Medieval to post-medieval churchyard of St Mary and All Saints Church (EHER 18539)

A 1999 watching brief lead to the recording of 33 graves that were thought to be post-medieval.

1999. Watching brief. A rectangular development area was investigated to the north and east of the existing vestry. The initial phase of work was the machining of the site down to a set uniform level. The general slope of the land meant that as little as 0.10m of overburden had to be removed by machine from the south-west corner of the site, whereas, to the north-east approximately 1.5m was removed. The positions of approximately 33 graves were recorded. Several were part or fully excavated by hand where articulated bones were clearly going to be disturbed by the machine. Heavy root disturbance from nearby trees was noted in the north-east corner of the development area. A few burials were unavoidably disturbed by machine due to the variations in depth of their grave cuts. On completion of the machining the position of the foundation trenches were laid out. All graves were then hand excavated within the confines of the four main foundation trenches. At least 13 graves were part excavated including that of a baby or small child. One grave that contained traces of decayed wood also produced an iron coffin handle, a boss, pieces of coffin plate and a number of nails. Two other graves produced coffin nails and one other showed signs of decayed wood. A general lack of coffin nails combined with the shapes of several of the grave cuts suggested that some of the burials had not had coffins. The majority of the graves were felt to be post-medieval in date. Two vague undated north/south orientated linear parallel features were identified that did not obviously contain any human bones and appeared to be earlier in date than the graves that crossed them. The western feature was approximately 4m in length and the eastern about 2m (though possibly longer) both were 0.8m wide. They were 2m apart but definitely didn't extend as far southwards as the present day church. <1> <2>