Rubble At The Mill (Manchester) | Series 13 Episode 3 | Time Team

After you watch this episode, check out the official commentary video on the Time Team Official KZbin Channel! • Episode Commentary: 'R...
Underneath a car park in central Manchester lie the remains of one of the most influential buildings in Britain, a building that transformed the once sleepy town into the cotton capital of the world.
Series 13, Episode 3
Time Team is a British TV series following specialists who dig deep to uncover as much as they can about Britain's archaeology and history.
For more Time Team content, check out the Time Team Official KZbin Channel: / timeteamofficial
We have some exciting news for you! Introducing... 'Time Team: Unearthing the Past' - a selection of our exclusive interviews with Time Team members and special guests, now available to listen to via our podcast streaming service! timeteamoffici...
You can also follow and download on Apple Podcasts here: podcasts.apple...
We are really pleased to share this new service with you and will be adding more episodes over the coming days.
Now you can enjoy catching up with these old and new interviews whatever you're doing, no matter where you are!
Please note: These are unabridged, audio-only versions of a video interviews originally released on the Time Team Official KZbin channel.
Support Time Team by becoming a patron and get access to exclusive behind-the-scenes content here: / timeteamofficial
You can now purchase Time Team's Official merchandise here: shop.timeteamd...
Subscribe for FULL EPISODES every Wednesday and Sunday.
#TimeTeam #BritishHistory #TonyRobinson

[@debralecuivre3366]

Stewart's mother must have been a strong woman inside and out, because despite her hardships, she raised a extremely intelligent yet humble and personable man. God bless them.

[@chucky2316]

They were tough back then

[@mermeridian2041]

Very much loved hearing Stewart talking about his mum - hearing his personal history in his own words (along with the photo of his mum) made this episode personal in a haunting, touching, yet delightful way. Thank you for that.

[@StanSwan]

That made it all so much more real. I can't get past Ruth's eyes either. Such pretty ladies on this show.

[@ilonamollema6467]

For me, the part of this episode that moved me a lot, was Stewart telling about his mum and her co workers and the toll they had to pay due to their hard labour. Missing parts of their fingers, hearing difficulties and a bad physique at the end. And having problems to make ends meet at the end of the month. Thanks to personal stories like his, it all comes much more to life. Stewart, your mum was amazing! ❤

[@larryzigler6812]

Heart wrenching

[@AvaT42]

Me too, it was fascinating to hear Stuart, and sad as well.

[@juliajs1752]

And the timeline... Stewart was born in 1951, which means that his mother worked as a factory weaver probably well into the 1960s. That's not very long ago, as things go, and we usually consider the 1960s as modern history and not "long ago, when work was dangerous".

[@sturdeehouse]

@@juliajs1752 I bet as well his Mum had all her teeth pulled out to save money like all my grandparents did.

[@TK-tcbk1]

He is so nice and kind. Very smart too. I’m certain his amazing mother would be so very proud of him. Just a super decent guy. ❤️

[@marjielalonde3875]

I remember as a child going into a cotton mill with a schoolmate who had to take something to her mum.I`ll never forget the cacophony of sound and the intensely hot,damp air filled with bits of floating cotton. That was about sixty years ago and I can still remember the damp stuffy air on my face, and I couldn`t hear properly for about an hour after I came out! Incredibly hard way to make a living!

[@workingguy6666]

Thank you so much for describing it as a witness.

[@piccalillipit9211]

I grew up in West Yorkshire and there were still some mills left using the old shuttle looms - even in the carpark outside it was defining. I can remember it to this day

[@martinjh999]

@marjie lalonde - This is a museum with only 1 working loom - kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6nGgYtne8uJqck - Imagine this going on for over 1000 looms....

[@carinakaron8068]

My mum worked in the cotton Mills from the age of 17yrs.I remember the same experience of visiting mum in the mill. The noise was scary, and your are right. You couldn't hear a thing for an hour once you left the place. I remember mum's hands being covered in friction burns, from changing the spinning bobbins. By the time she was 40yrs her lungs were badly damaged.. from inhaling cotton fibres.

