8.4/1010 votesLoading...#1 - The Tudors
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 9/10/2010
Alice Roberts finds out about discoveries that shed new light on the Tudor Age, visiting excavations at Shakespeare's first theatre, in London's Shoreditch, and at his last home in Stratford-upon-Avon, where clues reveal his economical use of money. In Wales, she meets a team of archaeologists learning about the realities of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, while on the banks of the Thames, the history of a forgotten royal palace is uncovered
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.3/107 votesLoading...#2 - North
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 3/24/2016
Professor Alice Roberts explores the year's most exciting archaeological finds in the north of Britain. A team discovers clues to Scotland's first kingdoms, metal detectorists unearth a hoard of Viking treasure, and a new housing development reveals a graveyard of Iron Age warriors.
Director: N/A
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8.2/106 votesLoading...#3 - East
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 3/17/2016
Professor Alice Roberts explores the year's most exciting archaeological finds in the east of Britain. A team unearths a mass grave, divers search the Thames for clues to a 17th-century tragedy, and a metal detectorist makes the find of a lifetime.
Director: N/A
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8.1/1014 votesLoading...#4 - West
Season 6 Episode 1 - Aired 11/22/2017
We discover the camp from which Vikings invaded Britain, and find groundbreaking new evidence that the world-famous Avebury stone circle isn't just a sacred site but a place where our ancestors lived and worked - a discovery that's also changing our understanding of neighbouring Stonehenge. In Staffordshire, the oldest Iron Age gold in Britain is unearthed - a set of beautiful gold torcs, mysteriously abandoned 2,500 years ago.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/1014 votesLoading...#5 - The Horsemen of Hadrian's Wall
Season 6 Episode 4 - Aired 12/13/2017
In this special, Professor Alice Roberts reveals the forgotten story of the Roman Army's secret weapon in Britain - their cavalry. These fearsome horsemen were the key to defending Britain's most famous Roman monument fortification, Hadrian's Wall. Alice sets off across Hadrian's Wall to investigate any evidence the Roman cavalry left behind, while a team of archaeologists and historical re-enactors attempt to re-stage a Roman cavalry tournament - a spectacle that no one has seen for over 1,600 years. We follow the team's training as they prepare for the performance, and Alice joins them at a public display in Carlisle where 30 riders perform in front of a crowd of spectators. To put the cavalry's story in context, the film also explores the latest archaeological digs happening across the UK, each of which is searching for new evidence of the Roman cavalry. On her journey across Hadrian's Wall, Alice visits some of the most iconic sites associated with the Roman cavalry, including Chester's Roman fort, Vindolanda fort and museum and Hexham Abbey. Along the way she builds a picture of the horsemen's lives here on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire.
Director: N/A
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8.1/109 votesLoading...#6 - Iron Age Revealed
Season 7 Episode 4 - Aired 12/19/2018
Alice Roberts follows the excavation of Iron Age Britain’s most spectacular grave. A team of archaeologists in East Yorkshire have uncovered the remains of only the third upright chariot burial ever found in Britain, and the only chariot burial ever found in this country with the chariot harnessed to two standing ponies. This sensational find is the lead dig for the Digging for Britain Iron Age special.
Director: N/A
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8.0/1017 votesLoading...#7 - The Romans
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 8/19/2010
Roman finds include the mystery of 97 babies murdered by the Thames, a fabulous Roman coin hoard found in Somerset and a man buried on a layer of dead animals.
Director: N/A
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8.0/1012 votesLoading...#8 - North
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 11/28/2018
Professor Alice Roberts celebrates the biggest and best archaeological discoveries of 2018 from the north of the UK. Each digging team has been filming its own excavations, giving us an unprecedented view of each excavation as it happens. Alice begins the programme with a prehistoric Pompeii at the Black Loch of Myrton. Uncovering incredibly preserved 2500-year-old houses, archaeologists are stepping back in time and glimpsing what life was really like in an Iron Age village. We follow archaeologists uncovering a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Lincolnshire full of spectacular and unusual grave goods. We go on the hunt for a lost Second World War reconnaissance Spitfire in Norway and piece together the story of its brave pilot. Deep in the vaults at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, we explore one of its greatest treasures, the Westness Brooch. We also head to the island of Rousay in Orkney, where archaeologists rescue a Neolithic tomb before it gets washed away and discover an incredible trace of our ancestors on a rare Pictish stone. In Salford, a major regeneration project is unearthing the largest jail in Georgian England and its radical approach to crime and punishment. Roving archaeologist, Raksha Dave gets privileged access behind the scenes in the conservation labs at Vindolanda Roman fort and discovers what really happens when the digging stops.
Director: N/A
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8.0/108 votesLoading...#9 - West
Season 7 Episode 2 - Aired 12/5/2018
Professor Alice Robert explores this year’s most exciting archaeological finds from the west of Britain. Every new discovery was filmed by the archaeologists themselves giving us an unprecedented view of each excavation as it happens. In this episode, we join a team as they undertake the largest maritime investigation since the Mary Rose and reveal the extraordinary story of HMS Invincible. At Silchester, archaeologists investigate a Bathhouse that reveals how the Romans stamped their mark on Britain. A buried military camp in Hampshire shows why German soldiers were key to our security in the 18th century and archaeologist Raksha Dave goes behind the scenes to tell the tragic tale of individuals from a 19th-century pauper’s graveyard.
