- 8 hours ago
Weird Britain Season 3 Episode 2
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00:00Britain, an ancient isle full of mystery and wonder.
00:05I'm Andy McGrath and I want to explore the fables, folklore and unusual phenomena, myths and legends that lie hidden
00:13in our domain.
00:14I will travel the length and breadth of our enigmatic island, investigating the different counties and countries that encapsulate this
00:23ancient land.
00:23I will be joined by experts in their fields as I uncover modern tales of UFOs, cryptids, ancient kings, monsters,
00:33megaliths, ghosts, history and tradition that make up the cultural fabric of Weird Britain.
00:45Coming up on Weird Britain, I'm in Warwickshire and begin my investigation at the Coventry Travel Museum, where exhibited are
00:54some of Britain's greatest feats of engineering.
00:57Next, I head to the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal and take a ride on its famous Edgestone Aqueduct.
01:04I visit the town of Stratford, home to the world's most infamous playwright, Shakespeare.
01:10I will explore some of the myths and conspiracies about its true identity and maybe even make a jaw-dropping
01:17discovery.
01:18From Britain's most famous wordsmith, I visit another grave that may be the final resting place of our greatest outlaw,
01:25Robin Hood.
01:29Finally, Graham and I go on a quest, retracing his steps and research that may have led him to the
01:35location of the lost Ark of the Covenant.
01:44I begin my investigation of Warwickshire in Coventry.
01:47This industrial city has made great strides in transportation technology and has its own transport museum.
01:54I'm in Coventry, home to the British automotive industry.
01:58And I'm at the British Transport Museum.
02:01This holds two centuries of innovation in bicycles and cars.
02:06I can't wait to take a look.
02:09This is the Velocipede, built in 1868.
02:13It came from C Parisienne, in France.
02:16Now this machine was known as the Bone Shaker.
02:18Look at it.
02:19It's made of metal.
02:20That would have been a very uncomfortable ride.
02:22But when it came out, people were amazed by this.
02:25And the Coventry Sewing Machine Company, they brought one here.
02:28They liked it because of this mechanism here, which reminded them of their own sewing machines.
02:33And they started manufacturing them.
02:35They became the Coventry Machinist Company.
02:37But the story didn't end here.
02:39There were more bikes to come.
02:41The evolution was not complete.
02:43Following the Velocipede, there was a lot of innovation in the cycling industry.
02:49And James Starley, who worked for the Coventry Machinist Company, broke away and invented his
02:54own bicycle, the Ariel Bicycle, which later became known as the Penny Farthing, because
02:59of its similarity to the shape of that famous Victorian coin.
03:03Also, the size of the wheel is meant to push you much further forward with every pedal.
03:09You can see that the seat is very high up, giving you a great view of everything around
03:13you.
03:13It would make you look very prestigious as you were cycling through the town.
03:17But it didn't stop there.
03:19He also invented a version for women called the Tricycle.
03:22This was because of their heavy, long dresses.
03:25They could comfortably sit on top of the bike and pedal from side to side.
03:29And it's rumoured that this was favoured by Queen Victoria herself, who could often be
03:33seen riding it around the palace grounds.
03:38Our last stop along this journey is the Rover Safety Bicycle, invented by John Kemp, the nephew
03:44of James Starley.
03:46This bike is very significant because it became the prototype all around the world for the bicycles
03:51that we see today.
03:52Not much has changed in shape or design since this time.
03:57Look, the tyres were air filled.
03:59That was a new innovation as well as this brake.
04:02That was very important.
04:03The bike was safe because you could stop it as you were going down a hill.
04:07Nothing has really changed in the shape or size of bicycles since this time.
04:13It also put Coventry on the map.
04:15Coventry became the cycling capital of the world in the year 1900 and remained so to this
04:21very day.
04:22You may remember the Penny Farthing Bicycle, a bike with a big wheel we saw earlier.
04:28This model allows you to feel what it would be like to sit on top of one.
04:33There were some dangers involved in this.
04:35You could lurch forward and fall over.
04:37You could fall to the side getting off the bike.
04:39Of course there was no insurance in those days.
04:42So why was it useful?
04:44Well, you could travel 30 miles an hour because of the big wheel and travel 50 miles in just
04:49under 3 hours.
04:50This was a revolutionary form of transport if you could only master how to stay on.
05:09This is the Daimler Wagonet.
05:12It was a very innovative vehicle known as the Horses Carriage at the time.
05:17It's the oldest car in Britain.
05:19In fact, it had hot tube ignition, rubber tires and the lights were powered by candles.