[@joshschneider9766]

Also, my compliments to Mrs. Ainsworth! What a tough old woman. And clearly a magnificent parent.

[@LilieDubh]

Thank you Time Team. Every new episode dropped here saves my sanity. 18 months of episodes and counting. Thank you all - and hugs to Phil. Keeps me wanting a trowel and shovel in my aging years.

[@joshschneider9766]

20:48 I'm a heavy equipment operator here in the states and I just want everyone to realize maybe one in fifty digger operators are this precise!

[@adacox]

Ian was a master at his trade… that is all

[@davidcollins9512]

There's video of Ian using the digger to peel a banana & another one of him picking up a grape with the bucket kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKabq6Z6at14erc&ab_channel=TimeTeamOfficial and kzbin.info/www/bejne/mX7ZZZd9q6qcatU&ab_channel=TimeTeamOfficial

[@SirLouiz]

@@davidcollins9512 now i understand why they always stand so dangerously close the the big digger jumping inside trenches

[@a.azazagoth5413]

That is one hell of an operator.

[@joshschneider9766]

@@SirLouiz yes sir, those archaeology machine operators are the cream of the crop, although it's only fair to note half of ians precision came from being a winning motorcycle racer in his younger years hehe

[@talanigreywolf7110]

I don't think I can say it enough; thank you Tim Taylor for posting these! It's such a joy to be there, as new discoveries are made or hypothetical events are verified. Again, thank you!

[@donnal.oglesby4806]

I find it totally amazing of the history that went with this mill. But the Living conditions that Helen was stating as being gruesome, is pretty much what the Coal Miners and the Loggers faced here in the states in the very early days of the industrial era here as well. Companies would buy large plots of land, and built cheap housing for it's workers, and building a store or what have you for the workers, the issue was, they made sure the workers always stayed broke to keep them working at their mines or logging camps, by paying them very little, so they could not save up anything and then take back the money they DID pay them, at their company stores. It was a vicious circle and a lot of people worked themselves to death, leaving their wives and children broke and poor...

[@MaegnasMw]

Excuse me but this is not a vicious anything, this is Capitalism, pure and simple! Work them to death and pay them as little as possible!

[@chrisbassett8996]

yes it is actually quite heart breaking to hear about, and as i said above we don't know what work is in comparison. or should i say, in some countries. nz native

[@aserta]

Nothing much has changed since. The rich just get richer.

[@chucky2316]

The streets of the UK aren't paved with gold 😏

[@rickhubbard7342]

This was a confusing episode for the team until everything dropped into place on day 3. The coin found in one of the old sellers provided an accurate date as to when those cottages were built. My only regret is that it wasn't Time Team that found something else in a car park here in Leicester :)

[@terrydamron4770]

BRAVO.. STEWART AND MOM...THANK YOU.. BLESSED

[@kennethsonier1766]

My great-grandparents worked in wall Mills here in the states, and Woonsocket Rhode Island where there were hundreds of Mills, my great-grandmother was working at 11 years old on the deplorable conditions in one of these Mills. As an adult I was an overhead door mechanic and worked on garage doors and many of these old mills and even in the 1980s these places were horrendous. This is a really wonderful episode 👍☮️

[@joshschneider9766]

29:46 I wonder if this is before or after Phil learned about crushed shell mortar vs whole shell mortar dating different periods of castle construction hehe

[@joshschneider9766]

So ones mortar with shells in and the others Shelly mortar. Yes. I've suddenly lost me will to live hehhehehe

[@austin2842]

Both my grandmas worked in yorkshire weaving mills. You couldn't say anything without them noticing because they could lip read.

[@earlatkins9559]

Ditto, here too. I like to watch right to the end to see who the production team members are. Please add these back in. Also spoils the continuity.

[@justjane2070]

My mother worked in the mills too. I remember her saying the noise was unbearable.

[@bustedfender]

Nice little interview with Stuart, very interesting.

[@ipaales7552]

Still blows me away this program amazing cheers time team cheers Tony

[@nancymills1884]

Francis’ enthusiasm makes me chuckle. Between Francis and Phil there is plenty of chuckles in the episodes.

