Clues that may help unravel a 700-year-old mystery were thrown up by an unusual archaeological exercise at a historic mid-Essex site.
A dowsing exercise - using metal rods to detect the magnetic forces of items below the ground - showed up the foundations of a large building in an area that had confounded hi-tech surveying methods at Cressing Temple.
Archaeologists are becoming excited that the building may be the legendary missing "third barn" at the 12th century site near Witham.
Barry Hillman-Crouch, an Essex County Council archaeologist who organised the dowsing event, said: "Templar sites in England normally have three barns and we've only got two, and there's always been folklore here about where the third barn is.
"I think it's possible that we've found it."
Published Wednesday, August 6, 2003
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