05:25It was different to everything else around at that time.
05:29And gentlemen started to become very interested in this horseless carriage.
05:34One of these gentlemen was Prince Edward VII.
05:36In fact, he said every gent should have his own motor car.
05:40And he gave it a royal warrant, making it hugely popular amongst the hoi polloi at that time.
05:47This may have been a flashy car, but it was certainly not fast.
05:512 miles per hour in the city, 4 miles per hour in the countryside.
05:56And even then, you had to have a banksman with a red flag wandering in front of you, telling
06:01everybody that you were coming.
06:03In fact, if somebody was on a bicycle or even a horse, they could easily outpace you.
06:08But for the gentlemen of that time, this was a sign of status.
06:12If you were riding one of these to the ball, you were certainly top boy.
06:20From the slowest vehicle in the world to what was once the fastest.
06:25This is thrust tube.
06:26And it broke the world land speed record in 1983 in Nevada, USA.
06:32Now it achieved 633 miles per hour.
06:35It truly is fantastic.
06:36We're talking about a jet engine here, 35,000 horsepower on a vehicle that has a steel frame
06:43covered by an aluminum body.
06:45This is the land speed record holder of that time.
06:48If you think that was fast, get a load of the thrust SSC piloted by Wing Commander Andy Green.
06:57He was a fighter pilot and he achieved 763 miles per hour.
07:02The thrust SSC truly is a marvel of British engineering.
07:08Planes, trains and automobiles.
07:11I've used them all, but I never quite knew how they got here.
07:15Today in the Coventry Transport Museum, I've learned about the people who created them and some of the technological innovations
07:22that went into the world we live in today.
07:27From land speed record holders, I'm off to the tranquil Stratford-upon-Avon Canal to meet up with Luke and
07:34take a trip on the famous Edstead Aqueduct.
07:37I've come here today to the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal to find out about canal living.
07:42What have you got in store for me, Luke?
07:44Well, today we've got our day boat, Emma, that we can take you out for a ride down the canal
07:48down to Edstead Aqueduct and I can tell you a bit of the history.
07:51OK, let's go.
07:54I've often fantasised about living on a canal barge.
07:57And on sunny days like today, I could really picture myself living that life.
08:02But in reality, I wonder what it's really like.
08:11While we're waiting for this other boat to pass us, I thought I'd find out a little bit more about
08:15you.
08:16Now, you actually work on the canal as well as live on the canal too. What's that like?
08:22You've got to be very independent and self-contained, so I live completely off-grid.
08:26I've got solar for the electricity, I've got a stove and boiler for the central heating.
08:30You can choose your neighbours is the massive benefit of it.
08:33If you moor up and you find you don't like the place, you can go somewhere else.
08:37That's probably the single biggest benefit.
08:41Downsides, it's damp in the winter.
08:43You've got to cart all your stuff up the towpath.
08:46So there's good bits and bad bits.
08:48So you have to be independent, a self-starter as it were.
08:52But if you can handle that, the pros outweigh the cons.
08:55Absolutely, yeah.
08:56I also understand you know something of the history of this canal.
08:59And it's aqueduct.
09:01So merchants of Stratford-on-Avon, they saw the canals being built down from Birmingham.
09:05And they thought, well we've got the Avon here.
09:07We could get the canal down through Stratford onto the Avon.
09:09We could get some of that trade.
09:11Get some cheaper coal from the Black Country.
09:12So 1793 the canal was authorised.
09:15They started building.
09:16It took them three years to build half of it with no locks.
09:19Then the money ran out.
09:21And then after quite a few pauses, fits and starts, then it was eventually finished, completed in 1813 I think
09:28it was.
09:29And at that point, yeah, business boomed in Stratford.
09:31Tell me about the aqueduct.
09:33Is it the longest in England?
09:35Yeah, it's the longest in England.
09:36It's not the tallest or the longest in the UK.
09:39That's the Ponca Silti, which apologies to any Welsh people for mangling that pronunciation.
09:43That's on the Clangothlan Canal.
09:46As we head on, I can see a lock ahead.
09:49I've always wondered how they work.
09:51And I'm finally going to get to sea.
09:53So we're going to go in, close the top gate, which will isolate the chamber.
09:58Then I can let all the water out of the bottom and open the bottom gate.
10:02And then we're at the lower level and off we go.
10:04And I will be here cheering you on.
10:06So I can see now that Luke is closing the gate.
10:10After he's got it closed, somehow he's going to begin draining this water.
10:14And I'm guessing that's by opening the gate in front of us.
