Interview with prof Alice Roberts for Britain's Most Historic Towns

3 April 2018

 

Explain a little bit about your new series - what's the concept?

The concept is beautifully simple - one town: one period in history. Each programme is based on one town or city and a particular era. It’s great because it allowed me to focus in on small, detailed, fascinating local details, then pull out to look at the broader context - to find out how events in this particular place captured or echoed what was happening across Britain at the time.

History can seem big, sprawling and abstract - but this is a way of reining it in, anchoring it to place in a very focused way. It makes us think about history differently too - it makes it more personal, in the same way that you can do by following a particular individual or a house through time.

But what was really important to me is that I wasn’t just looking to illustrate documentary history. I wanted to find the hard, material evidence for the period and the physical mark it left on the town. So this series is about archaeology as much as it’s about history.

Archaeology can be overlooked as a discipline, I think, but it’s incredibly important to have this other way of approaching the past - not just through historical documents, but through actual physical remains - objects, buildings and the layout of our towns. Importantly, the archaeology isn’t just there to illustrate the history - it provides different insights into material culture and past ways of life.

How did you go about choosing the towns?

It was very hard! We came up with a very long shortlist and then it was a tough competition. To get into the final six, the town or city had to have a really exciting story to tell. For many of the towns, the time frame in which we’re visiting them was when they were really ‘put on the map’ or transformed in an important way that’s left a legacy today. There had to be a good mix of grand narrative and surprising revelations. I really enjoyed digging up those hidden gems.

Each place was transformed during the time window that we look through. So we see each town starting off as something quite unrecognisable and then blossoming into something much more familiar, perhaps. Even with the more remote periods - Roman Chester and Viking York - there are plenty of physical traces of those periods still there to see today. It’s incredible that the layout of the centre of Chester, for instance, is still essentially that of the original Roman fort.

We're there any towns that you were disappointed didn't make the cut?

Yes - but I’m hoping we get a chance to visit them in the future in another series!

What were the most memorable historic sites you visited?

From finding part of a palace in a chocolate shop to exploring an abandoned linen mill near Belfast, there were plenty of memorable moments. But my favourite site has to be Chester’s amphitheatre - the largest amphitheatre that the Romans built in Britain. So much archaeology gets covered up - necessarily - after it’s been excavated, but the half of the amphitheatre that was dug stands open as a wonderful monument to Chester’s Roman inception. I was lucky enough to visit it with Historic England archaeologist Tony Wilmott, who led the excavations there.

But I also enjoyed ‘hunting’ deer at dawn in the New Forest, in the footsteps of William I. It’s easy to feel yourself transported back a thousand years in that woodland!

Did you learn anything during the making of this series that really surprised you?

I don’t want to spoil the surprises! But there were plenty. The key role that Chester almost played in a plan to extend the boundaries of the Roman Empire was one I can reveal. The discovery of what might be Britain’s very first hospital, in Winchester, was another.

As an academic, do you prefer hitting the books or going out into the field?

I like both - finding hidden treasure in the pages of books or buried in the ground - are both equally exciting. I’m very much at home in a library, but I need to balance that with being outside too. I love camping - even in the Arctic!

Do you think we could do more to bring history to life for young people, by getting out amongst it all a little more?

I hope this series will inspire people of all ages to discover the history on their own doorsteps - or to visit British towns and cities they don’t know well and seek out that rich history. You don’t need to go to Rome, Prague or Vienna to find wonderful architecture, amazing stories and suprising, hidden gems.

Do you have a favourite era from history?

Personally, my favourite era goes back even earlier - before written history starts. I love prehistory - particularly the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. These were times when our ancestors made a revolutionary change from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers, and when great migrations of people spread languages - and genes - across Europe.

That’s all a bit too early for this series though, but I do admit being slightly entranced by the Tudors in Norwich!

What is your favourite historic site (not just from this series?)

Silchester - the once great Roman town - now largely fields. I’m also fascinated by the Stonehenge landscape and Avebury.

Do you have a favourite historical figure?

It’s so hard to pick one!

I became fascinated by Boudicca when I filmed The Celts for BBC2 several years ago. As a child I loved Rosemary Sutcliff’s Song for a Dark Queen, and writing the book of The Celts allowed me to delve into her story - to try to understand this woman whose biography was written by her enemies.

Another favourite figure for me is Mary Anning. Her fossils of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs from Lyme Regis line a corridor in the Natural History Museum. She was a brilliant, important palaeontologist, at a time when it was hard to be a woman and a scientist.

Do you enjoy historical dramas, or do the inaccuracies just bug you?

I love a good historical drama. It’s such a great way of bringing history alive. I was entranced by Peter Kosminsky’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall for television. Mark Rylance was utterly stunning as Thomas Cromwell.

If you could live in one place, at one time in history, when would it be?

Right now. I feel that we’re headed in the right direction as far as equality and opportunities go - even if we still have some way to go. I hope that the tribalism, sexism and racism that was endemic throughout much of history is starting to ebb away. Every now and then it rears its ugly head again, but if we can all work to promote respect and tolerance, and banish exploitation, then future generations will be even better off.

Who are the TV historians you have enjoyed watching?

Recently - Mary Beard’s programmes in Civilisations really stood out for me. Her television essays are brilliant - thoughtful and thought-provoking. I like being challenged to change my perception!

Can I have an archaeologist too? It would be Prof Mick Aston. I watched him and loved him on Time Team for years before I ended up working on the programmes, and he became a great friend. But I loved the way he approached and explained archaeology. He was always most interested in the experiences of ordinary people in the past, and passionate about making that past accessible to everyone today. He is greatly missed.

Episode 1 of Britain's Most Historic Towns: Roman Chester, airs Saturday 7th April at 8pm on Channel 4.