 0:23:49how knowledge is forgotten.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54Maybe this is what will happen when the petrol runs out?
0:23:56 > 0:24:00The elites go, and with them the know-how.
0:24:00 > 0:24:05In technology we won't match the Romans again until the 18th century.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15So the villas are abandoned, murals crumble,
0:24:15 > 0:24:18mosaics break up,
0:24:18 > 0:24:21and with them, a whole view of the world.
0:24:26 > 0:24:28The original people, of course, remain.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31They're still the basis of our DNA today.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37But now we start to hear of newcomers, economic migrants,
0:24:37 > 0:24:44more and more of them inviting their countrymen and women from across the North Sea in Germany and Denmark.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46They are the Anglo-Saxons.
0:24:48 > 0:24:54This is one of the routes those early Anglo-Saxon migrants took into the heart of England.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58And it's an Anglo-Saxon landscape.
0:24:58 > 0:25:04There's an Anglo-Saxon cemetery up on that hill above us.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10It's called Knave's Hill, from the Anglo-Saxon word "knaffe", meaning "young man" or a "young warrior".
0:25:10 > 0:25:13And even better is this little stream here
0:25:13 > 0:25:18which flows down from Kibworth area into the River Welland.
0:25:18 > 0:25:23It's called the Langton Caudle today, the cold well, or the cold spring.
0:25:23 > 0:25:25But it's got an older name.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28It used to be called the Lipping,
0:25:28 > 0:25:35and over in Schleswig on the German-Danish border, there's still a river called the Lipping,
0:25:35 > 0:25:42in the region called Angeln, the very place where the Angels, the early English, came from.
0:25:42 > 0:25:43Isn't that wonderful?
0:25:47 > 0:25:50What you guys need to be doing, you just need to get this broken up,
0:25:50 > 0:25:52sorted through as quickly as possible.
0:25:54 > 0:25:59And back in the Big Dig in Kibworth, amazingly the regulars at the Coach and Horses
0:25:59 > 0:26:02found their traces underneath the car park.
0:26:04 > 0:26:09Unless I'm very much mistaken, and I don't think I am, that's a bit of early Saxon pottery.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13Now we're talking 5th, 6th century, 7th maybe, something like that.
0:26:13 > 0:26:20So it's the first bit of Pagan period Saxon I've seen from the entire dig from all the test pits.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30That is a piece of an Anglo-Saxon bone comb.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32- Around 500 maybe? - Yeah, give or take.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35A little bit earlier or later, but that's pre-700.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38From the Coach and Horses car park, who would have believed it?
0:26:38 > 0:26:41A most incredible...
0:26:41 > 0:26:44It's amazing how such a tiny piece can be so evocative
0:26:44 > 0:26:49in terms of, well, our imaginings about the early people of Kibworth.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54An Anglo-Saxon comb from maybe around the year 500.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58The newcomers were a minority.
0:26:58 > 0:27:00Around them most people still spoke Welsh.
0:27:00 > 0:27:05In fact, we can only trace the new migrants by their grave goods,
0:27:05 > 0:27:11their burial urns, their bone combs, like the one we found.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15But one of them was buried close to Kibworth.
0:27:16 > 0:27:24We know that she was in her very early twenties at latest because of the way that the bones are fused.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28There's one last bone on your big toe that fuses when you're 21 or 22
0:27:28 > 0:27:30and that hadn't happened yet.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33So we know pretty precisely how old she was.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36Well-built, about five foot six inches tall.
0:27:36 > 0:27:39And what part of society do you think she came from?
0:27:39 > 0:27:45She came from the top of society, I mean she was found in 1866
0:27:45 > 0:27:48but we haven't found a better-furnished grave.
0:27:48 > 0:27:55And not only are there are a lot of things with her but they are exotic things.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59You've got the glass beaker at the top there, that's probably come from the Rhineland.
0:27:59 > 0:28:04The early Saxons had similar sort of beliefs to the Vikings, they believed in the feasting halls of the Gods,
0:28:04 > 0:28:06which you went to after you died.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09And like all well-brought up people she takes a bottle with her
0:28:09 > 0:28:13when she's going to a party, particularly one that's going to last for eternity.
