TELEVISION presenter and historian Tony Robinson and the rest of the Time Team have visited Suffolk to unearth the ruins of an historic abbey.The three-day dig, was carried out in the grounds of The Priory in Blythburgh, near Southwold, after its owners Nick and Susan Haward discovered bones while digging in the garden to lay a new patio.

TELEVISION presenter and historian Tony Robinson and the rest of the Time Team have visited Suffolk to unearth the ruins of an historic abbey.

The three-day dig, was carried out in the grounds of The Priory in Blythburgh, near Southwold, after its owners Nick and Susan Haward discovered bones while digging in the garden to lay a new patio.

Philip Clarke, Time Team's executive producer, said: “Nick and Susan contacted the team after they found these bones and they told us that they also had some ruins in their garden which were believed to be all that remains of Blythburgh Abbey.

“The abbey was much bigger than we had expected and although when it was dissolved it was poor it was clear from what we discovered that at one time it had been very wealthy.”

“There has also been some speculation that the Saxon king Anna, a close relation of Sutton Hoo's Raedwald, had been buried in a Saxon Minster in Blythburgh and that the abbey had been built on top of this wooden structure. But our excavations seemed to indicate that this was not the case as we found very little wooden debris - so we concluded that the most likely site is that of the parish church.”

Finds included a skeleton, a human skull and of course the priory church's walls.

The programme will be screened on Channel 4 in March next year.