Time Team S19-E02 A Village Affair

There's a problem in the chocolate-box village of Bitterley in Shropshire. The village's school and cottages cluster prettily around the green. But the village church and the manor house lie more than half a mile away, on the other side of a lumpy, bumpy empty field.

The villagers, led by energetic community archaeology group leader June Buckard, have been exploring the field and believe that their village used to be much bigger, with the field full of houses and streets. They have called in Tony Robinson and the Team to see if they're right.

But they're not expecting the professionals to do all the work. Half the village turn out, ready to dig test pits in their gardens and in any spare piece of land they can get on to. Trenches appear almost hourly in gardens, from the smallest cottage to the grand manor house lawns.

And it takes every hour of the three days for the villagers to get their answer. But judging by how much they seemed to enjoy it, they're probably still out there digging anyway!