10:18I've never really been in a lock before as a drain.
10:21But I've been reassured it's completely safe.
10:24And we will make it to the other side.
10:26Slowly but surely, the water level is beginning to drop.
10:32We seem to have dropped around about five or six feet at the moment.
10:37Not quite sure how deep this lock is.
10:40But we're still going down.
10:42There's still further to go.
10:44Remember, these canals are not natural structures.
10:46They are man-made.
10:48Every single bit of this waterway is purposely made for a reason to suit the landscape which we find here.
10:59I see that we're coming up to the aqueduct.
11:01How was it built?
11:03So it's cast iron trough made in several sections.
11:06And then you'd think they'd just be bolted together.
11:08But obviously you'd need to seal it.
11:10Which, if I remember right, I could be wrong.
11:14They used a mixture of tallow, oxblood and a few other things.
11:19It was all done hot.
11:20And then as it cooled down it made the seal.
11:21And it's still going 200 years later.
11:24So for any canal boat fancies out there, this would be a good spot to stand and watch what comes
11:29by.
11:29Absolutely, yeah.
11:31If you're really lucky, on Sunday afternoons the Shakespeare Express steam train comes from Birmingham down to Stratford.
11:37Comes under here at about four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon.
11:39Shakespeare seems to be such a part of this county.
11:42Not only in those locations where he may have lived, but in the fabric of the people themselves.
11:48Absolutely, yeah.
11:49And even down to the logo of the county, the bare and ragged staff.
11:53That was Shakespeare's heraldic device, which the county's taken on.
11:57He's absolutely, completely entwined in the county life.
12:00It just feels so strange to be sailing through the trees.
12:05It is really, really fantastic.
12:08What an experience this has been.
12:10The only thing that could make this better would be a hot pot of tea.
12:19Next up, I visit the town of Stratford.
12:22Home to the world's most infamous playwright.
12:25And a whole host of conspiracies surrounding the man, or perhaps a myth.
12:30People from all around the world come to visit this 16th century building, said to be the birthplace of William
12:37Shakespeare.
12:38But who was William Shakespeare? And did he really exist?
12:43Now, authors, actors and researchers postulate that no one man could be responsible for so many great works.
12:50Let's take a look at some of the conspiracies about who he really was.
12:54Some people say that a group of writers were responsible for all his works.
12:59And others, that Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate children used him as a pen name to reveal royal secrets.
13:07And some ancient astronaut theorists say that his writings were so out of this world because he was, in fact,
13:12an alien.
13:13But perhaps the truth is a lot simpler than that.
13:16He was, in fact, just a very talented man.
13:21To learn more about Shakespeare, I'm meeting with Dr. Kate Cherell at Holy Trinity Church.
13:27Kate, we've been investigating the mysteries of William Shakespeare.
13:31Who was he and did he really exist?
13:34I'm very surprised to find out there is actually a tomb purported to belong to the great bride himself.
13:39Yes, well, Shakespeare was buried here. He died on his birthday, aged around 52.
13:45And he paid over the odds to be buried within the church, which is quite an interesting reason in itself.
13:51And also, we can thank that choice for why this grave still remains very much intact today, why this tomb
13:58is in such good condition.
14:00Because if we think about life and death in the 17th century, this is centuries before we got cemeteries as
14:06we know them.
14:07And churchyards were really overcrowded. They were very unpleasant places to be.
14:11They're not as nice as we see them today with nice mowed grass and ordered little headstones.
14:16They really were a bit of a jumble, especially in built up areas.
14:20And it's believed that Shakespeare himself had a fear of trophy hunters of sorts of, well, people that were wanting
14:26to collect relics.
14:27We see relic hunting as quite a, either a Catholic thing or an Indiana Jones type thing.
14:33But it was a popular pastime for people with a lot of money who wanted something tangible from someone famous
14:41and influential.
14:42So, Shakespeare was kind of right to warn people against interfering with his gravesite.
14:49So, I don't blame him there.
14:51Perhaps this was why he put a curse on his gravestone.
14:55Just reading that it says,
15:11I like the idea that Shakespeare not only wrote his own epitaph, but he wrote his own curse.
15:18It seems very fitting for the bard that wrote so richly about life, love and death.
15:24Did anybody ever test this curse?
15:27Did they break into his grave?
15:29If so, what happened to his body?
15:31Well, there are a few through lines with this.
15:34Who ever thought that Shakespeare had so much in common with Tutankhamun?
15:37Both have quite ominous curses on their burial spaces.
