Village’s Amateur Archaeologists Find Lost Tudor Palace
- When a group of amateur archaeologists set out to find the buried remains of a Tudor palace
- in their Northamptonshire village five years ago, they knew the odds were against them. “Many
- of us were brought up in the village, and you hear about this lost palace, and wonder whether
- it’s a myth or real. So we just wanted to find it”, said Chris Close, the chair of the Collyweston
- Historical and Preservation Society (Chaps) which made the discovery of the Palace of
- Collyweston in a back garden this year. “But we’re a bunch of amateurs. We had no money, no
- expertise, no plans, no artist impressions to go off, and nothing remaining of the palace. It was
- naivety and just hard work that has led us to it”.
- The site was found using geophysical surveys and ground-penetrating radar. Various
- attempts had been made in the 1980s and 90s to find Collyweston Palace, the home of Henry
- VII’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. However, without the advantage of modern technology,
- none had succeeded. The palace was famous during the 15th century and several historic events
- took place there. The pre-wedding celebrations of Margaret Tudor to James IV of Scotland in
- 1503 took place in the palace, and Henry VIII is recorded as holding court there on 16 and 17
- October 1541. By the mid-17th century, it had fallen into disrepair, and until the Chaps dig
- uncovered the palace walls in March, there was very little remaining evidence of its existence.
- “A number of things have only really come to light as we’ve done this project”, said Close.
- “As you do more and more research, and various different records start to become unearthed,
- we realized Collyweston had privy councils being run from here, which is of massive national
- importance”. Historians from the University of York helped verify the group’s findings and identify
- the palace through some uncovered stone moldings, and will work with Chaps on more
- excavations to further reveal the structure and conserve it for the future.
- The Chaps team, which comprises more than 80 members ranging from teenagers to people
- in their 70s and 80s, first set out their plan to find the palace in March 2018, using “local folktales
- and hearsay” to help refine their search area. They carried out geophysical surveys and used
- ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to help reveal the location of the palace walls, before securing
- permission from homeowners to excavate in gardens. “We’ve done it all on an absolute
- shoestring”, said Close. “We’ve basically done an £80,000-£90,000 project for roughly £13,000.
- For us, being a little society, to have achieved this with no money, or expertise, or plans, I think
- it’s something that the whole society should be proud of”.
(Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/06/tudor-collyweston-palace-northamptonshire-found-in-garden-by-amateur-archeologists - text especially adapted for this test).