Archaeological dig begins in bid to uncover lost lighthouse

The public have been getting involved in a community archaeological dig on the Headland to help discover the remains of a demolished lighthouse.

Transcript

00:00Morning Headland, I'm with Dr Emma Watson from Tees Archaeology. There's a dig going on, what's it about?

00:08So this is a community dig on the headland here at Hartlepool and we've got two trenches open.

00:15We're basically working with the Seascapes Project through the National Heritage Lottery Fund

00:21and we are basically looking for the original lighthouse on this spot and also the World War I gun mount.

00:29So the original lighthouse stood from 1846 to 1915, it had to be taken down because it affected the arc of the line of fire from the guns

00:39and then to compare that we're also going for the gun mount over there.

00:47So it's going to be a really interesting week, we're here 7 days, 9.30am to 3.30pm

00:52and we're full of volunteers, some people who have never dug before, they have no idea how to do this.

00:58Very first time and then we have a few other people who have been on a few different digs, different time periods

01:04and they're coming to learn as well. We've had an absolutely fantastic group of people come and see us already.

01:10Loads of locals who were here 50 years ago, haven't been since, who've got amazing images to show us,

01:17who are going to bring us medals and are going to show us all sorts of memorabilia from around the site and from the bombardment.

01:23So I think it's going to be a fascinating week, we just need the weather.

01:26It's quite nice today. It's very, very nice today.

01:29A bit warm this morning but fortunately the wind's got up now so we're good.

01:33Thank you and good luck. Thank you very much.