[@michaeltownsend429]

I remember viewing this in early 2006, likely February or March and being utterly astonished because we had only just hurriedly moved away from the apartment building on the intersection of Simpson Street and Angel Street that faces the gate into the carpark site that was excavated here. I showed my wife what was in the television and we both recalled seeing the activity across the street, but we were vastly too preoccupied to afford the time to observe more closely. I wish that I was able to take time out to inquire and observe but we were on the edge of being overwhelmed by care for our only infant child who had entered that winter very well and thriving, and became progressively and startlingly poorly with respiratory illnesses, culminating in a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis and a decision to move to my native Australia (I met my British wife whilst living in the north west of England and our child was born there). Remarkably, the first hospital that we became ‘frequent flyers’ in was Booth Hall, the design of which was endorsed by Florence Nightingale. We decamped from Manchester and its congested atmosphere to my wife’s parents’ house in Shropshire to focus on getting the youngster well enough to pass a depressurisation test and be able to fly at altitude - which is what came to pass after some time and effort (at the time we left the UK with the youngest person to travel to Australia reliant on supplementary oxygen and without medical escort) - and it was almost on the eve of our departure that I saw this episode. It struck me then, and it still strikes me that our child would surely have died had we been living in that location during the time of Arkwright’s mill - with cause of death recorded as a non-specific ailment like ‘consumption’, almost certainly within the first few years of life. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those textile and allied industry workers in the north and midlands of England and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. They did what they had to do to survive and get by day to day, conducted through a multitude of years and decades, many of which were in peril of injury at work, and in absolute unsanitary squalor - for example, the detail of how impoverished burials became an uncontrolled mass grave at the bottom of Angel Street, and in turn that site became Angel Meadow Park, including St Michael’s Flags (grave stones placed to seal the burial) includes utterly horrific details that were a presage of the disturbance and desecration of the bodies of the dead throughout WWI trench warfare battlefields - and there is no exaggeration in that statement. However, they steadily fought (often literally) and struggled to obtain and accrue incrementally better conditions, remuneration and benefits, and pass custody of those forward to progressively enrich every following generation, much of which we now take for granted - a middle class capable of discretionary spending, weekends, eight hour days, elimination of child labour, public holidays… and robust public services like schooling and health care, which made a literal world of difference our child, who is now on the cusp of 18 years old and quite well. What a thing they did. As an aside… that wasn’t the first very cool television production that I missed out on observing. Much of the first series of Life On Mars was filmed in the cobbled streets and lanes around where I was living several years earlier - in the Northern Quarter of Manchester near Piccadilly Railway Station. One chase scene went past the front door of our apartment building on Tariff Street, and under my bedroom window!

[@helentepper3513]

I hear you! 20 years ago I lived in an apartment just down the st on Gt Ancoats - it had just been built; even at 19, I absolutely refused to entertain the whole ‘Converted Mill Cool’ culture that had already been around for years for this precise reason… I’m Manchester born and vividly remember visiting Quarry Bank and Styall mills at Primary school - and being utterly horrified aged like 7. I later went to Leeds to University & never went back to Manchester. I’m so glad your child ended up well and that you too got out 😊

[@avalonkerr8332]

I have always adored Stewart.

[@Go-tee71]

The banter & comradery amongst the team cracks me up! How exciting it must be to do their jobs.

[@GaryNoone-jz3mq]

"Prehistory of the individual revolution." Good one Phil 👍 😂

[@joshschneider9766]

Man I'd be walking on eggshells in every parking lot and staring at my feet like a weirdo absolutely anywhere in Britain! What a wild thought, that such an incredibly important industrial history site is under some macadam in a parking lot. Maybe symmetrical though. Industry tends to gobble itself up. One of my fave episodes too.

[@alland1241]

That's what they do in Manchester, Even the last bit of the Roman fort is just a lump of stone under a railway arch, no signs, nothing, most folk don't even know it exists

[@jodyshepard9482]

All happening within memory. Bless TT-and so kind of Stuart to tell us some "real, live" history. I so admire ALL the folks on TT. Thanks much. (Reporting from Northern New Mexico.)

