Time Team S16-E02 The Hollow Way: Ulnaby, County Durham

The distinctive grass-covered remains of the deserted medieval village of Ulnaby are a landmark in the Durham countryside. And although they've been photographed, surveyed and written about, they've never been dug. But now Tony Robinson and the Team have been invited to physically unearth the secrets of one of the best-preserved archaeological sites in Britain.

[@Cohowarren]

I miss Mick!!!! Great man.

[@adamsjerome1839]

Poor John Gater. The humorous jabs he endures and how he keeps his tongue in cheek is truly inspiring.

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

It nice to see that no one really gets the high ground..... It's taken in stride, with a swallowing of some pride 😊

[@ebybeehoney]

Always listen to Stewart!

[@kathycarlson7947]

I'm late to this party, but I'm still enthusiastic! I taught medieval English literature, and this program makes me want to leave retirement and teach again--and a resource like this one would enrich us all. Thank you again from the other side of the pond.

[@freeholdtacticalmed]

Stewart is the unsung hero of the team. He consistently gives the diggers the clues they need to dig in the right place. Everyone comes up empty except Stewart and his maps and documents.

[@Invictus13666]

So you missed Stew being totally wrong? As he often is?

[@TartarugaPreta]

I have always loved the good natured “ball-busting,” that threads its way through the years of this show. It is just a wonderful show. Interesting, intelligent, with no sense of pretension. A show you wish would never end, and you are so sad when it does. Thanks for helping to keep it alive and available.

[@aussiebloke609]

Any time they start ragging on John and his geophysics, I just think of the very first episode, when he presented the complete floorplan of Athelney Chapel. And they didn't even have to dig a single trench. :-)

[@lindaschultz6318]

​@@aussiebloke609ĺ

[@JuleyC]

I love seeing Naomi Sewpaul on here she is a delight.

[@pseudonymoussmith2249]

Confession. I parented the crap outta the day. It was relationship building with teens. Teens without school. I'm exhausted. I lay in bed but my mind is replaying conversation from the day. Brain talk. I stretch. I breathe. And I fall to sleep watching Time Team. It's a documentary history lesson sitcom game show. It's relaxing. No politics, no controversy, no abuse, no violence, no arguing. Zzzzzzz Zzzzzzz ❤

[@ghendar]

Some smart cookie needs to come up with a t-shirt with the Time Team logo, a silhoutted version of a geophys person walking across a field with the equipment and the caption says, "Lumps and Bumps" I'd buy one.

[@6xxxMickeyxxx6]

Or a picture of Stewart saying I told you so

[@petergerdes1094]

OMG Mick has gloves that match his sweater. How have I watched 16 seasons and never noticed that?

[@trishayamada807]

I found this show 7 years ago and was crushed to learn Mick had died. I loved his cheerful rainbow sweaters and his personality to match. He was only 66. Gone too soon.

[@cargilekm]

One of the many things that made this show great is that Tony was able to get highly educated people to explain their findings into plain talk. I know he would have been able to understand without explanation, but he doesn't lose awareness of the viewers. this has made this part of the success of this whole series. Time Team America couldn't find a presenter or host that had that skill set. It was all part of Baldrick's cunning plan.

[@barnabyaprobert5159]

+cargilekm Wait, there was an enormous turnip involved?

[@cargilekm]

+Barnaby ap Robert Not that would be mentioned in mixed company. It looks like a "****".

[@wagoneer81]

And yet, so many people misunderstand Tony's ways and chock it up to arrogance... They all had a great chemistry and way with one another. Groups like TT are great to work with and very rare.

[@cargilekm]

+Chris eddy preaching to the choir there.

[@cargilekm]

Other than Neil DeGrasse Tyson on NOVA, I would have to agree with you. Too much scholar not enough presenter.

[@samuelnicolay3926]

I live in the province of Luxembourg in Belgium. The typical rural villages are very similar to the one described in this episode with most houses up to about 40 years ago having at least half the building dedicated to keeping animals and a place for a manure heap outside the front door. Most households kept chickens, a pig and some cows or sheep. They grew most of their vegetables and often owned or rented at least one field. Recently people had day jobs and ran their farmsteads during their free time.

[@jonathaneffemey944]

thanks for posting

[@ChiHatcher]

Thank you so Kindly for posting all of these. I adore everyone in them, such fun to watch and laugh out loud with them!

[@bluehairandaxes8489]

I just love Mick's wonderful knit hats!!