15:41But when it comes to rumours of what happened with Shakespeare's grave,
15:46well, it's now believed that the skeleton beneath this tomb right now is missing a head.
15:51Quite a key part of any body.
15:53And no one really knows when this happened or who did it.
15:58They just know that something has been disturbed there.
16:01However, the most popular and enduring theory about what happened to Shakespeare's body
16:08is that an individual in the 18th century was hired to come here, remove the skull and present it to
16:16a trophy hunter.
16:17Sounds very dramatic. It sounds almost likely.
16:21Grave robbing in many different forms was prevalent, especially in the 19th century, in the late 18th century as well.
16:27This theory was popularised through a work of Victorian fiction.
16:30So we've got to think sensation novels, print culture, we've got periodicals full of grisly and gory tales that keep
16:37people interested.
16:38So there's a little bit of creative licence going on with this particular claim.
16:44You mentioned the skull. How do we know that it's missing from the grave?
16:49Well, there was a series of scans done relatively recently to look beneath the ground and see what was in
16:56the grave without actually penetrating through the surface.
16:59And it does appear as though most of the skeleton is preserved there, but they couldn't see the skull.
17:06But we must remember that although the Victorian tale is fabulous, it's a wonderful read,
17:12Shakespeare had been dead for many centuries before this was published.
17:15And who knows who took it? There are centuries in between these two events.
17:20So we can't really know for sure what happened with the head.
17:25We do know that Shakespeare was buried very, very simply in a shroud, which seems kind of at odds with
17:31what we see for a very grand, prominent figure.
17:34But as for the head, there is a theory, again, aided by this Victorian tale, that it was taken to
17:42a church called St. Leonard's in Bewley.
17:45And that's perhaps where the skull resides today. Although again, it's a fabulous story, but reality often tells us a
17:53completely different tale.
17:54So many theories have been put forward about who Shakespeare really was. Kate, tell me, what do you think?
18:02See, I'm not always taken in by conspiracy theories, but the debate around Shakespeare's authorship, I find so compelling.
18:12One of the most popular ideas, or was certainly popularised a few years ago, is that Shakespeare was actually a
18:19woman called Amelia Bassano,
18:21who was the first English woman to ever professionally call herself a poet.
18:24And it's believed that perhaps she was Shakespeare's real dark lady.
18:29So that's one theory that Shakespeare was a woman, but not in the sense that a lot of these folkloric
18:36tales tell us.
18:37Perhaps these plays were written by a woman. She was very accomplished. She had knowledge of many different parts of
18:43Europe.
18:44Whereas Shakespeare himself is a fascinating character. He rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.
18:49Quite a prominent figure in Stratford. But there's not a lot about his writing, about him solely being known as
18:57a writer.
18:58We know a lot about his business, but not a lot about the writing itself. And so a lot of
19:02people have really latched onto that.
19:04And I can understand why. A lot of his contemporaries were very, very prominent, and they were known throughout the
19:10country.
19:10And they were known in many, many different records, and even invoices, that they were men of wit. They were
19:17men of writing.
19:18There's a lack of that around Shakespeare, which is even more fascinating because he is arguably the world's most famous
19:23writer.
19:24And certainly the most famous and beloved writer in the English language.
19:28So I think there's a lot of things you can read into that.
19:32You can think, well, like you say, Shakespeare rose up through the ranks.
19:36He wasn't educated past the age of 13. He didn't know foreign landscapes. He didn't know life at court. He
19:43didn't know astrology.
19:45But somehow he was writing about them later on. Was he just this phenomenal mind and this phenomenal learner?
19:52Or? And that's when the options open. But I often feel like these tales are so fascinating because they are
20:00unanswerable.
20:01We will never know Shakespeare's true lifetime, his true relationships, and even the true identity of his dark lady.
20:10The figure that appeared so often in his sonnets. Was she a real woman? Or was she just a wonderful
20:16creative construct?
20:18I think as much as we focus on Shakespeare's curse, he's left so many more tantalising mysteries that we could
20:25really be getting our teeth into.
20:27I think that whoever Shakespeare was, everybody in this world will be enjoying his works for centuries to come.
20:35I agree.
20:42Graham, I've been investigating the legends of William Shakespeare, the mysteries about who he was.
20:49I've just come from Holy Trinity Church, and there are some theories there that are quite perplexing.
20:55Who do you think the great bard really was?
20:58Well, the first question we've got to ask is why are there all sorts of strange theories about him in
21:02the first place?
21:03Well, there is a William Shakespeare buried there. But the strange thing is that when you investigate all the actual
21:11records of Stratford, no one seems to have known in Stratford that he was a playwright at all.
