Saturday, August 22, 2009

Castle discovered in South Northamptonshire

A team of archaeologists has uncovered what they believe could be remains of the only medieval stone castle in South Northamptonshire, United Kingdom.

According to a report in the Northampton Chron and Echo newspaper, archaeologists from Northamptonshire made the discovery at The Mount in Alderton, near Towcester, after they picked up where Time Team’s archaeologists left off eight years ago.

Experts from the Channel 4 programme carried out excavation work at the site in 2001.

But, the team’s digs are limited to three days and they only managed to scratch the surface of the history of the site, where work to build the long-since-vanished castle began soon after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Tim Upson Smith, from Northamptonshire County Council’s archaeological unit, supervised the three-week dig, and described the discovery of a substantial stone building and wall as “exciting”.

“We got the corner of a stone building which was on the edge of our excavation. We went looking for a timber castle and we discovered stone, which is really exciting from an archaeological point of view. It means the castle was in use longer than we thought and was developed,” he said.

“We are hoping to go back next year,” he added.

The dig finished on August 7, and due to funding and permission requirements, the dig could not go further to unearth more of the castle this time around, but the archaeological team hopes to discover even more about the site when they revisit it.