[@ilanamillion8942]

I have often wondered if Mick himself knitted those sweaters and that hat!

[@jacobbevers8171]

Phil is a big part of what makes the team watchable. Most working class viewers relate with Phil cuz he’s always in the hole digging while most everyone else is standing there looking down not doing a derned thing annoying the mess outta us..lmao

[@StephiSensei26]

A pint of Guinness and some nice relaxing medieval foot wrestling of course! Love this bunch!

[@bradwalden546]

You’re beautiful! Hope that’s not weird or anything...

[@Dal606BBN]

Lol Stewart may have lost the foot wrestling match but he won the landscape battle! Never underestimate Stewart's knowledge of a landscape! I Love The Time Team!! R.I.P Mick. Love seeing him in these episodes!

[@Invictus13666]

But Stewart was wrong. Again.

[@trishayamada807]

@@Invictus13666 wow, I’m sure you’d be better. Perhaps try mixing up your comment. Same shit.

[@Invictus13666]

@@trishayamada807 there are a limited number of ways to point out stew was wrong again though. And actually, yes. Being a landscape archaeologist isn’t that special. Guess who wrote the book stew trained from?

[@lizzy66125]

​@@Invictus13666 not you..

[@Invictus13666]

@@lizzy66125 pardon?

[@saramae8704]

This has become my favorite thing. I missed out on it all as a dumb American. If I had a nickel for every time they say, "lumps and bumps," I could afford to come see some of these sites! 😂💙

[@williamjeffersonclinton69]

Dr. Phil Harding is such an interesting person. I wish I had the time to sit in on a class and listen to him.

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

Rather hear him comfortably rambling across the table with me at the bar😂

[@williamjeffersonclinton69]

@@user-hy7zb2vl3t yes. Indeed. He would be a riot to have a pint or 2 with at the bar/pub.

[@vincewhite5087]

I love the part where Phil tells Mitch ‘ those stones are not stones’ since geophiz says there are no stones.

[@semisophisticate63]

I love how they give each other a hard time. You have to laugh with them!

[@wagoneer81]

I love the back and forth between them. I especially love it when, at 9:50, Phil starts taking the mickey out on John about finding rocks in his trench. I love working with groups like this. Give and take, all the time with a smile!

[@wagoneer81]

Sorry, I meant at 8:50...

[@tamonettX500]

My favorite part Lol

[@afrog2666]

OR, I can be annoyed that they`re acting like spoiled children and are being very unprofessional..

[@cathjj840]

They're just keeping it real, Jan - isn't this pretty typical of male interaction? What irks me is when the women 'dare' to be so 'confrontational', some guys come down on them like a ton of bricks, as if personally affronted and annointed as Beelzebub himself to condemn to them to Hades forever. Carenza especially gets this over the top mistreatment. They take no account of her senior position in the hierarchy, so no only her right but her duty to intervene - she just has to zip it and preferably disappear according to them. Mother, Daddy or incel issues, I suppose.

[@patrickevans3797]

Geophysics looks like a tough job, as much grief as John gets, he's a really good natured sport

[@stannousflouride8372]

The Hollow Way starts about here: 54°32'56.5"N 1°38'57.9"W and the lines of the other street and plots are visible on Google Earth. If you pull back you can see lines in two fields to the east and in some across the main road on the north that match up with the lines in the main field, suggesting that the village was more extensive than they suspected at the time this was dug.

[@cathjj840]

Or that they just had very well worn paths to other places, perhaps predating the site or running to things that no longer existed but had for a very long time earlier.

[@teresatoft3512]

What amazed me was how these highly educated & intelligent scholars, argued so politely with each other, without breaking out into expletives. Great show IMO.

[@vincerussett7922]

Oh, the expletives sometimes come (the archaeologists are only human after all)... but they end up in the digital rubbish bin. There's a strange dichotomy here in the UK, where the TV channels don't allow swearing (mostly), but you hear spumes of violent swearing in every street. No swearing on TT or Doctor Who though...

[@laurachapple6795]

I finally found it! The Medieval Foot Wrestling episode! I'm bookmarking this!

[@00BillyTorontoBill]

After 20 yrs on the air.... I wonder what the total bar tab was at all the pubs they visited.

[@alexiswelsh5821]

Over $100

[@00BillyTorontoBill]

@@alexiswelsh5821 Thats Tony and Phil's per hour rate.

[@sstanley4333]

"they were smoking like kippers"--hahaha!