21:16All the records that survive about him talk about him making money, selling wheat, grain, barley to the brewery industry.
21:27He had vast tracts of land, built the second biggest house in the town. He was a very rich man,
21:33but nothing at all about him being a playwright.
21:36While I was inside the church, I actually saw a bust of William Shakespeare writing with his quill on a
21:43piece of parchment.
21:45Surely this is evidence that he was, in fact, the William Shakespeare of history.
21:49It would seem to be so, but no. That bust is a fake. It was only put there in the
21:551700s when the original needed repairing.
21:58They hired a theatrical manager to create a new bust of William Shakespeare. And they did. And he made it
22:06look like everybody imagined Shakespeare to look.
22:08Now, do we know what the original looked like? Yes, we do. And I have a picture of it here.
22:14There was an historian in the 1600s from Warwickshire, a man called William Dugdale, and he did this illustration of
22:22Shakespeare's original tomb.
22:24And you can show here, he's not got a pen in his hands. He's got his hands resting on a
22:30sack.
22:30This commemorates that the man who is buried there was known for being a dealer in bagged commodities.
22:38Exactly as all the records say. So where's the evidence that this man from here was a playwright at all?
22:46So if this isn't the real William Shakespeare, who is?
22:49Well, interestingly, at exactly the time that this William Shakespeare of Stratford is so rich and making so much money,
22:58there is a William Shakespeare associated with the Globe Theatre in London and all the theatres there.
23:05He's a writer of plays. He's an actor. He even directs plays. And his name is William Shakespeare.
23:11Now, you'd say, well, it's the same man going backwards and forwards to London, isn't it?
23:15Well, this man is totally stone broke. You didn't get paid much in those days for being an actor or
23:21a playwright.
23:22He's recorded as living in a small room in a squalid area of Bishop's Gate in London.
23:27He's recorded as always owing money, getting into fights. He's a struggling artist.
23:32So why the difference? If it is the same man, then he's living a very strange double life.
23:40So we have two William Shakespeare's, one dealing in wheat and the other dealing in words.
23:46Why was the one in London associated with Stratford-upon-Avon?
23:49Because in the first folio of Shakespeare's works, the first published edition of his works,
23:56it talks about him being Shakespeare of Stratford.
24:00Now, it wasn't until many years later that anybody was interested in where this man came from.
24:07But about 50 or 60 years later, when they were interested,
24:12people began to think it must be the Stratford in Warwickshire.
24:15But no, just a couple of miles away from where Shakespeare was living in London, in Bishop's Gate,
24:23where all the theatres were, is Stratford, a borough of the East End.
24:29At that time, it was a small village. Stratford, just two miles away from where he was living and working.
24:35The William Shakespeare in question may very well have been the William Shakespeare of Stratford in London, not here.
24:43What about the graves of the family members inside?
24:47I notice even his wife, Anne Hathaway, is lying right next to him.
24:51Some people say that this must be the William Shakespeare who wrote the plays,
24:55because he's in the church, he's buried with him, is his wife, Anne Hathaway,
24:59and the children that we know Shakespeare had.
25:02But they're only the children that became associated with the Stratford Shakespeare.
25:06When he was alive during his lifetime, there is no record at all of the Shakespeare, the playwright's family of
25:14any kind.
25:15So the answer is that everybody's become familiar with the myth of Stratford-upon-Avon.
25:22No one knows anything about the Shakespeare in London other than he was poor and he was a very good
25:28playwright.
25:28So we know where the fake Shakespeare is now buried. Where is the real Shakespeare?
25:34Well, if he came from Stratford in East London, during the war much of it was destroyed
25:41and all the records of Stratford in London have been destroyed.
25:44But where the church stood and the local people were buried,
25:48now it lies directly underneath the Olympic Stadium
25:52that was built specifically for the Olympics when they were held in Britain.
25:56So it may be sacred turf for a completely different reason.
26:04From Britain's best known author, I'm visiting yet another grave,
26:09attributed to our most infamous outlaw.
26:11Graham, I've been investigating the legend of Robin Hood in Nottinghamshire.
26:17I think I found his grave in Kirklees Priory in South Yorkshire.
26:21I understand he's not really buried there.
26:24In the original story of Robin Hood, he is ultimately wounded.
26:29He is taken to Kirklees Priory up in Yorkshire.
26:32He dies there and he's buried nearby.
26:34Now that's the grave you're talking about.
26:36The gravestone that marks that, or the memorial that's there now,
26:40was only put there in the 1800s to replace an original gravestone.
