Ivan Clowsley

What it was like to be involved with the rebirth of Time Team.

Boden Cornwall

Dig 1

Summer 2021, it’s been announced that Time Team is coming back some fantastic news during these dark Covid times and even more exciting for me I was asked to take part.

It was an absolute privilege to be asked to be involved along with a couple of my Time Team Academy friends Mark and Penny. I’d been on the last Time Team ever filmed or so I had assumed at Brancaster and now I was to be on the first of the new Time Team, incredible. I’d been in involved in a couple of zoom meetings in the months before the dig when details were mulled over and ideas discussed which was very interesting. The dig itself was starting on a Friday but Tim didn’t want us on site until Saturday. So Friday morning arrived, I did my Covid lateral flow tests, logged my negative results and packed the car. We’d got quite a drive ahead of us so Penny and I decided to car share. Seven hours after setting off we arrived at the Hotel in Helston. It was a great night meeting some of the new cast members and our old friends from the original series. Several beers were downed, of course they were, this is Time Team after all, but I had a big day ahead of me and didn’t want to feel hungover the next day so didn’t stay in the bar to late.

Filming the opening scene with Gus emerging from the Time Team battle bus.

Dig 1 Day 2

Saturday morning day 2 of the dig but it would be my first day on site. I was awake early, nervous and excited, I didn’t know what I was expected to do really, I guessed I’d find out soon enough though. We had a hearty full English breakfast and set off using my sat nav to find the site and it was an edge of the seat roller coaster drive. The roads were very narrow in places full of twists and turns, up and down we went along the back roads of Cornwall it was a relief to get on site. We reported to the Covid tent, had our papers checked, temperatures taken and phew, what a relief, we were in. The facilities were like a mini Glastonbury festival. Composting toilets quite the eye opener I can tell you. A drinks station and catering wagon, a marquee for lunch, a huge dome ( the nerve centre) housed an array of computers. A scaffold tower for getting a higher perspective of the site, of course, I had to climb it and have a look at the views. I could see the sea I reckon it was probably a mile or so away. I also walked around a few of the trenches that had already been opened and stared in amazement at what had been revealed of the Fogou already. How and why did Iron Age Britain’s excavate these things? No easy task with the tools they would have had available. Perhaps this weekend we would uncover some further clues as to their purpose.
Tim asked me to shadow Dave who looks after so many aspects of the site logistics, tea runs, errands you name it he does anything and everything, a real unsung hero. There were lots of smiles on everyone’s faces as I walked around the site. After an hour or so Matt was looking for an extra digger, I said I had my tools and he put me in trench 1. My smile couldn’t have been wider, I was on Time Team digging, it’s not just digging though it’s unearthing our past, the story of our ancestors, how we became the people we are today. The objective of our trench was to see if the Geo Phys was correct and that the Fogou extended further than had already been revealed and it’s relation to a boundary ditch. My fellow diggers were volunteers for the Meneage Archaeology Group (MAG) they had obviously been working here for quite a while before Time Team arrived. The Supervisor Abi and all my fellow diggers were lovely. I asked lots of questions about the site and they were very knowledgeable. The first task was to clean the trench back so four of us on hands and knees started trowelling. Before long I unearthed a small piece of what looked like a dog biscuit. I thought this could be pot and Peter an experienced MAG member confirmed it was Gerrbraic pottery. Gerrbraic is a type of clay found locally and this sherd could be 4000 years old. Wow my mind was blown. I’m the first person to see this pot for thousands of years! Just at this point Derek and Lawrence came over doing Dig Watch. I had to share my excitement with somebody as my trench buddies seemed so blasé as they’d found plenty of this stuff before. Dig Watch filmed a small scene and it aired on Patreon later. I popped over to see Penny who was in a gazebo with Naomi. They were using flotation tanks to filter soil samples to see what they could find, if any small finds had been missed, bones, pollen etc. A fascinating area of archaeology I haven’t tried myself. Mark passed by holding the microphone boom every so often with Denis the Cameraman. Denis never missed a chance to pull my leg about something his main target is my Black Country accent!
After we cleaned back the trench it was decided to put two slots in to find the extent of the Fogou and to find the relationship between the Fogou and a boundary ditch that had also shown up on the Geo Phys. We made a good start on this but time was drawing on and I was ready for a pint. We were supposed to finish for the day at 5.30 but Tim asked us to continue for an hour as tomorrow’s weather forecast was a bit ‘iffy’. At 6.30 we packed up then retired to the marquee for an Indian takeaway and a pint of Spingo a renowned local brew. Then back to base for more beer and banter. An excellent but back breaking day. There weren’t any pub scenes filmed as Covid restrictions were still in place, hopefully they’ll return in the future.

Me siezing the opportunity to dig again. Thanks to Penny Lock for the photographs.

Dig 1 Day 3

Still aching from head to foot we set off for site again but managed to find a route a little less precarious thankfully. Off to yesterday’s trench to continue on. Today my fellow diggers had been assigned to other tasks so Abi and I had to continue, each excavating a slot ( a smaller trench inside the main trench). Abi was digging the ‘main’ extension to the Fogou and I was seeing if I could find the relationship between the Fogou passage and the adjoining ditch. It was hard work but the weather was cool and mizzly. By mid morning though it had brightened up a bit. You don’t want it to hot when you’re digging though. It’s hard enough without sweating buckets, features are harder to pick out in bright sunshine and photographing trenches is very difficult to. Dry and slightly overcast is best. One of the producers came over and asked if I would give Natalie the new presenter a lesson in how to use a trowel or ‘trowelology’ as I like to call it! Natalie has a very bubbly personality with a quick wit I’d never met her before but she was very nice. I told her the basics and she got to work with her brand new individually numbered Time Team trowel. For a first attempt she was pretty good I have to say but I enjoyed pulling her leg about her efforts. Filming the peice to Camera with my old mate Steve behind the lense was really good fun. A small segment of the filming made it onto the finished episode so I was well chuffed. Abi and I got back to it but Abi was told to go no deeper with her excavation for health and safety reasons, so I kept ploughing on. Mid afternoon we were called for the traditional Time Team group photo, socially distanced of course. Eventually we ran out of time the 3 days were up, so we tidied up and headed back to base. The recording of the trenches would be done the next day before the backfilling was done. We ended the day on site watching Matt excavate some large pieces of decorated Iron Age pottery it was a very exciting end to an exhilarating dig. As a digger you focus on your small part of the dig the trench in front you watching every mattock stroke every scrape of the trowel you don’t really know what else is going on so it’ll be fascinating to watch the finished episodes to see the full story of the site unfold.
In the evening we headed out to a Tex Mex restaurant for beer and burgers. The following morning after breakfast Tim thanked us all and he said to me you’ll be in a trench at Broughton, I was elated. A great end to a fabulous weekend only the 300 mile drive home now.

Dani very carefully lifting a pot sherd so residue testing can be done.

Naomi floating her soil samples.