[@tamonettX500]

Rimmer Lol

[@tamonettX500]

LOL

[@tamonettX500]

LOVE Red Dwarf, watched it to death in the 90's...watch mini marathons on KZbin when the mood hits me

[@tamonettX500]

Rimmer is such a douche...love him haha an entire civilization of Rimmers LOL

[@laurachapple6795]

I finally found it! The Medieval Foot Wrestling episode!

[@Lemma01]

"The life that you or I might have lived...?" Aww, bless Sir Baldy, everyone's favourite little prole! ;-)

[@oldschoolman1444]

Poor John really took a roasting in good humor. =)

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

As we should 😊

[@paulbriody297]

Love the medieval foot wrestling contest in the tavern! Perhaps it's an activity that might make a come-back.

[@hawkpaul8735]

Agree. I laughed my socks off at poor Stu going backwards with his chair.

[@deborahparham3783]

​@@hawkpaul8735Wasn't really a fair fight. Stewart was in a chair in the middle of the room while John had his back braced against the wall.

[@123456wasp]

Thanks for the shows!

[@RoyalFizzbin]

Nobody is singing the praises of Stewart’s reading of the land in this one. 😂

[@Anhorish]

Stuart is consistently impressive in his reading of landscapes. He seems to have an intuitive grasp to augment his scholarship.

[@barbaraadams3327]

I really don't care for the constant bashing of Stewart. He is clearly intelligent yet is always given a hard time.

[@erinobrien8408]

The bone tool looks more like a lissoir than a spoon. A lissoir is used to close pores on leather skins and to work in oils to make the skins waterproof.

[@elenavaccaro339]

Definitely agree.

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

Neat theory

[@niccoarcadia4179]

The "Medieval Farm Village' at Ulnaby, County Durham has since been turned into a tourist attraction. Not a very big attraction but the site does have a restaurant/coffee shop and gift shop store. A local attraction.

[@fatnsassy99]

Phil and Mick always funny banter

[@timshirling1097]

Damn y'all are hard on geofiz ! I feel for the guys . They work so hard and get beat on so hard .

[@christophloewen174]

Love this show!

[@jihnsilcox3078]

I wish the BBC would bring it back it's such an educational program it would be great if school children got involved in the digs Dr Harding would be fantastic and sir Tony Robbins on aswel

[@philaypeephilippotter6532]

@@jihnsilcox3078 It was made for *Channel4* in *England* but otherwise you're quite right. I suspect you saw it away from *Britain* because some *BBC* channels _did_ show it there.

[@WashuHakubi4]

I thought they were going to start Day Three with commentary on Time Team's first-ever foot wrestling injury.

[@mikeradford5630]

Love the dry humour @08:45 Phils got him in his sights !

[@Gabeloveyou]

Adore Phil❤️❤️.

[@MissCattitude63]

It's so nice to hear people say "biting cold". At the moment it's 37 degs C here and I'm melting. I could do with a bit of "biting cold"!

[@georgeb.wolffsohn30]

Where's here ?

[@dwightehowell8179]

My mother spoke of playing with a pig's bladder when she was a young child back in the late 20s and early 30s. I'm sure more urban types would have been aghast at the thought.

[@Suryanshi1984]

It's always fun to watch Field Archeologist vs Geo Physics guys... Phil vs John 😂😂

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

Withe Stewart playing both sides of the field 😊

[@matsolovhedman1952]

"Ulnaby" seems very much Scandinavian. It refers to sheeps. They tell in the program that the letters by stands for village, which is correct, but they forget to mention the "ulna".

[@lizzy66125]

Robin Bush would have been able to find out and tell what had happened to this village.sorely missed🥺

[@user-xn2hf9re8r]

I love Stewart's conviction - Phil is just a cantankerous bully at times

[@Jigger2361]

...it's all with a wink

[@Lanfear40]

lol @ Phil...about 9:00 'Ah, now don't be fooled, those are NOT stones!'

[@cathjj840]

Cor - stone the crows !!

[@andyrowlands50029]

The Medieval era was not a cold miserable existence, the Medieval Warm Period was several degrees warmer than today.

[@LintonHerbert]

Great to see the backhoe operator back, always neat as a pin and so attentive the team acts as if he were not there. Other operators see people clear a trench and wave their hands. The final slow decline may be from infertility, but I shall be begging your help with that anthropologic issue later this year. Hope we can remember this then.