0:28:13 > 0:28:18And tell us about the jewellery, these very perfectly-preserved pieces.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20They look as if they were made yesterday.
0:28:20 > 0:28:25These are essentially glorified safety pins, they hold her dress together.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27One of them on each shoulder.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30She was wearing a tube dress, so just basically a tube of cloth
0:28:30 > 0:28:35that's held up here on the shoulders with these two big safety pins.
0:28:35 > 0:28:41And then on the back of one of these brooches there is a woollen thread tied around the spring,
0:28:41 > 0:28:47which almost certainly is the cord for this swag of beads
0:28:47 > 0:28:50that went round here from brooch to brooch.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55That's the way that Anglo-Saxons wore their beads, not round the neck,
0:28:55 > 0:28:59so you saw all of them, none of them were hidden round the back.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03And, of course, at the centre of that is a bear claw,
0:29:03 > 0:29:06these are lucky charms which ward off the evil eye.
0:29:06 > 0:29:13- And here, very interesting, these little pieces lined and notched pattern.- Stylised keys.
0:29:13 > 0:29:19Roman women wore actual keys on their belt to show that they were in charge of the household.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23Anglo-Saxon women, although sometimes you find functional keys, wear these stylised ones.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26They seem to give the same message without opening a door.
0:29:26 > 0:29:32So it suggests that even though she was relatively young was in charge of a household.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39She was probably first or second generation Anglo-Saxon settler.
0:29:41 > 0:29:45Whether she is an Anglo-Saxon ethnically is another story entirely.
0:29:45 > 0:29:51All of those sites that had Romans on them at the end of the Roman period have Anglo-Saxon pottery on them,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54in 500, or whenever that pottery is coming in.
0:29:54 > 0:30:00My guess is that they are the very same people who, in some cases,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03whose family were there as Iron Age people before the Romans got there,
0:30:03 > 0:30:07and have gone all the way through and then re-emerge as Anglo-Saxons
0:30:07 > 0:30:10when that is the way that the wind is blowing.
0:30:14 > 0:30:20One straw in the wind, and it is only a tiny little straw, is this Roman bead.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24I like to think that maybe that was her grandmother's bead that she wears.
0:30:24 > 0:30:29All these Anglo-Saxon beads and one Roman just to maybe think about that side of her family.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39Those first Anglo-Saxons were pagans,
0:30:39 > 0:30:42barbarians, as the Romans saw them -
0:30:42 > 0:30:46scratching their runes, weaving their spells.
0:30:46 > 0:30:52They worshipped the gods of Storm and Forest, Woden and Thunor, at the Holy Oak near Kibworth.
0:30:54 > 0:31:00But then, towards 600, back in Rome, Pope Gregory sent Christian missionaries
0:31:00 > 0:31:05to bring the lost province of Britain back into the fold of civilisation.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08Just as the heartland of Christianity
0:31:08 > 0:31:12was about to fall to Arab armies bearing the new faith of Islam,
0:31:12 > 0:31:20Roman missionaries went West, to seek new converts for Christ among the northern barbarians.
0:31:26 > 0:31:32One day, the Pope was walking through a slave market in Rome and he saw a group of slaves
0:31:32 > 0:31:37who were fair-skinned, blond-haired and blue-eyed and he asked who they were.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41And the answer was "Anglisun", they're Angles, English.
0:31:41 > 0:31:46The Pope though was so taken by their appearance that he answered,
0:31:46 > 0:31:50"Non Anglisun sed Angeli", they're not Angles, they're angels.
0:31:50 > 0:31:56The English loved this story, it almost made them into a kind of chosen people.
0:31:56 > 0:32:01The gens Anglorum, the race of the Angles, the English people!
0:32:01 > 0:32:06And ever since, although it was the Saxons who created the Kingdom of England,
0:32:06 > 0:32:10we weren't Saxonish, we were English.
0:32:21 > 0:32:29So, in the 7th and 8th centuries, the people of Kibworth became part of the Christian Kingdom of Mercia.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33This is a completely unknown period in the village story.
