Skeletons, coins and an Anglo-Saxon church: Forgotten history unearthed beneath HS2 path

ITV News Reporter Martha Fairlie reports on the special findings unearthed from a small town in Buckinghamshire

Construction work on the new HS2 track carving its way through the Buckinghamshire countryside is due to start soon.

But before it does, archeologists have been given the chance to check and catalogue what lies in its path.

When they began to excavate the ruins of a Norman church near Stoke Mandeville they found 3,000 bodies. But that wasn't all.

Below the Norman Church was an even older one - from Anglo-Saxon times - with walls so thick it could have had a tower.

The find was unexpected and “hugely exciting” for the archaeologists. It has also meant historians have had to think again about what was at the site before the Norman church, and who was using the land near Stoke Mandeville.