[@jan-eriktrres3654]

absolutely love this show all 20 years of it :-) but need to correct the lady saying that the ending BY means farmstead in old Norse. It doesnt. It means more a village or gathering of houses and families, than a single farmstead. A single farmstead would be named GARD. The same meaning as we have today in Norwegian

[@vilhelmvonbraun3093]

What are you talking about?. "By" could mean "house" or "farm" and the meaning has changed over time. In Danish it even means "town" or "city" today.

[@jan-eriktrres3654]

I am saying what the term BY actually means !

[@jan-eriktrres3654]

The term BY comes from the norse "byr" or "gard" village, just as I said above.

[@lucygray6162]

@janis vogel How mature.

[@kbsheldon]

Did anybody else catch Tony claim to be a peasant just like you and I?

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

Born one grew up one lived as one. Then was given an award, knows his true roots I'd say😊

[@eliseluttrell9073]

Sir Geoffery Luttrell ?? the Luttrell Psalter ?? okay im interested now😂😂

[@Malegys]

No surprise people fled County Durham....

[@StephiSensei26]

"...smoking like kippers", where do you get this stuff? Baldrick strikes again!

[@retroecho]

14:20 the panning shot matched the back ground music!!

[@chinamanjw]

Bridged 😍😍

[@thomaspatton4401]

We have all heard the saying. If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck etc, etc. when Phil struck that thing that bore an amazing resemblance to a stone I could have sworn I heard it quack! Maybe I'm just hearing things in my old age. Geophiz sez 'there are no stones!' so I guess we were all group hallucinating. If that's the case, pass it around again, I need a bit more! that would make a really great T-shirt for geophiz; "There are no stones!" (On the back) "Nothing to see here!"De-nile ain't just a river in Ejypt!

[@jefferywise1906]

Lol Phill at least pluck the bird before you serve up that crow to John....😂😜😀

[@trimbaker1893]

Hello, It looks to me, like the picture of the plow shows adjustments that can be made, see all the little round dots along the top of the board? incremental points to fasten it...perhaps? Smiling, George.

[@cmike2626]

good episode. no sexy finds no super high status stuff. just a regular mid village.

[@bastra2343]

I’m really curious about the drawing in the Lord’s book at 23:07. The beer drinker are depicted with animal legs. Is this a nod to saytr’s or Dionysus the Roman god of drink. Does anyone have an idea as to why they were depicted in this way?

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

Artist license think of it a drunken ass or you drunken goat.... Way to accent the story of the illustration maybe 😊

[@JohnMorley1]

The last mention of the village is 20 years before a very bloody civil war. How come nobody mentioned that as a possible factor?

[@cathjj840]

Either they felt it was irrelevant or they just don't have the format to into all the academic details.

[@andrewsharpe2587]

Apparently, the rain is synchronized with Time Team episodes.

[@maddog2771]

Was here in 2019

[@gendeb9666]

I love watching academics argue 🤣

[@lisakaz35]

All we do in grad school.

[@APIEngineering]

I wish they had said the name of that pub they went to... it looks like a great place.

[@stannousflouride8372]

+APIEngineering Looks to be the Spotted Dog at nearby High Coniscliffe. www.spotteddogcountrypub.co.uk/index.html

[@imjusttoodissgusted5620]

pigs bladder as a balloon. not the first time I heard of this. when I was 4 or 5 (55 years ago) one fall morning is was time to slaughter hogs. My Grand mother took one of the bladders, stuck a straw in it after put a knot in the other end and blew it up as a balloon for me to play with, I remember wanting nothing to do with it.

[@thomasbell7033]

Naomi was a baby when they shot this one. So is Matt.

[@uw1955]

Oh boys, keep calm ! (around 25.20), Poor old Stewart, he's only environmentalist.

[@chrisbeckstrom6182]

This is so cool; I've traced my ancestry here.

[@ersikillian]

So, after you do the archeology, do you put the lumps and bumps back?

[@meemurthelemur4811]

Yup

[@Art4ArtsSakeVideo]

Ah yes, at 33:00, Tony observes: "apart from the fact they were smoking like kippers, we don't seem to know what the people who lived here were doing..." Tells it like it is...!

[@juliamason6101]

I can agree with you Miss Cattude63, it is 92 degrees with the humidity making it feel like 96 degrees here in Lakeland FL USA. I wonder who knitted Prof. Mick's finger mitts?