[@TheVidusi]

Both of my grandmothers and their husbands and children worked in Lancashire weaving sheds. I could see the workers through open doors and Windows, it was hot inside due to the steam which was essential to keep the cotton in the right humidity which kept the cotton moist enough to stop it catching fire as well as the cotton on the looms flexible, so it did not break.The air was full of lint which got on the workers chests-giving them lung disease.

[@Whoopz]

Apparently a amateur metal detectorist here in Denmark found one of the biggest gold treasures ever to be found in Denmark from the Viking period, and apparently at first he thought it was garbage - It was literally his first time detecting. It was found about half a year ago, but revealed to the public just the other day! It made me think of Time Team.

[@karmayt8956]

I too just discovered TimeTeam and I watched all of it at the same time. Love learning while they do the back breaking work.

[@paulagoodale8327]

My 2x great grandfather was a Scots Irish weaver from co. Mayo Ireland. I wonder if he worked in a mill or at home. He emigrated to New Brunswick Canada in 1840 and became a farmer. If he had worked in a mill working a farm must have seemed like heaven in comparison.

[@ismellstatic]

I recommend, for those interested in the abysmal living conditions of the historical poor, Jacob A. Riis’s “How The Other Half Lives” from 1890 is very poignant and well-researched and George Orwell’s works from the 1930s are all incredible.

[@WendyDarling1974]

I grew up in the town just by Lawrence and Lowell Massachusetts, and grew up learning all this industrial history and the reality of factory workers through the 19th and 20th century. Missing fingers is an obvious indicator of the danger involved, but there was also inhalation of cotton fiber, and then, of course, catching all kinds of infectious diseases from your fellow workers, and anyone else who was crammed into those tiny apartments with you.

[@StanSwan]

Found this series during the covid shutdown in the US when there was not much going on. Almost feel like I know some of the people their excitement is contagious. All the ladies are so pretty too so I was told.

[@djmossssomjd8496]

All this talk about Arkwright but not a mention of....Granville :-) Great episode.

[@chucky2316]

Who was Granville

[@lindasue8719]

These titles! I love it! From Star Trek to Monty Python 😆❤️❤️❤️

[@martinmarsola6477]

A fine video, as always. Cheers to all! 🇬🇧🙂👍🇺🇸

[@thorstenrusch8652]

great episode! Ty and stay safe! :)

[@daveseddon5227]

First aired 5th February 2006 UK

[@marty9376]

I can’t wait until the new Time Team programs I’ve been watching KZbin replays , from the Philippines 🇵🇭 & previous on the ABC TV , in Australia 🇦🇺

[@davidvasey5065]

This is it. This is the best ever episode of time team

[@johnknight7296]

And working in the Mills or the Foundries were a step up from being a farm laborer! Historically, the mass of humanity lived lives that were 'nasty, brutish and short". Compared to our ancestors, we live lives of unimaginable luxury.

[@enterthecarp7085]

Tony R got bleeped! 😂 and he has no paddle 👍🏼🍻

[@catharinesmallwood1326]

Helen and others should have realized that ashes on the floors of the tenement were not bad, they helped stop the growth of mould in the damp living conditions

[@spinnerpete]

Im a mohair topmaker, Been in textiles for 35 years. Im raking it in not like Marx and Engels would be complaining about 100 years ago. There is no one left who can get their heads around working machines and natural fibers.

[@piccalillipit9211]

*MY FAVORITE EPISODE* by a very long way - they have done soma amazing digs - but to show is the mill that started the industrial revolution and the house cellars that started the Russian revolution in ONE episode is AMAZING

[@jonathaneffemey944]

Thanks for posting

[@giveittomikey9094]

I love this show.

[@hArtyTruffle]

People like Arkwright should not be the ones celebrated with statues etc. IMO it’s the workers who deserve the most recognition.

[@Happyheretic2308]

Don’t start. The workers would not have had the jobs without the likes of Arkwright.

[@hArtyTruffle]

@@Happyheretic2308 and likewise… Arkwright wouldn’t have been able to do what he did without the workers… what makes one more important that the other, in your eyes?

[@nataliewhittle9299]

That was ace, I’ve not seen that episode before. Thank you for posting.

