Chicksands
Chicksands Priory
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TV reveals historic secrets of
spy base
27th January 2002
Bedfordshire on Sunday
TIME Team can be seen digging at a top secret spy base today.
RAF Chicksands is the location for the popular TV archaeology programme. And the team says it has unearthed some dark and grisly secrets about the nuns and priests who used to live there.
The Channel Four show, presented by Toni Robinson, filmed at the spy base in May last year.
Chicksands used to be an American base but is now used by British military intelligence for training purposes.
The programme will be shown tonight at S pm.
Chicksands Priory is rich in history, becoming a priory of the Gilbertine order in 1147 and providing refuge for Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1164, when he disguised himself as a canon.
Although male and female members of the order were kept separated, on an inspection of the priory during the dissolution of monasteries under King Henry VIII, it was found that some of the priests and nuns were having relationships and even that one or two nuns were pregnant.
A local legend says that one such nun, known as Rosita, was bricked up alive in a wall of the priory, now an officers' mess. The last brick was apparently put in place only after she had watched her lover being beheaded.
Time Team's group of experts were searching for the rest of the priory buildings and the cemeteries, digging up the priory's immaculate lawns in the process.
One excavator, Jenni Butterworth, was also given the challenge of living like a l3th century nun for 24 hours.
Producer Philip Clarke said: "We were very pleased with all the local co-operation. "We were interested in the layout of the Gilbertine abbey and just about got there although, as so often happens, the archaeology proved elusive and enigmatic until the third day."
Director Graham Dixon said: "We were looking for the nuns' cloister. So few Gilbertine monasteries survive that we wanted to find out how they were laid out. "It was an evaluation exercise with a few trenches, but we found some of the best preserved monastic remains ever found in Bedfordshire and a bit of a spiral staircase."
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