26:45Now, what happened to that?
26:47Because it just disappeared in the 1800s.
26:50Well, we know it was there.
26:52We know in the 1600s this particular drawing was made of it by the king's own antiquary.
26:59That's an official historian.
27:01It still exists in the Bodleian Library at Oxford,
27:05and that's a drawing of the original tomb marker that was there.
27:09Now, look at this.
27:11This is exactly the same as this, and it's a very unusual design.
27:16You don't find those sort of crosses anywhere, but here is one in Loxley Churchyard in Warwickshire.
27:22So what's it doing here?
27:23And that's the confusing point.
27:26Why would they move that grave marker to this site if Robin Hood isn't really buried here?
27:32The man who lived here at Loxley, right next to the old church here,
27:36and this church dates right back to the time of Robin Hood in the 1190s,
27:41to the time Robin is said to have lived.
27:43There was a manor right next to here called Loxley Manor.
27:48There's a hall there now called Loxley Hall, only built in the 1800s.
27:52But the man who lived there in the 1800s, he thought, hold on, Loxley,
27:57in the story of Robin Hood, he is said to have been born in Loxley,
28:01then became an outlaw and ended up in Sherwood Forest.
28:04And he thought, could this be the Loxley in question?
28:07He looked into the records that are kept in the church, still there now, from the 1100s,
28:13and found that at exactly the time Robin Hood is said to have been outlawed in the 1190s,
28:20there was a man here who was a knight, who was outlawed when he returned from the Crusades,
28:26called Robert Fitz Odo.
28:28Now you may think that doesn't sound much like Robin Hood.
28:30Robert and Robin are interchangeable.
28:32Robin is a shortened form of Robert.
28:35Many people called Robert are still called Robin as a nickname.
28:38The Fitz simply means that he was the illegitimate son of somebody,
28:43and most people usually drop that.
28:45So his name was Robin Ode.
28:47That's an old spelling of Hood.
28:49So there was a man whose name could be rendered as Robin Hood, who lived here.
28:54It's exactly the time that Robin Hood is said to have lived, and he was outlawed after returning from the
29:00Crusades,
29:01just like Robin Hood is said to have done.
29:03Now he obviously, if he is Robin Hood, moved north into Sherwood Forest.
29:08How he died, who knows?
29:10He may have died at Kirklees Priory.
29:12But Robert Fitz Odo, we know, was ultimately buried here, and this marked his grave.
29:18And so what the guy who lived here in the 19th century decided to do was to acquire the stone
29:24from the people whose property,
29:26the grave at Kirklees was on, and bring it here and mark the grave of Robert Fitz Odo.
29:34So the Robin Hood, who may have been the character behind the legend, is buried here,
29:40and the gravestone that used to be up there is now in its rightful place.
29:45So we have Robert Fitz Odo, Robin the illegitimate son of Hood, buried here.
29:52Finally, his stone, taken from Kirklees Priory, is now marking his grave site.
29:58Absolutely right.
30:04I couldn't come to Warwickshire without visiting Warwick and exploring its magnificent castle and legends.
30:11I'm here on the River Avon to investigate the tales of Warwick Castle.
30:16Unfortunately, I can't get a view of the castle from the land, so I've decided to take to the water
30:22in style.
30:26What a lovely day to be on the river.
30:29Now let's get back to this castle.
30:31Built a thousand years ago by William the Conqueror, seen its fair share of history.
30:37Also has its fair share of ghostly tales.
30:40One of these is of Mole Bloxham.
30:43She was a local lady accused of a crime she did not commit.
30:47After her death, she came back as a black dog with searing red eyes to terrorize the townspeople.
30:53Then there's the story of Sir Greville who is stabbed by his servant in the south tower.
30:58Every full moon, he can be heard saying, what have you done to me?
31:02Why have you betrayed me?
31:04But the real reason that we're here today is because of Guy the Giant.
31:08A friendly giant who lived with his wife in some local cliffs.
31:12Now there was a cow, a huge cow called the Dun Cow, terrorizing the local villagers.
31:18And Guy decided to do something about it.
31:20Now he put on his breastplate, he got his sword and decided to fight that cow.
31:25And fight it, he did. He killed it.
31:27And you may ask yourself, is there any evidence of this actually taking place?
31:32And the answer is yes.
31:33Inside Warwick Castle, there is his breastplate, the size of a shield.
31:38His sword, taller than me.
31:40And his porridge pot, that the size of a cauldron.
31:43And also, a recreation of that momentous battle.
