Channel 4's Time Team visit the Palace House and Stables in Newmarket

WHEN archaeologists from a well-known television series appear in town there must be something exciting to uncover in the dirt.

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This week Channel 4’s Time Team, including Tony Robinson and Phil Harding, have been in Newmarket where they have been digging into the history of the horse racing industry.

It has been a hive of activity round Palace House in Palace Street while the TV crew 
has been filming excavation work which sought to 
uncover the Royal Stables of Charles II.

The monarch actually lived in Palace House and rode in horse races in the 17th Century.

Time Team researcher Alex Rowson talked of the significance of the project, which will feature on TV next year.

He said: “You don’t get any more important than some of the first stables built by Charles II and the origins of horse racing.

“It does bring it all to life, really.”

Underneath the surface, across the road from Palace House, walls and floors have been appearing, as well as the individual stalls where the horses would have been kept.

And metal objects relating to horses, such as horse pins, have been uncovered in the ground, and even pottery from the 13th Century.

While there had been clues the stables were there, Mr Rowson said you never really knew what was under the surface until you got digging.

He said: “It’s really exciting and we are very happy and pleased to be here thanks to the National Horseracing Museum.”

Mr Rowson said Time Team had been keen to take the museum up on its invite of potentially uncovering some of the first racing stables in the UK.

He added how they had never been to the town, which has a reputation as a horse racing centre.

Chris Garibaldi, director of the National Horseracing Museum, said: “It’s incredibly exciting. We found the original stables of Charles II exactly where we thought they were on the site of the new National Horseracing Museum.”

He added: “What has become apparent in the dig is the sheer scale of the stables. You really get an idea of the expense the king spent on his horses.”

The stables were uncovered in front of what will be the new National Horseracing Museum, which will include information on the Time Team project.

Forest Heath District Council owns the Palace House site.