Digging for Britain
Digging for Britain is a documentary on BBC4. A small island with a big history. Professor Alice Roberts reveals the fascinating world hidden beneath our feet, showcasing the latest finds of dedicated archaeologists. The program has been available since 2024. A total of 33 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in July 2025.
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Digging for Britain
In the west of Britain, there's a rare medieval cemetery, a disappearing Mesolithic landscape, a mysterious Iron Age burial and the ruins of a Gothic masterpiece.
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In central England, an RAF airbase with a Roman past, a forgotten medieval nunnery, a gold pendant from a 7th-century grave and a pub with a very long history of hospitality.
Series 6
Alice Roberts reveals the story of the Roman cavalry. As she sets off across Hadrian's Wall on their trail, re-enactors recreate a cavalry tournament.
Archaeologists find Roman objects abandoned during a British rebellion, traces of the lost Iona monastery, and a weapons hoard belonging to a wealthy Bronze Age warrior.
The best in British archaeology. Finds include Roman letters that reveal what London was like, an East India ship packed with silver, and evidence of Julius Caesar in Britain.
The best in British archaeology. Finds in the west include the camp from which the Vikings invaded, Iron Age gold and evidence that people lived inside our henge monuments.
Series 11
Digs in northern Britain reveal a Roman emperor’s lost bathhouse, the sunken treasures of medieval pilgrims and a formidable fortress perched on top of a Scottish mountain.
Series 9
Featuring a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall, evidence of early writing by the Picts in Scotland and a 3,000-year-old Bronze Age coffin buried under a golf course.
A new Roman town and hundreds of finds are discovered. The Cerne Giant finally gets a date, and a World War II air crash mystery is laid to rest.
Unearthing a Jurassic giant, investigating finds from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery and uncovering the hidden heart of Roman Leicester.
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.
The south of England offers rich pickings, including the earliest money made in Britain and a massive haul of Roman treasure that brings to life the fall of the empire in Britain.
The astonishing discovery of a mosaic has art historians, archaeologists and Alice very excited as they slowly reveal its full beauty.
Series 12
Extraordinary digs from the south - a Romani encampment in the New Forest, a convict’s burial ground, discovery of a civil war mansion and London’s best-preserved Roman cemetery.
In the west of Britain, there's one of the largest Roman buildings ever discovered in Britain, an Iron Age chariot is saved, and evidence is found of the transatlantic slave trade in Devon.
Gold is found at a bishop’s palace, a Roman crime is uncovered, detectorists unearth a staggering bronze age haul, and ancient DNA solves a medieval mystery.
Exploring Britain’s islands: a 5,000-year-old Neolithic tomb, an international effort to save a WWI warship, and a Neanderthal hunting ground off Jersey’s coast.
A quarryman makes the discovery of a set of very large footprints, and a chance find reveals a spectacular Roman villa with mosaics and a sauna
The most incredible grave goods ever found on Digging for Britain, a strange Roman sarcophagus filled with plaster and an intriguing medieval coin hoard.
Series 7
Alice Roberts follows archaeologists as they excavate Iron Age Britain’s most spectacular grave – a Yorkshire chariot burial.