The Great British Dig: History in Your Back Garden

In Yorkshire’s Beningbrough Hall, Hugh Dennis and his crew meticulously excavate the surrounding gardens, aiming to locate a lost structure that no longer stands. Their only clue is a historic painting that vividly depicts the building, guiding their careful search.

Vanished Buildings of Beningbrough Hall is a television programme presented as an episode, focusing on a piece of lost architecture. The series centres on a particular case involving Beningbrough Hall, a stately home in Yorkshire, and sets out to uncover the story behind a building that no longer exists. By framing the search as a narrative, the programme invites viewers to follow the investigative process. In this instalment, presenter Hugh Dennis joins a small team to carry out a physical investigation on the estate’s grounds. They excavate the gardens surrounding Beningbrough Hall, hoping to uncover the foundations of a structure that vanished long ago. Their only clue is a historic painting that depicts the missing building, providing a visual reference that guides their search. The team's work is driven entirely by the information contained within the artwork; there are no surviving plans or written records of the lost edifice. By turning over soil and analysing the landscape, they aim to match features from the painting with any remnants they uncover. The episode follows each step of the dig, from the initial survey of the garden to the careful removal of earth, all in the hope of confirming the building’s former presence. The episode concludes with the team assessing any findings against the painted image, determining whether the vanished building has been located.