0:32:33 > 0:32:37But in the Big Dig we found one tantalising clue.
0:32:41 > 0:32:46OK, so, test pit 41, you've got here. This is Smeeton.
0:32:46 > 0:32:48Yes, this is really quite sensational.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53Oh, dear, I've had too much of this sensation already today.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58It's a nice assortment of late 11th into early 12th century.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01But we've got one bit of earlier pottery mixed in with that.
0:33:01 > 0:33:07This rather grotty and quite dull looking grey sherd is the missing piece of the jigsaw.
0:33:07 > 0:33:13It's Middle Saxon, Ipswich ware, which dates to between about 720 and 850.
0:33:13 > 0:33:15Well, that's very interesting.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17I don't think we've got any of that.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19And neither's anybody else in Leicestershire.
0:33:19 > 0:33:25It's the first site anywhere in Leicestershire that's produced this particular type of pottery.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28If you take Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire,
0:33:28 > 0:33:30there's three sites that have produced it.
0:33:30 > 0:33:35It's usually a sign of either high status or two major route ways meeting.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39I've never seen any from Leicestershire. It wasn't the pots themselves that were being traded,
0:33:39 > 0:33:43it was mainly their contents, probably salt, it's been tied in with the salt trade.
0:33:43 > 0:33:48- Oh, really? So salt to the king's table in this?- Quite possibly, yeah.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53- Now the date you're saying is between the 720s and 850s. - About that, yeah.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58So this is right at the moment when the famous kings of Mercia, like Offa who built his dyke,
0:33:58 > 0:34:02and Ethelbald, they're staying in royal residences all around Kibworth,
0:34:02 > 0:34:04in Gumley and Glen and these places.
0:34:04 > 0:34:09That's the sort of thing you'd expect to find at a royal sentry in this part of the world.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13It makes you want to know more about Cybba,
0:34:13 > 0:34:19whoever he, or was it a she, was, the person who gave their name to this place.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28Like all English villages, Kibworth carries its history in its name.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34Harcourt and Beauchamp for example, come from the Norman Lords after 1066,
0:34:34 > 0:34:38but the name Kibworth itself is much older.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43When did Kibworth become Kibworth?
0:34:43 > 0:34:49Well, as with most English towns and villages, the clues lie in the place name and in the landscape.
0:34:49 > 0:34:55In the later Middle Ages, Kibworth was surrounded by a defensive ditch and hedge
0:34:55 > 0:34:58to keep out outlaws and bandits at night.
0:34:58 > 0:35:04Now the name Kibworth means "Cybba's worth", the ditched enclosure of a man called Cybba.
0:35:04 > 0:35:11And place names like that start in the 730s in English documents, around the time of Paul's pottery.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15And the name Cybba, sounds suspiciously like the names
0:35:15 > 0:35:20you find in the Mercian royal family, Pybbe, Cnebba, and Tybba.
0:35:20 > 0:35:27My guess would be, and it is just a guess, that Cybba was a minor Mercian royal, who received this
0:35:27 > 0:35:31very nice piece of real estate from one of the Mercian kings,
0:35:31 > 0:35:37Offa or Ethelbald, surrounded it with a ditch, and it's borne his name ever since.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50And what was life like for our 8th century ancestors?
0:35:50 > 0:35:52Don't imagine a typical English village
0:35:52 > 0:35:55with a winding lane and thatched cottages.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58Kibworth was a scatter of peasant houses.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03An Anglo-Saxon village from this time has been excavated
0:36:03 > 0:36:07at Stow in East Anglia and rebuilt on its footings.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14Here you can imagine the lives of our villagers.
0:36:19 > 0:36:25And it was a subsistence life, of a kind you can still see today in many poor parts of the world.
0:36:28 > 0:36:34I've stayed in villages like this in Amazonia, Peru, the Hindu Kush and Africa over the years,
0:36:34 > 0:36:36and this is just the same.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39This is the way that ordinary people, peasant people
0:36:39 > 0:36:41have lived through most of human history.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46And it's the way that our English ancestors lived for much of our history too.