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7.9/109 votesLoading...#10 - West
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 3/10/2016
This episode heads to the west of Britain, while archaeologists join us back in the Salisbury Museum to look at the new finds and what they mean.
Director: N/A
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7.9/1014 votesLoading...#11 - East
Season 6 Episode 2 - Aired 11/29/2017
We unearth the biggest collection of Roman writing tablets in Britain, giving insight into what Roman London was really like. Off the coast of Kent, we dive into the English Channel to complete the biggest marine excavation since the Mary Rose - an 18th-century East India Company ship, packed with silver. Also in Kent, we're on the detective trail to find the very first evidence of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain - an ancient fort scattered with human skulls and weapons.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.9/109 votesLoading...#12 - East
Season 7 Episode 3 - Aired 12/12/2018
Professor Alice Roberts explores this year’s most exciting archaeological finds from the East of Britain. Every new discovery was filmed by the archaeologists themselves giving us an unprecedented view of each excavation as it happens. In this episode, we join a team in Suffolk as they uncover an ancient lost monument as old as Stonehenge. We travel a little further East than usual to a WWI battlefield in France to explore one of Britain’s earliest and most disastrous tank battles, and then return to Suffolk as archaeologists try to make sense of some disturbing Roman burial practices. Also, one lucky metal detectorist chances upon a coin hoard that gives us insight into the effect the English civil war had on the lives of ordinary people. Our roving archaeologist, Raksha Dave goes behind the scenes at an archaeological lab in Brighton and follows an investigation into a lost medieval village.
Director: N/A
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7.8/109 votesLoading...#13 - Age of Bronze and Iron
Season 2 Episode 3 - Aired 9/24/2011
Dr Alice Roberts discovers what kind of a place Britain was before the Romans invaded.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/108 votesLoading...#14 - Ice and Stone
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 9/30/2011
Dr Alice Roberts goes in search of our elusive Stone Age ancestors.
Director: N/A
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7.8/1011 votesLoading...#15 - West
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 12/6/2016
Finds include training trenches on Salisbury Plain and luxury foreign goods at Tintagel.
Director: N/A
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7.8/1011 votesLoading...#16 - East
Season 5 Episode 3 - Aired 12/20/2016
Finds include the theatre where Shakespeare premiered Romeo and Juliet and Henry V.
Director: N/A
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7.8/1013 votesLoading...#17 - North
Season 6 Episode 3 - Aired 12/6/2017
Alice discovers the well-preserved writing tablets, swords and domestic items left by Romans at Vindolanda during a time of British rebellion. On the Scottish island of Iona, there are traces of a long-lost monastery and pilgrimage site that was originally built by the legendary saint Columba, and has been compared to Jerusalem. In the east of Scotland, a weapons hoard belonging to a wealthy Bronze Age warrior is unearthed.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/1010 votesLoading...#18 - Anglo-Saxons
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/2/2010
The Anglo-Saxons - they divided our land and heralded the arrival of the Dark Ages. But were they really just barbarians? Dr Alice Roberts continues her journey through a year of archaeology, visiting the key sites that are throwing light on this most mysterious of periods. She visits the royal seat of power at Bamburgh, Northumbria and sees how the skeletons tell tales of violent death, but also of tenderness.
Director: N/A
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7.7/107 votesLoading...#19 - Invaders
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 9/16/2011
Includes a visit to Orkney where Viking dominance outlasted anywhere else in Britain.
Director: N/A
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7.7/1012 votesLoading...#20 - North
Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 12/13/2016
Finds include evidence of the first Roman siege in Britain and Scottish man-made islands.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/1010 votesLoading...#21 - Mystery Shipwreck and a Roman Army Camp
Season 10 Episode 4 - Aired 1/22/2023
Alice Roberts reveals a Dutch ship sunk by the English, a Cornish Roman fort and a 5000-year-old Neolithic monument.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.6/108 votesLoading...#22 - Britannia
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 9/9/2011
Looks at Roman Britannia, where finds include the thickening mystery of 97 baby skeletons.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.6/1014 votesLoading...#23 - North
Season 9 Episode 3 - Aired 1/6/2022
The best archaeology from the north of Britain, including Scotland’s oldest railway, one of the best-preserved Norman castles and an extraordinary find from a Neolithic tomb.
Director: N/A
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- 7.6/107 votesLoading...
#24 - Ice Age Camp and a Saint with Syphilis
Season 10 Episode 6 - Aired 2/5/2023
In Scotland and the north of England, Alice investigates an Ice Age camp, the mystery of a medieval skeleton and the earliest evidence of salt making in Britain.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/108 votesLoading...
#25 - Headless Romans and Anglo Saxon Gold
Season 10 Episode 3 - Aired 1/15/2023
A gatehouse riddled with Civil War bullets, a unique Iron Age shield made from bark and Roman burials with pots where the heads should be.
Director: N/A
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The Best Episodes of Digging for Britain
Every episode of Digging for Britain ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Digging for Britain!
Dr Alice Roberts follows a year of British archaeology, joining up the results of digs and investigations the length of the country.
Genre:Documentary
Network:BBC Two
Best Episodes Summary
"The Tudors" is the best rated episode of "Digging for Britain". It scored 8.4/10 based on 10 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 9/10/2010. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "North".