[@DavidM2002]

This is Season 13, Episode 3 for those who are counting. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Time_Team_episodes

[@kaythegardener]

Hooray!! New episodes of Time Team & (Sir) Tony Robinson!!

[@chuckylee5587]

Thanks

[@1701enter]

Damp, Dark, Dismal, I love TT, And this is the first time I have seen evidence of the horrific treatment of the people...

[@chucky2316]

Immigrants aren't the only ones who have it bad

[@ps8432]

Logically this was his first mill. He sells the rights for subsequent mills. He would sell plans for the most economic sized mills, without wasted space. Ergo, other mills, to his design, were narrower, housing the machinery first and foremost, before worker comfort. Housing in some rural areas was not much better than in citys at that time. I know of a family of 13 living in a two down, two up cottage in a west sussex village. And they were well off. All employed full time. Father, Mother, Grandmother, six sons and four daughters, from the ages of seven up. The seven year old girl being a maid at the local inn. Housing was, and is still, expensive. It is only since two incomes were used that people were able to afford buying their own home. Now the effect is no longer as beneficial, as house prices have risen quickly due to this apparent affordability. If only one income was used, house prices would be far lower today.

[@MaegnasMw]

I believe that it does not have to do with incomes but with demand. You CAN buy something big with one income if there are no other buyers around to drive the price up, you rarely can do that even with two incomes if lots of people are "bidding" for it and driving the price up.

[@34ofaninchofbrain80]

Fascinating. Some very tough people back then. God bless them.

[@nunyabusiness3920]

Nice Monty Python reference in the title, I didn't expect that 😂

[@markorollo.]

any mention of Oldham? once known as the cotton capital of the world. even up to the late 1980's my Grandparents worked in cotton mills in Oldham.

[@chucky2316]

Jesus into the 80s

[@WendyDarling1974]

“This is a wall-free zone!” 😂

[@irt1971]

i like how Tony just pops up now and then to take the mick out of the archeologists. lol.

[@douglasruss2889]

Bravo ! I ALWAYS E N J O Y. !

[@Scriptorsilentum]

phil is actually descended from a woman who lived in the dordogne region about 20,000 yrs ago says his dna. also, what genes they couldn't identify a few guessed it might be amphibian. nevertheless, phil is an absolutely sharp archaeologist who knows his stuff through and through - dating with mortar rather than (re-used) brick. bloody brilliant.

[@diamonddave2622]

The area around Angel Street and Angel Sq is completely redeveloped now...

[@motaman8074]

Phil is still investigating his thing.

[@IDK_Mr.M]

Thank you.

[@alexritchie4586]

Ooh Matt, say 'flange' again 🥵😂

[@nevillemignot1681]

I just love the corruption of the term 'Trouble at the Mill'.......

[@amypoole5439]

Where the hell is the wall then? Lol I love it!

[@johnrangi4830]

I'd like to say thank you to the people who have given comments. Reading their memories of personal history is helpful in understanding and insightful. I hope more young people pay attention to personal history, Who knows maybe one day they will understand better. Then again some of the Older generations can be grumpy. 😁 Just in case.... 🫴 I'm not trying to be offensive. 🙂

[@angrybird9925]

Ya ya ya....just give me the GEO PHYS

[@Billio68]

Well done!!!

[@kevgray.]

I've often wondered if it's the most archaeological amazing discovery ever, why do they only have three days

[@AndyMartin401]

Brilliant

[@odinbacha4167]

Brigid is so extraordinarily beautiful and wears no makeup at all!

[@darreno9874]

I think it was James Picard who first invented the crank applied to a steam engine.

[@adrianholroyd4533]

In a last ditch attempt, they dig the last ditch.

[@markhitchcock4704]

crazy to think..2 bullets in that pub booth and 100's of Millions of lives saved.

[@Tawadeb]

Need a time machine

[@brandil5688]

It's odd to see them escavating right in a town instead of on the outside in a field somewhere close to the town

[@markorollo.]

says the car parks full of really nice cars just after i thought to myself i wish i had that Land Rover...

