Bloomsbury scoops official book of Channel 4's The Great British Dig

Bloomsbury has landed the official book of Channel 4’s hit show "The Great British Dig". 

Jonathan Eyers, commissioning editor at Conway, acquired world language rights for The Great British Dig: History in Your Back Garden, by Dr Chloë Duckworth, from Stuart Cooper at The Stuart Cooper Agency. It is set to be published on 3rd March 2022. 

With a foreword from fellow presenter Hugh Dennis, the book will build the show’s commercial success, containing exclusive photography and investigating in greater detail sites visited in some of the episodes. Expect to be taken to Norman castles, Victorian prisons and Tudor palaces as Duckworth examines the team's techniques and "offers new insights into the discoveries made".

For those wanting to explore their archaelogical skills and dig up their own back garden, Duckworth also provides practical advice alongside tips for researching your local area and identifying your findings. 

As a lecturer in archaeology at Newcastle University, as well as an elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Duckworth said she wanted to “share the everyday wonder of archaeology”. 

She said: “What 'The Great British Dig' has taught me is that nothing — and nobody — is ever too small to make a difference. A piece of flint the size of a 50p coin can throw the date of a site back by 1600 years, the tiniest test pit can re-draw the line of the Antonine Wall, and a young child playing on the spoil heap as the sun goes down might be the one to spot the find that everybody else had overlooked. This book has given me the chance to share the everyday wonder of archaeology with you. If like me, you get a thrill from piecing together clues and revealing the stories of the ordinary people who came before us, then I believe you will find plenty here to interest you.”