Kettering Roman villa and Chester House reveals hidden secrets in BBC TV's Digging For Britain with Dr Alice Roberts
Northamptonshire’s Roman past will feature in the latest series of BBC TV's Digging For Britain as TV cameras accompany Professor Alice Roberts to two county sites.
The BBC 2 programme ‘Dinosaur Highway and Roman Sauna’ is due to be aired at 8pm on Tuesday, January 7, – the second episode of series 12 of Digging For Britain,
Professor Roberts will be seen at the site near Kettering where archaeology students from the University of Cranfield and local volunteers have been carefully excavating a Roman villa.
She will also been seen at the site of Roman Irchester, now Chester House Estate, at the Northamptonshire Archaeological Resource Centre known as the ARC.
Volunteer Steve Sharpe, who has been working on the Kettering dig, said: “I’m very much looking forward to seeing the programme. I was there when it was being filmed – they were there for about three days. The big reveal is the mosaic over the hypocaust. Having something like that intact is unusual.”
Last summer students under the guidance of Dr David Errickson of Cranfield University discovered the mosaic at the high-status Roman villa on a private site near Kettering.
The dig now in its fourth season, uncovered an underfloor heating ‘hypocaust’, including stacks of tiles known as ‘pilae’ used to create the space for hot air.
With only a fraction of the site excavated and the dig only taking place one month a year, the project is a long-term one. In 2025, investigations using geo-physical data will be used to find more evidence of a Roman road which is thought to have run from Barton Seagrave to Geddington.
Viewers will be able to see Professor Robert’s journeys around central Britain to uncover the most exciting archaeological discoveries made in the region in 2024.
Included in the programme is the chance discovery of a set of very large dinosaur footprints from the Jurassic period, skeletons from 2023’s Leicester Cathedral excavation, Iron Age settlements in Cambridgeshire as well as Kettering’s luxurious Roman farmstead and the Irchester Roman ‘new town’ on the outskirts of Wellingborough.
Sadly, Mr Sharpe is giving a talk on the history of Kettering the night of the show but the programme will be available on iPlayer after is is broadcast.
He added: “It’s sod’s law! I’ll just have to record it.”