NHER 69158 (Monument record) - Medieval and post-medieval burials, churchyard of St Mary's Church

October 2021. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of drainage improvement works and installation of foul drain connection for new internal toilets.
These works demonstrated the presence of relatively deep cemetery soils and uncovered multiple burials of probable medieval to post-medieval date.
A total of 12 grave cuts were recorded within a soakaway trench dug to the north-west of the church, with articulated remains encountered at depths of c.0.85m to 1m below the modern ground surface. The earliest internment had probably been a shroud burial and was most likely medieval in date. The later burials included a number that were associated with evidence for coffins and therefore almost certainly post-medieval. These included adults, two adjacent child burials and two neonatal burials. Several dress pins were associated with these coffin burials and a copper nail found with a neonatal burial had possible been used as a textile pin.
The narrow service trench excavated between the north aisle of the church and Chequers Street encountered 18 articulated burials, the majority of which lay at depths of between c.0.75m and 1.2m – the one notable exception between an adult and an adjacent neonatal individual found at a depth of just 0.4m (potentially the interment of a mother and newborn). None of these burials were associated with evidence for coffins or other grave furniture, suggesting they were most likely of medieval to early post-medieval date. Approximately 250 disarticulated fragments of human bone were recovered during the excavation of this trench.
Service runs excavated to the north of the tower had a maximum depth of 0.75m and encountered no burials.
The excavated trenches exposed the stepped footings of the church's 19th-century north aisle in two locations. Connection holes on the inside of the church disturbed only modern brick rubble beneath the concrete flooring.
Unstratified finds recovered from the cemetery soils included prehistoric worked flints, a Roman pottery sherd, three Early Saxon pottery sherds, a small number of medieval pottery sherds, a piece of medieval painted window glass, a late post-medieval cufflink, a copper alloy droplet, pieces of lead waste and oyster shells.
All human remains collected during the works were retained on site and then reburied within three separate slots.
See report (S1) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2022.54).
P. Watkins (HES), 28 May 2025.

KLMD082025 – PAS details awaited. [1].
'Churchyard'.
P. Watkins (HES), 29 August 2025.