Tudor Dockyard - Smallhythe, Kent

• Documentary
• Mystery

Episode overview

Looking for evidence of a 15th century dock, the team are in Small Hythe. The dock was once next to the mile-wide River Rother but its location is now an overgrown field, ten miles from the sea. And early excavations reveal nothing more recent than wood from a prehistoric forest. Medieval ship expert Ian Friel explains that the dockyard used to have high naval significance, and was visited by Henry V. Woodworker Damian Goodburn uses authentic tools to build a ship's clinker hull. Victor draws the biggest ship ever built here, the Jesus. Using geophysics, John Gater and Sue Ovenden pinpoint the course of the old river. And very soon the finds start to accumulate, revealing the true scale of activity here.

50 minutes