[@Concetta20]

"Shock horror." :)

[@mick7even]

Tony, don’t pretend you would have been a peasant. Court Jester minimum! 🤣

[@Dozenfury88]

On this one I'm inclined to think the town was largely abandoned after the black plague. There is a mention in the episode of property there being transferred in the 1500's, and the assumption being that meant it must have still been inhabited. But these could have been vacant houses that were not necessarily inhabited by then (Ulnaby may have been hit hard by it), which would also explain giving them away 100 years later. Just too much of a gap of ~300 years right after the black plague with no findings where it seemed to become a ghost town suddenly. And then finally a few hundred years later the property was reused, probably by a the single later home that they found before eventually even that went away, and the village was lost to history until TT.

[@spearlatturr4207]

look at that Defender

[@dr.johnpaladinshow9747]

I've got to stop watching Time Team. I'm starting to talk like a Brit. The other day I used the phrase, "could have done" with a neighbor. Got a strange look from them.

[@Headwind-1]

its 'could a done'

[@barbmcconnaughey3070]

I’m starting to say Medi-evil. 😆

[@lorawiese5897]

I find myself leaving off "the'. 'He went to hospital' rather than "he went to the hospital".

[@dr.johnpaladinshow9747]

@@lorawiese5897 Watch Jeremy Brett as Sherlock. Then you, like me, will go around speaking Victorian English w/o effort.

[@ledacedar6253]

cur, blimey lad.

[@yooper6161]

I miss stuart with hippy hair!

[@mikeradford5630]

@14:40 ok I'm no archaeologist but... why build a revetment from stone to protect as she says a flimsy timber structured house from the elements, why not use the stone i to build the house?? Just asking

[@cathjj840]

I could think of several reasons. The timber wall with its filling material (usually wattle and daub) was already in place, and that is usually much more insulating than stone. But maybe it was showing signs of weakness or decay, so they decided to use the stones taken from field creation or another building falling to ruin to reinforce it. And if so, perhaps they only became available over time and not all at once.

[@ersikillian]

Perhaps the stone wall was from a slightly later structure, which was erected after the timber house had collapsed?

[@melvingrassel588]

So you think they could have used a plow... to plow the field?

[@andrewoliversatchell1963]

MY REGARDS

[@geirbalderson9697]

Sadly, it is way too chilly.

[@bevinbrush4822]

Who is responsible to dispose of the old battery? Who pays fir the new battery? What changes are ned for this system to operate? Who pays for this change?

[@TeresaTrimm]

First aired January 11, 2009.

[@baskervillebee6097]

Why does Phil's hair always seem longest on the left front side?

[@scribbleknit]

Comb-over?

[@theskip1]

that side faces north

[@Jigger2361]

...his mum cuts it

[@baskervillebee6097]

@@scribbleknit 😆😆😆😆

[@deborahparham3783]

Just looks that way. He tends to tilt his head to the left when he talks.

[@Fox1nDen]

I want Phil's laugh for my ring tone. any ideas?

[@ste1072]

Fox1nDen Google Play Store

[@JamesD92763]

William Greystoke?? Tarzan's ancestor??? lol

[@CanChikMay]

Did anyone help stewart up?

[@DCShaneTours]

I want to live in a world where cannabis cafes are accepted like a booze pubs are. I like relaxing with a non-toxic, medicinal plant; not a toxic, hard drug like booze.

[@karmayt8956]

Heartless landlords turning villagers out - they will pay in Karma.

[@bornkiller313]

i still prefer to call him baldrick xD

[@bevinbrush4822]

I asked a commercial question? So, never mind.

[@jimfitzhugh6050]

I just think it's sad that Mick wears such drab clothes.

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

Needs flashier shoe's 😂

[@KhanCrete]

this episode sponsored by dan schneider

[@chrisedy9116]

Why only three days ?

[@Jigger2361]

...it's "testing", they are testing...local groups can then expand on the excavation if they care to

[@mickeykindley9885]

They also have other jobs

[@RKHageman]

Mick Aston designed the program that way. Also, funding. C4 wasn’t going to pay for longer ones.

[@JonFrumTheFirst]

There must have been two different episodes shown here. In my version, Stewart laid an egg. Some of the commenters obviously got the version is which Stew got something right.

[@user-hy7zb2vl3t]

The story of the egg...... There are three parts of the same thing... Shell,white, and yoke. All looks like an egg

[@lorilea3188]

400 years of lead poisoning from their pottery, wonder they lasted as long as they did.