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 2025. A total of 34 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in February 2026.
Last episode
Digging for Britain
Tantalising clues to the ancient origin story of St Michael’s Mount, rare Roman cavalry swords with hidden secrets and a wishing well of coins at a promontory fort in Pembrokeshire.
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The warhorses that changed the course of history, a medieval murder mystery and a 300-million-year-old forest that built the modern world.
The lost estate of Harold Godwinson, last Anglo-Saxon king of England, a completely intact 4,000-year-old cremation vessel and an unprecedented Roman whetstone factory.
Rare Anglo-Saxon swords, a mysterious and macabre Roman bone box and a cross-continental investigation into Admiral Nelson’s favourite ship.
Two incredibly rare finds from an Iron Age hoard, a look inside the UK’s largest and most complex dig in a generation, and the earliest example of an artist’s signature from Roman Britain.
Visceral evidence of a bloody massacre in the Scottish Highlands, Bradford’s first Muslim burial and, from the 1970s, Scotland’s first skatepark.
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
Featuring 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 10
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.
Travelling east, Alice discovers a Roman barn conversion, unearths a Tudor fort and finds intricately carved 10,000-year-old weapons.
Alice Roberts reveals a Dutch ship sunk by the English, a Cornish Roman fort and a 5,000-year-old Neolithic monument.
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.
In the west of the UK, a spectacular monument older than Stonehenge, a 200-year-old mine trapped in time and a lost medieval friary.
Digs in southern England reveal a previously unknown Roman town, a Tudor ship buried beneath a quarry and evidence of Henry VIII’s financial forgery under the Tower of London.
Series 11
Digs in the west of Britain reveal a forgotten fortress teetering on the edge of a cliff, evidence of the oldest house in Cardiff and a discovery at a Roman mosaic that shocks the experts.
Archaeology in the south of England unearths Britain’s oldest shoe, the lost shipyard of one of England’s greatest warrior kings and Britain’s top-secret WWII defences.