31:47Guy in full armor and that terrible bovine beast.
31:56I'm a huge fan of Indiana Jones.
31:59For my final investigation, I'm meeting back up with Graham.
32:03To retrace the steps of how he may have identified the location of the Ark of the Covenant.
32:11People have been searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant for over two and a half thousand years.
32:16But what I'm wondering is, what is the Ark?
32:19According to the Bible, Moses gained the Ten Commandments from God.
32:25And they were carved on two tablets, two stone tablets.
32:29And the Israelites made something for the stone tablets to be kept in.
32:34And that was the Ark of the Covenant.
32:36A big golden chest.
32:38And on the top of it were two great big ornate golden angels.
32:43Now that disappeared when the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem.
32:47Over two and a half thousand years ago, it disappeared.
32:51Somebody managed to sneak it out of the temple.
32:54And it's been lost ever since.
32:55So the Ark was lost all that time ago.
32:59Has anyone ever claimed to have found it?
33:01Yes, the Knights Templar claimed to have found it in the Middle East in the 1100s.
33:09And it was a group of them from this area in Warwickshire.
33:13They record that they claimed to have found this golden chest, which was the Ark.
33:18And they brought it back to their preceptory, which is a kind of cross between a barracks and a monastic
33:25building.
33:26And they survived until the Black Death in the middle of the 1300s.
33:30And the legend was that they left clues as to its whereabouts.
33:34And is this church one of the clues?
33:37Ultimately, yes.
33:39But it has a bit of a story before that.
33:41Because many people believe that there were clues left in the Templar church on top of an area called the
33:48Burton Dacid Hills, not far from here.
33:51And no one ever could find any clues in this church until, at the end of the 1800s, the place
33:58was being renovated.
33:59And below the plaster, they found all these drawings and strange symbols that the Templars had left.
34:07And various people thought this must be the clues that the Templars left to where the Ark was.
34:13And the local historian, a man called Jacob Cove Jones, he was determined he would solve it.
34:19And he eventually claimed that he had.
34:22Now, while this was happening, in those days they didn't have the means to preserve these drawings on the wall
34:28and they crumbled away.
34:29They no longer exist.
34:31So, before he died, for some reason best known to himself, Jacob Cove Jones decided he wouldn't go in search
34:39of the Ark himself,
34:40but would leave clues as to where he believed it was, based on what he'd worked out from the original
34:45Templar, clues.
34:47And then, before he died, in 1906, this church here was being built and he had a stained glass window
34:58designed and put in this church,
35:00which he told his friends and family, if you can solve the clues in that, you'll find where I believe
35:05the Ark is still buried.
35:06And have you seen the window yourself?
35:10Yes.
35:11Now, I have a picture of it here.
35:14You can see it represents the Epiphany.
35:19That's when the three wise men visited baby Jesus.
35:22Perhaps Jacob Cove Jones is telling us to follow a star.
35:26Or, in fact, when you look at this closely, you'll see that it's actually two stars, one on top of
35:31another.
35:32Two stars?
35:32What could it mean?
35:33Well, ultimately, I figured out that the two letters B and M have something to do with it.
35:39Ultimately, I figured that that was the two tail stars of the plough or the Big Dipper.
35:45They are called Benetes and Mitzar.
35:48Between them, there is a phoenix.
35:51And I thought, what's that got to do with anything?
35:53Ultimately, I figured this very strange looking object here in the middle of the window also has a phoenix on
36:01it.
36:01What could that be?
36:03Well, cutting a long story short, just a few miles from here where the original Templar church was,
36:09on top of the hill is a strange tower that was built by the Knights Templar.
36:14It's still there today, and it looks just like this.
36:16It's called the Phoenix Tower.
36:19So I guess we have to go to this tower.
36:21Absolutely.
36:22That's our next stop.
36:34Here it is, the Phoenix Tower.
36:36I have to say, it looks just like it did on the church window.
36:40Yep.
36:41There we've got it here.
36:42You can see quite clearly the castellated turret bit there.
36:46And you've got the strange conical shape on top.
36:49And you have the phoenix here, telling us that this is in fact the Phoenix Tower.
36:54I've seen one of these before in Herefordshire at a Templar church.
36:58Was this built by the Templars?
37:00What was it used for?
37:01Well, it was built by the Templars sometime in the mid-1300s.
37:05Now, the last Templars in this country were here in the mid-1300s.
37:11They were finally wiped out by the Black Death.
37:15Now, sometime around then, they built this tower.
37:18And it was so weird, there's not even a doorway to get into it.
37:21It's clearly a marker of some kind.
