TV historians to dig for treasure in the Queen's back garden

THE grounds of the Palace of Holyroodhouse are to be dug up on television by Tony Robinson's Time Team.

The site is seen by archaeologists as the most important in Scotland because of the palace's past as a playground for monarchs and their courtiers.

Robinson, best known as Baldrick in TV comedy Blackadder, will lead a team of archaeologists onto the site later this summer for a new series called the Big Royal Dig.

The oldest part of the site around a ruined monastery is expected to be targeted, as well as the ruins of the Chapel Royal and buried remnants of the original palace, which was extensively damaged by fire while being used as a billet for Oliver Cromwell's troops during the Civil War.