THE contribution of a local history group to a major archaeological dig has been praised as vital to its success.

Experts from Channel 4's Time Team have unearthed a large Roman-period village on land at Hardwick Park, at Sedgefield, County Durham.

The team members believe they have found an important industrial settlement where residents made quality products for military personnel on Hadrian's Wall.

The television crew worked on the site for three days this week, but much of the groundwork for the excavations was laid by the Sedgefield Local History Group.

Durham County Council archaeologist Fiona Macdonald, who joined in the dig, invited the Time Team crew to Hardwick's East Park after aerial photographs suggested a Roman road might have run through the site.

She said that the work started off with a geophysical survey, which can pinpoint land disturbances and features hidden under the ground.

Ms Macdonald said: "That pretty much confirmed what we'd seen from the aerial photographs, but gave us quite a lot more detail.

"Then in the ploughed field, some members of the Sedgefield Local History Society did some field walking.

"They collected from the surface anything that was ploughed up and they found quite a lot of pottery.

"That was really useful because that put a date on what we were looking for, because a lot of that was Roman.

"It was on the strength of that that we started the trenches."

East Park was bought by Durham County Council last year with the help of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

It forms part of a planned restoration of the Georgian park to its 18th Century landscape, complete with a 17-acre lake and follies.

The finds from the excavation will be catalogued and analysed in an attempt to build up a picture of what life was like in the ancient settlement.