37:24And I think it was all part of their series of clues to direct you to where they'd hidden their
37:30treasure.
37:30In this case, the Ark of the Covenant.
37:33So once you figured out that this was a vital clue in the quest, what did you do?
37:37So we came here on Epiphany Night, and we stood at the tower, which is signified in the window.
37:45And we knew that we should observe the two tail stars of the Big Dipper, the plough, at that time.
37:53And when we did, we were very lucky to have a beautiful, clear winter's night.
37:57And the two tail stars pointed directly down over that hill over there.
38:03And we knew that's where we had to go next.
38:11Just like the wise men of old, we have followed the star, and it's led us here to this small
38:16red arch.
38:17And I'm assuming that the arch lies inside.
38:20Not exactly.
38:22Now, this little red brick arch here was here at the time that Jacob Cove Jones had the window put
38:27in.
38:27And his clues led to this little red brick arch.
38:33Now, it's an old drinking fountain, an old well.
38:37And it stood right next to a church that was once here, that once belonged to the Knights Templars.
38:44And this chapel was finally demolished in the 1950s.
38:50A few years ago, we actually had this whole area behind here examined by geophysicists with ground-penetrating radar.
38:59And they said, yes, there was something here, but it's been taken.
39:02And we're thinking, oh, wow, whoever did this demolishing to make way for this road and other things around it,
39:09other houses, back in the 1950s, must have found this thing.
39:15And what we discovered was the owner of the building company that was responsible in the 1950s,
39:22we looked him up, and we discovered he was relatively well-off sort of person,
39:26but suddenly came extraordinarily rich.
39:29But we can't really find out much more about him.
39:32He was quite secretive.
39:34So I think he might have found it.
39:36But the rubble that was moved from here, some of the stonework from the old church,
39:40was thrown over there somewhere.
39:43And it was actually used to shore up the banks of a little stream.
39:49And back 20 years ago, my friend Jodie from America decided to come over and investigate.
39:55She looked through all this rubble, and the one thing she found,
39:58which was different to anything else, was this small stone tablet.
40:02And we thought, well, it was obviously something that was on the wall of the church, maybe.
40:05But the thing is, when we showed it to experts, they said,
40:09and I have a picture of it here, you can see it, this is proto-Syniatic script.
40:14Where did you get it?
40:16Now, what that is, is an early form of Hebrew.
40:19It isn't even properly translated yet.
40:21And I said, well, what does it actually say?
40:23And they said, something along the lines of,
40:27these are the words of God Almighty.
40:29And then there was something else underneath.
40:32And I thought, well, perhaps it just came from the walls.
40:35But they said, we've had a look at the stone, we've examined it, and it seems to be very old
40:41indeed.
40:41It's from a sandstone that's only found at the Sinai Peninsula in southern Israel and Jordan.
40:49And I said, hold on, let's have a look at this whole story.
40:51This is an old form of Hebrew.
40:53It says, these are the words of God.
40:55And it's from a form of sandstone that came from where the Israelites are supposed to have been,
41:02when they received the Ten Commandments from God, which were kept in the Ark of the Covenant.
41:08So I thought, hold on a minute.
41:10This is a sandstone that only comes from the Sinai wilderness.
41:16It's in an ancient form of Hebrew, and it says, these are the words of God.
41:20Well, in the Ark of the Covenant, there were supposed to have been originally two tablets
41:25that were inscribed by God in the Sinai wilderness with the Ten Commandments.
41:31Could this be one of them?
41:34I mean, this is amazing.
41:36How does Proto-Syanitic text end up on a stone in the middle of Warwickshire?
41:41Precisely, unless the temple is founded in the Middle East with the Ark of the Covenant and brought it back
41:47here.
41:47It's a pity there's not more of this that still survives.
41:50But at the moment, this particular tablet is in a museum in Salt Lake City in Utah.
41:57And this year, we're getting some special experts in there to examine it to see if they can find out
42:02more
42:02and place exactly where it came from specifically in the Sinai wilderness.
42:07It's going to be big news.
42:08So this could be just the beginning of one of the Ten Commandments tablets.
42:12There might have been more underneath.
42:14We're hoping to get more of this area investigated because this robber was strewn all over the place.
42:20We can't go digging up the entire countryside.
42:23But somewhere here, there still could be the Ark of the Covenant.
42:48The Ark of the Covenant is a huge opportunity for us to see the Ark of the Covenant.
42:50The Ark of the Covenant is a large-scale decoration.
42:55The Ark of the Covenant is a large-scale decoration.
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