0:36:46 > 0:36:52Those modern ideas about privacy and possessions, you know, bedrooms, your own room,
0:36:52 > 0:36:56stuff like that, it didn't even begin to come in until Elizabethan times,
0:36:56 > 0:36:58and, for most of us, a lot later than that.
0:36:58 > 0:37:05Maybe that's why all this gives you that little shiver of recognition.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11'It's so hard for us to imagine, isn't it?
0:37:11 > 0:37:18'We have so much leisure time today in our multi-channel world with its short attention span.'
0:37:18 > 0:37:23I must say, it's like watching people do a kind of Zen meditation.
0:37:23 > 0:37:25It's really interesting, isn't it?
0:37:25 > 0:37:26It's very relaxing.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32But for them, every key task took time.
0:37:35 > 0:37:40I'm spinning straight from the unwashed fleece, straight from the sheep.
0:37:40 > 0:37:42I take a piece of fleece,
0:37:42 > 0:37:44which I tease out.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50I take it in my left hand, slightly scrunched up.
0:37:51 > 0:37:58Tease a small bit round, and the very fact that it's still got all the oils in, helps to make it stick.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02As you twist the drop weight,
0:38:02 > 0:38:08the twist runs up the wool
0:38:08 > 0:38:10and then joins together, like magic.
0:38:15 > 0:38:20You thread the wool through the wooden tablets, or they might be horn,
0:38:20 > 0:38:22and put the colour in according to how you want the pattern.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25Stretch it on a frame,
0:38:25 > 0:38:31and then you turn the whole block of tablets in one direction.
0:38:31 > 0:38:35And you get quite a nice satisfying crunch as it comes round,
0:38:35 > 0:38:40and it brings a different set of threads to the top.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42Weaving was an English art.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46The great ruler in Europe, Charlemagne, wrote to Offa, the King of Mercia,
0:38:46 > 0:38:50asking for fine English cloth, made in places like Kibworth.
0:38:53 > 0:38:58Bread was the staple basically and that was what you filled yourself up on.
0:38:58 > 0:39:03Anything you can catch - birds, fish, that sort of thing, the deer if you could hunt deer.
0:39:03 > 0:39:05In November, you've got the blood month
0:39:05 > 0:39:08when you kill all your livestock for the winter.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10You would have eaten a lot of meat.
0:39:24 > 0:39:31By the 8th century, Welsh was dying out in Midland England, replaced everywhere by Old English,
0:39:31 > 0:39:35which we still speak today, give or take a few foreign borrowings.
0:39:35 > 0:39:40Even now our key words for relationships and emotions are theirs -
0:39:40 > 0:39:47father, mother, brother, sister, love, hate, life, death.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52I suppose the language is the most important single thing, isn't it?
0:39:52 > 0:39:55Yeah, it's the single key that unlocks their whole mindset,
0:39:55 > 0:39:58isn't it, and we carry it with us today of course.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03"One small step for man, one great leap for mankind,"
0:40:03 > 0:40:05those are all Anglo-Saxon words.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11You would think that all this stuff would have been excluded long ago
0:40:11 > 0:40:15and we would have moved on to far grander terms, but no,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18the Anglo-Saxon stuff, the English stuff, is still here.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22It's very, very rare to find the ordinary people speaking,
0:40:22 > 0:40:29but there is this wonderful dialogue from around the year 1000,
0:40:29 > 0:40:32- which is an interview with an Anglo-Saxon ploughman.- Indeed, yes.
0:40:32 > 0:40:37And it begins, "What sayest thou, earthling!"
0:40:37 > 0:40:42Earthling! That's kind of thing I've had from Star Trek. Earthling!
0:40:42 > 0:40:45An Earthling is a person who deals with the earth.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48A person who deals with the earth, fabulous.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52"How bi-goest thou work thine?"
0:40:52 > 0:40:55"How do you go about your work? Tell us about your work."
0:40:55 > 0:40:56So what does he say?
0:40:56 > 0:41:00He says, "O lo, lief Lord, thraly I derve..."
0:41:00 > 0:41:05"Lo, Dear Lord, how hard I must work."
