Archive - Wednesday, 24 April 2002


Find by date

Other ways to search

Also look for

Never miss anything again. Sign up for our RSS news feeds and Newsletters.

Time Team digs up Castle Howard

A search for Viking ancestors is underway at Castle Howard. The team of experts have already started to unearth some interesting finds.

TV's popular Time Team Tony Robinson, Mick Aston, Phil Harding are now running about the world famous stately home looking for traces of the medieval and Viking-Age village, known to have been underneath the magnificent House and Gardens.

They are there at the invitation of Richard Kemp, Castle Howard's new Head of Visitor Services. Richard, an archaeologist, and ex-director of York's Jorvik Viking Centre, said, "When I first came to Castle Howard I was struck by one area of lawn with 'humps' and 'bumps'!"

"Then the gardening team began showing me 13th and 14th Century pottery they'd recovered from the same area, and I thought, 'Wow', an excavation would add an amazing new slant on visitor enjoyment and give an appreciation of Castle Howard before there was a Castle Howard".

Richard then realised these were probably the remains of the lost village of Henderskelfe, which was mentioned as standing in 1066, and in North Yorkshire that makes it Viking-Age!

The Hon. Simon Howard is supportive of this latest venture to provide the visitors to Castle Howard with new perspectives at looking at the House and Grounds. On the prospect of his superb, stately lawns being dug up and a load of archaeologists running about, Mr Howard said, "So long as they don't make a mess, and put it all back, I shall be as intrigued as anyone to see what lies beneath the lawns".

You can view the dig as the grounds are open as normal between 10am and 6pm each day (last entries 4.30pm) with admission prices at £5 adult, £3 child.

The Time Team at Castle Howard programme will be broadcast to more than three and a half million viewers in Spring 2003 during what will be the programme's tenth series.

LATEST NEWS:Picture below shows first finds emerging.

Further information about Castle Howard with a link to their website can be found here.