Digging Up Britain's Past

Digging Up Britain's Past It's ruined by the intrusive music, playing over the top of people talking. Especially in museums, who thought that was good programme making?.

It lacks any jeopardy or surprise, which made Time Team so enjoyable

The wandering off to talk about social history is fine, but it's a bit out of the "Who do You think you are" playbook.

No concluding big picture and most of the "evidence" they talk about is not shown on screen. A hand forged nail was given as evidence of great "industrial production at the Bridgewater Canal" And when they got chance to visit a blacksmith did they make one of those hand forged nails, no, they made a pick. Then in the one on Bishop Aukland Castle, they go off and see a Trebuchet, with only one camera, so we don't even get to see it hurling . This is YTS history.

Alice Roberts is Premier division this is the junior school sports day.

Archaeology dumbed down to muzak.

Alex Langlands, Helen Skelton (first season) and Raksha Dave (second season) visit archaeological sites in Britain and sometimes help out. Alex and Raksha have both been in other similar TV shows like Time Team while Helen makes up for any lack of knowledge with lots of enthusiasm.

I thought the first season worked better with a presenter that knew nothing at the start so we learned about the site with her. I noticed one dig team kept showing up; DigVentures and the experts they interview are generally very good.

I really like Digging Up Britain's Past. It joins lots of other similar shows that all try to replicate Time Teams long success; and none of them quite matching it. It's good at showing what's there and describing the history. I enjoyed the snippets of banter. What it misses is the unknown at the start of a dig, the immediacy of discoveries and the peril of not finding anything.

I liked, 'Hurry up I want to see what's in there.'

The Bridgewater Canal episode is mostly good but unfortunately, the presenters perpetuate the myth that railways made the canals redundant. The reality is, as anyone who knows about the history of the Bridgewater Canal will verify, railways had very little effect on the traffic of the Bridgewater. Coal and other bulky goods could still be carried on the canal more cheaply than on the railways and for most traffic, it was cost that was important, - not speed. (The railway guy they interviewed just doesn't get it!) Traffic on the Bridgewater Canal rose from around 750,000 tons in 1830, (the year when the Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened), to over 2 million tons by 1860, - nearly a three-fold increase. This high level of traffic continued into the 20th Century and it was the development of road transport in the years following the First World War that caused traffic to decline. The Canal was still carrying over half a million tons after World War 2. Amongst other traffic, coal was still being carried by barge from the Lancashire pits West of Worsley to power stations until 1972.

This is a similar story to what happened on other canals in Lancashire and Yorkshire, although some of the narrow canals in rural areas and heavily-locked canals like the Rochdale were more susceptible to railway competition.

Incidentally, the traces of old railway tracks found by the presenters at Worsley were part of the Bridgewater Collieries Railway which, although connecting with main line railways away from Worsley, also fed coal to the canal barges from collieries some way from the canal. It did this via wagon tipplers on the bank of the canal, by which wagon loads of coal were tipped into the boats. One of these was at Worsley. Other coal loading points with wagon tipplers were established to the West of Worsley, at Boothstown Basin and Astley Green.

These railway tracks were not eclipsing the canal as stated in the film but were an adjunct to it, by which canal coal traffic was maintained and expanded. The presenters' comments are incorrect. The fact is that the canals survived into the pleasure boat era because many, (like the Bridgewater), were still carrying commercial traffic up to that time.

Poor research!