0:41:07 > 0:41:09THEY READ IN OLD ENGLISH
0:41:55 > 0:41:59Sounds like a big job, tough work, to me.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03- Sounds like hard work to me.- Oh, absolutely, a great deal of work.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05- And he says... - HE SPEAKS IN OLD ENGLISH
0:42:05 > 0:42:13"Yes Lord, it is a great deal of work because I am not free."
0:42:30 > 0:42:31Is that pottery or stones?
0:42:31 > 0:42:34- Been a bit hard digging then, has it?- Yes!
0:42:34 > 0:42:41'In the late 9th century came the next big change in the village story, the Vikings.
0:42:41 > 0:42:46'Now in the Big Dig no-one expected to find the Vikings,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49'although we did find pottery from their time in Smeeton Westerby,
0:42:49 > 0:42:51'the last bit of whose name is Viking.'
0:42:51 > 0:42:59Ah, the Buddha of archaeology seated there in contemplation! Gosh, so what have we got?
0:42:59 > 0:43:04Most of this stuff is Victorian, it's all 19th century.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08We've got this background scatter of late 17th and 18th mixed in it
0:43:08 > 0:43:12but nothing earlier, until I came across that.
0:43:12 > 0:43:14Now that is a bit of Stamford ware.
0:43:19 > 0:43:21'This is BBC Radio Leicester.'
0:43:21 > 0:43:27But the key clues came from the surnames of some of today's villagers and from their DNA.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30'If you are an Iliffe, you may well be a Viking.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34'Will you text me? Because there's a DNA test going on.'
0:43:35 > 0:43:37I'm there, that's my father.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40And it goes right back through to Charles Henry,
0:43:40 > 0:43:41then George Thomas.
0:43:41 > 0:43:46George Thomas, who's my great grandfather, and his father is John,
0:43:46 > 0:43:51and you go back to William, Richard, and John Iliffe,
0:43:51 > 0:43:54who apparently originated from Fleckney.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58Terry Iliffe's surname name appears around Kibworth from the 1300s.
0:43:58 > 0:44:01It's from a Viking name, Eilifr.
0:44:03 > 0:44:09My great great grandfather's niece gave it to me before she passed away.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12So this is a valuation list.
0:44:12 > 0:44:14Value of properties, houses...
0:44:14 > 0:44:18'Wayne Coleman's family have been in Kibworth at least since Tudor times.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21'And his name could be Viking too.'
0:44:21 > 0:44:25And here, Coleman, John Henry Coleman.
0:44:25 > 0:44:29I've gone back to 1692, the connection in the village.
0:44:29 > 0:44:35But Wayne's connection with the area could be much further back than he thinks.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38I've just looked at these markers known as Y-STR markers
0:44:38 > 0:44:41and essentially that stands for "short tandem repeat".
0:44:41 > 0:44:45So it will put you into a broad group of Y-chromosome type.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48And yours seems to fall into a broad group known as R1a.
0:44:48 > 0:44:53Now that's actually found across all of the north of Europe so I'd need to do further typing
0:44:53 > 0:44:57to find out where your Y-chromosome type seems to be found.
0:44:57 > 0:45:02But when we see that type in England, we start to think Norway, we start to think Norse,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05because it's the type that has high frequency in Norway.
0:45:05 > 0:45:12We know that these Y chromosome types arrived in this country through the invasion of the Norse Vikings.
0:45:12 > 0:45:13You can get a hat now!
0:45:15 > 0:45:16Viking!
0:45:19 > 0:45:21I'm amazed.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28And the story of how Wayne and Terry's ancestors came to Kibworth
0:45:28 > 0:45:32starts with a sensational archaeological dig made 30 years ago
0:45:32 > 0:45:36not far north of Kibworth, at Repton in Derbyshire.
0:45:39 > 0:45:43So, great view from up here of the landscape of Repton.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46This is going to be the site of trench eight.
0:45:46 > 0:45:52And we're in the vicarage garden by the invitation indeed of the vicar.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56The site is where the tree is here, which I planted.
0:45:56 > 0:46:02There's still a faint mark in the grass along in front, just where we're crossing now.
