Two very different sites share one enclosure. The church of Saint Anne, built in the twelfth century over a crypt venerated as the birthplace of the Virgin, is austere and superbly proportioned, its bare stone producing a resonance that draws pilgrim groups to sing under its vaults. Spared destruction after the Crusader defeat and converted for a time into a school of religious law, it survived where most contemporary buildings did not. Immediately alongside, excavation has opened a complex of pools, channels and later Byzantine and medieval chapels, on the site the Gospel of John describes as Bethesda, where a sick man waited years for the water to be stirred. Filmed in 4K, the programme combines architecture, sound and archaeology, and works as a stand-alone title on Crusader Jerusalem.
