Time Team
Series 20 | Episode 10 | Wolsey's Lost Palace


For 100 years schoolboys have been playing a few feet above the remains of the most opulent 
palace in Britain. 

The Manor of More was masterminded by Henry VIII's right-hand man, the all-powerful religious leader and statesman Cardinal Wolsey, who was also responsible for Hampton Court Palace. Tudor visitors remarked that it was grander than Hampton Court. 

But the palace went missing until the 1950s, when a group of pupils at Northwood School in Hertfordshire discovered its remains beneath their school playing field. 

Now one of those schoolboys - Martin Biddle, who is now one of the country's most 
distinguished archaeologists - joins Tony and the Team as they try to piece together the complete picture of this huge palace. 

In its heyday, the Manor of More would have been an opulent playground fit for royalty and state visitors. Like Hampton Court, it was built as a place in which to entertain. Thomas More and Catherine of Aragon would have known it intimately. 

But working out the layout of the palace is as tough a challenge as the Team have had for a long while. 

There should be a huge front courtyard, but where is it? There should be a long gallery running off the back range, somewhere under the school's tennis courts. But it's equally elusive. 

But, finally, enough pieces of this challenging Tudor jigsaw fall into place for the Team to visualise the splendour that once stood here, with its towered gatehouse rising majestically out of a wide moat.