0:46:02 > 0:46:03There was also a trench
0:46:03 > 0:46:07all the way down the edge of the churchyard there.
0:46:07 > 0:46:12Under here there was a two-chamber Saxon building.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15And the eastern chamber had been used as an ossuary.
0:46:15 > 0:46:23They found 250 male skeletons, many with wounds, and 50 Anglo-Saxon women camp followers,
0:46:23 > 0:46:28casualties from the Viking great army, which had terrorised England.
0:46:30 > 0:46:39This is where the Viking great army, came in that winter of 873-4.
0:46:39 > 0:46:44And they built their camp on this spot, dug a huge defensive fortification
0:46:44 > 0:46:49anchored at both ends on the river, with the church here in the middle of the defences.
0:46:52 > 0:46:58What Martin Biddle and his team had found was the ceremonial burial of a Viking leader,
0:46:58 > 0:47:05probably the famously cruel king called, believe it or not, Ivar the Boneless.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15But then, in 877, according to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle,
0:47:15 > 0:47:19the Viking great army changed their tactics.
0:47:19 > 0:47:25They settled down, shared out the land and began to plough.
0:47:29 > 0:47:32England was partitioned by treaty.
0:47:32 > 0:47:35To the south, the English King Alfred the Great,
0:47:35 > 0:47:38to the north, what became known as the Danelaw.
0:47:40 > 0:47:47And it's that split that gave the north and the east their distinctive dialects and place names till today.
0:47:47 > 0:47:54Blaston, that's named after Blad the Blade from the Great Army.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57Slawston, that's Slagger the Sly.
0:47:57 > 0:48:03And Illston on the Hill, that's named after Eilifr, maybe Terry Iliffe's ancestor.
0:48:04 > 0:48:09There's certainly plenty of evidence that the Anglo-Saxon women preferred the Vikings
0:48:09 > 0:48:12because they took a bath more often than the Anglo-Saxon men.
0:48:12 > 0:48:16But I also think there's plenty of evidence that some Vikings sent home
0:48:16 > 0:48:19to bring the wife as many immigrants do today in fact.
0:48:19 > 0:48:26Once they have that control then other people can come from Scandinavia
0:48:26 > 0:48:28who may not have been soldiers or military people at all,
0:48:28 > 0:48:33they could have been families, they could have been immigrants with wives and children,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36coming into an area that was controlled by members of their own.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39And there's plenty of evidence in the region
0:48:39 > 0:48:45of Vikings moving in onto the less desirable land, these would be the later immigrants, I think.
0:48:45 > 0:48:52There are place names near Kibworth which suggest "the thorny place", "the bushy place".
0:48:52 > 0:48:54There's one that I think says "the fringe place'.
0:48:54 > 0:49:00And even better, there's one with "a thin coating of grass", as if it were a rather miserable place.
0:49:00 > 0:49:07So that might suggest that the Vikings who moved there are really accepting second-rate land.
0:49:07 > 0:49:12Places don't necessarily change their names just because other people move in.
0:49:12 > 0:49:18In the area around Kibworth, something like 82% of place names are Old English origin.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20But if you look at the names,
0:49:20 > 0:49:24there's lots of evidence that Scandinavian language was spoken there.
0:49:24 > 0:49:30Kibworth found itself on the wrong side of the partition line but it stayed English.
0:49:30 > 0:49:35The Vikings didn't go in for ethnic cleansing, they settled and mixed,
0:49:35 > 0:49:39and soon the languages and place names mingled.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42Now if you want to see what it was like on the ground when the Vikings
0:49:42 > 0:49:46settled here, just come to the back end of Kibworth at Smeeton Westerby.
0:49:46 > 0:49:53There, you that posh house there, the red brick, that's Smeeton, English for "smith's tun".
0:49:53 > 0:50:01But if you just go a few yards along the ridge, those houses there through the trees, that's Westerby
0:50:01 > 0:50:05Westerby, the Viking for "the western farm".
0:50:05 > 0:50:12Some Viking warriors settled there after the army disbanded in 877 and made a new life.
0:50:13 > 0:50:18And all round the landscape there's this wonderful mix of English names and Viking names.