[@timofthomas]

OMG - you mean... this was just down the street from my office at the time... and I missed the opportunity to come see the team?! sad face :(

[@KATIE.DELVES_DATV]

Yay Manchester or Cottonopolis

[@AvaT42]

I liked that ladies clog that was found and the names on the poor rate books who rented the house in 1841, those two finds were so cool. It was disgusting how those family’s were forced to live, 2 or 3 families in those two hovel of rooms and no sanitation! Awful.

[@jonjones1553]

We were evicted from our hole in the ground, we had to go and live in a lake!

[@JamesWilson-gw2ij]

So is this pre Arkwright in Derbyshire?

[@chrisf4659]

I know every episode runs through 3 days, but what happens after? Do other archeologists take over afterwards?

[@AndrewRoberts11]

Anyone know whether the pic's from around 16:06 are of Angle Street, or just stock photos, of a Victorian city?

[@AndrewRoberts11]

After a Google it appears the first pic's is a flipped snap of Hanover Street, taken by Samuel Coulthurst, 1898, Manchester Image Archive, M00195. Nothing definitive on the beds, the next one is captioned Angel Street, nothing on the last.

[@Woad25]

Hopefully none of the crossbeams went askew on the treddle

[@HBMR334]

"What?" LOL

[@petermizon4344]

THE MILL FLOORS UPSTAIRS WERE THICK FLOOR BOARDS AND SOAKED IN OIL, I BOUGHT A LOAD A LOAD FOR WOODBURNER WOW BURNED LIKE A FURNACE LOL

[@dumbbunnie123]

I love this program! I am new to it and I am puzzled. Why only three days? Some of the sites have more to offer and you walk away. Why?

[@klnkat6600]

It is the arbitrary rules set up to give tension to the TV series. It works.

[@musical3lottie]

@@klnkat6600 @Bonnie Kruch also all the archaeologists had other jobs, Time Team had to be fitted in around their usual schedules. I don't think they'd have been able to take weeks out all the time for longer digs, and even if they could it would have been much more expensive for Channel 4. It was apparently relatively very expensive for TV already, including financing post-excavation work (despite that not being shown within the programme).

[@leechowning2712]

The team is made up of senior archeology professors, and in the early years the producers could not afford the team for extended periods. At this point, they could, but could not make a single hour show following the 1-3 weeks that a team like this would do in a full exploration. The fact they do only 3 days also allows them to do operations like this where it is limited by how long a section of a town can be shut down.

[@RKHageman]

Because Mick Aston planned it that way. TT digs were intended as exploratory excavations.

[@MUAYADOV]

جميل جداً

[@bgg4865]

"Manchester boomed as a cotton town, and the workers exploded". Given the dangers of cotton production, would you like to rephrase that?

[@MadPaperPeople]

we have invented a new dating system....errr no....Phil has...

[@TheGodParticles]

They possibly discover how he was given friendly tax treatment at 30:10.

[@michaelfach4922]

I really like this episodes where they dug younger archeology, because those centuries are nearer to my life experience than Romans and Saxons...

[@daveh3997]

One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle?

[@ruthsmith2434]

I think Phil should have gotten credit for "mortar dating". But all three took credit!

[@tonyjohnson8752]

Tony disorientated is not a word.

[@pantheraonca7414]

Was that woman digging in the trench Her Majesty??? You put the Queen of England in a dirty trench and had her scraping with a trowel?

[@martinfitzpatrick1551]

The first cotton mill in Manchester and guess what THEY BUILT ON IT !!! You couldnt make it up. Talk about a tourist attraction gone to waste. never mind, come here to look at some high rise buildings. Stand in awe as another building gets knocked down right in front of your eyes. Be amazed at all that glass and steel.

[@jeanpeuplu5570]

Dunno what they built upon that mill... and not sure wanna know either :/

[@lancelawrence7825]

Remember what the Door mouse said. Feed ur head. Remember what the David said. Keep ur head n u keep ur head!

[@robertbeckler5058]

So has the textile industry always sucked? Even in modern days. When I was a kid cloth was still being made in the states but suddenly it all went to Haiti and China go figure. Jocko got an old mill fired up again in the states. Good quality and a fair price but he sells direct. No middle men