TELEVISION archaeologists descended on a stately home yesterday, hoping to discover Viking secrets hidden beneath its lawns.

The experts of Channel Four's Time Team programme began digging at Castle Howard, where they were going in search of the lost village of Henderskelfe.

The medieval community is known to have stood in the area, near Malton, North Yorkshire, in the 11th Century.

Time Team members - including Blackadder star Tony Robinson, Mick Aston and Phil Harding - will be in the region until tomorrow.

Henderskelfe, which means a hundred springs, was mentioned as standing in 1066, during the Viking era in North Yorkshire, and is known to have had its own castle.

Castle Howard's head of visitor services, Richard Kemp, said: "We are hoping to find traces of the castle itself. I've already found one glazed floor tile, but we do not even know the shape of the castle. We want to see exactly what the shape was."

One description of the castle has claimed it had a central block with four corner turrets, but that conflicts with the shape as drawn on a map of the time. When Castle Howard was built, the original castle and village were removed from the area.

Mr Kemp said: "What Time Team and I are interested in is how that removal was conducted."

It is hoped that some trenches can be left open so that a Castle Howard team of archaeologists can continue to search for clues to the past throughout the summer.