0:50:18 > 0:50:22This, for example, is the Fleet,
0:50:22 > 0:50:28that's Viking, fleot, for a little stream.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32This area is, what else, but a kar,
0:50:32 > 0:50:37Viking speech for a boggy area covered with brushwood.
0:50:37 > 0:50:43And all around us in the fields there are tofts, that's little farm.
0:50:43 > 0:50:49And even better over there, there's Crackley.
0:50:50 > 0:50:56Now the "-ley" part of that name is Anglo-Saxon, it means a wood, but the "Crack"
0:50:56 > 0:51:00is Viking, kraka, meaning a raven.
0:51:00 > 0:51:02Raven's wood.
0:51:07 > 0:51:12So by a thousand years ago, the basic map of the village is already complete.
0:51:12 > 0:51:17Viking Westerby, English Smeeton, the two halves of Kibworth,
0:51:17 > 0:51:20a mix of English and Vikings
0:51:20 > 0:51:24with the deep DNA of the Celts, the Roman-Britons.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33In the 10th century, Kibworth became part of a kingdom of all England,
0:51:33 > 0:51:37with a king who mainly spent his time down in London or Windsor.
0:51:40 > 0:51:45So we started this search knowing nothing about the village before 1066,
0:51:45 > 0:51:50but thanks to the villagers we found a whole new history.
0:51:50 > 0:51:57And by the side of the A6, we even found traces of Kibworth's last Anglo-Saxon lord.
0:51:57 > 0:52:00I was sat at home, opened the bag, emptied it onto the desk
0:52:00 > 0:52:03and my chin hit the desk not long after the pottery.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06I really felt that we'd wasted everybody's time,
0:52:06 > 0:52:07not much interest there at all.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10Quite the reverse.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14Elfrich, the Thane of Kibworth.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18This in four contexts, so you're talking about a 40cm thick layer.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21Oh, that came from all different contexts?
0:52:21 > 0:52:27Context five, six, seven and eight, and it's all late Saxon.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29Isn't that amazing? It really is.
0:52:29 > 0:52:31This type is called St Neots ware,
0:52:31 > 0:52:34it's the earliest late-Saxon pottery you get in this part of the world.
0:52:34 > 0:52:39Now your test pit was the only test pit in the village to produce St Neots ware.
0:52:39 > 0:52:41Nobody else produced any St Neots ware at all.
0:52:41 > 0:52:46So that instantly makes it a candidate for early late-Saxon settlement.
0:52:46 > 0:52:48St Neots ware starts around 900.
0:52:48 > 0:52:55Stamford ware comes in - which is the next late Saxon pottery type - around 950, 975.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59We've got one or two bits of Stamford ware, this is the Stamford ware.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01- That looks a bit posher.- It is.
0:53:01 > 0:53:07I remember when that was dug up we thought, "That is definitely part of a pot, not just a stone."
0:53:07 > 0:53:09That sticks us in the second half of the 10th century.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12- 950 onwards.- 950 onwards.
0:53:12 > 0:53:17The clincher is these two rim sherds from the St Neots ware pots.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21I don't know if you can see those, but the shape of those, they're from a particular type
0:53:21 > 0:53:25of cooking pot, known as cylindrical jars but we call them top hat pots.
0:53:25 > 0:53:30Imagine a top hat turned upside down, that's exactly what it looks like -
0:53:30 > 0:53:33straight sides and more or less straight across the bottom.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35Some of these have been used for cooking,
0:53:35 > 0:53:40can you see all the soot still stuck to the rim? It's where the pots been sat on the fire.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43We thought it was the soil that had affected it.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47The pot's been on the fire, the smoke's come up and it's sooted all along the rim.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49That's part of a base of a pot, it's got
0:53:49 > 0:53:53this thick black and white residue on the inside, can you see that?
0:53:53 > 0:53:57That's actually the burnt remains of the last meal that was cooked in the pot.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00- The food?- That's Anglo-Saxon food, or the carbonised remains of it.
0:54:00 > 0:54:07We've got very early Stamford ware, top hat pots, it's got to date to around 950 to 975. It's remarkable.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10I shall keep my eyes open now when I'm digging.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14Well, now the boring document historian speaks.
0:54:14 > 0:54:19And this is my... and it changes every time Paul sends an email, you know,
0:54:19 > 0:54:24I got this email about three days ago saying, "I think we've hit the jackpot with hole number two!"
0:54:24 > 0:54:26And that's why we're here.
0:54:26 > 0:54:28But here's the village.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31The peasants' tenements there maybe.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33And this side, maybe the lord's field.
0:54:33 > 0:54:38Now right in the middle of that, and that's that pink spot there, is here, is this.
0:54:38 > 0:54:46And in fact when we get on to 1066, I can tell you who may well have lived on this spot,
0:54:46 > 0:54:51because his name was Elfrich in 1066.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54And we can tell you who Elfrich's father was, he was called Meried,
0:54:54 > 0:54:58which is quite an unusual Anglo-Saxon name. You pick it up in the 1030s.
0:54:58 > 0:55:04So you're touching the Anglo-Saxon predecessors in Kibworth Harcourt.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07As this is the only place where we've found St Neots ware,
0:55:07 > 0:55:13I don't think it's unreasonable to say that this is where it all started after the Vikings were sorted out.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16It's mind-boggling really when you think about it in context.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20So basically we're going to have to dig up your entire garden!
0:55:31 > 0:55:35There's a final chapter in this first part of the story.
0:55:37 > 0:55:45England was a rich prize and, in October 1066, the Normans won it at the Battle of Hastings.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51And ever after the English have wanted to replay the match,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54hoping there'll be a different result this time.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57People still cheer more for the Saxons than for the Normans.
0:55:57 > 0:56:02And they know we're going to lose, but they still cheer, they still want us to win!
0:56:02 > 0:56:06Maybe Kibworth men went down to fight with their Lord Elfrich,
0:56:06 > 0:56:13stood in the shield wall and fell there with the flower of the English nation.
0:56:13 > 0:56:14A disaster.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18The end of the world as we know it.
0:56:18 > 0:56:24Nothing was familiar any more and we were, the language, was oppressed.
0:56:24 > 0:56:28Our way of live was oppressed for such a long time.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31- LOUDSPEAKER:- Just to let you know that the car park will close shortly
0:56:31 > 0:56:34as indeed the gates will be also.
0:56:36 > 0:56:42What does it feel like to suddenly have this new world coming on top of you?
0:56:42 > 0:56:43It's the end of the world.
0:56:43 > 0:56:46- It's not a new world, it's the finish.- The end of the world?
0:56:46 > 0:56:50The end of the world. It's a disaster. It was finished.
0:56:50 > 0:56:52A new England did emerge.
0:56:52 > 0:56:54It did, because we were resilient.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58And I think that's just so wonderful.
0:57:02 > 0:57:08October 14th 1066 was a catastrophe for the English people,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12"a havoc of our dear nation", as a chronicler said.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15And, of course, the English people never forgot it.
0:57:19 > 0:57:25So how did the villagers respond to this disaster of conquest
0:57:25 > 0:57:28and war and brutal foreign occupation?
0:57:28 > 0:57:31How did it shape them and change them?
0:57:31 > 0:57:34How did they become us?
0:57:37 > 0:57:40"Use this space for your conclusions
0:57:40 > 0:57:44"about how well you test pit excavation went."
0:57:44 > 0:57:49So ancient Britons and Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, those are our roots.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52If we could just find one.
0:57:52 > 0:57:54'But that's just the beginning.
0:57:54 > 0:57:58'Next in the Story of England, the Normans, the open fields, the English pub.'
0:57:58 > 0:58:00How are you?
0:58:02 > 0:58:05We feel neglected.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07'And the voice of the ordinary English people.'
0:58:07 > 0:58:09It's quite hard work.
0:58:09 > 0:58:11One, two, three...cheese!
0:58:31 > 0:58:33A very, very big thanks to you all.
0:58:33 > 0:58:35It's really been great.
0:58:40 > 0:58:43All looking this way, thank you.
0:58:43 > 0:58:45Hurray!