Monument record CLO 038 - Church of St Mary the Virgin

Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin.
Nave, chancel, tower over S porch. Present building C13, font early perpendicular design, nave with single hammerbeam roof. C15 tower over S porch - massive structure, 80 feet high. Extensively restored & chancel rebuilt in 1883. Near parish boundary and only 380m from Burgh Church (S1)(R1).

1996: Archaeological monitoring was carried out during ground lowering works and drainage excavation works being carried out adjacent to the nave and chancel of Clopton Church. A wall stub and associated footing was recorded in a drain run NE of the existing chancel. The present chacnel is a rebuild of 19th century date and the wall stub almost certainly relates to an earlier, probably medieval, chancel that would have been more in proportion with the nave. The evidence was consistent with the wall stub being a diagonal buttress on the NE corner of a chancel that would have been 4m longer than the extant building. The wall stub was covered by 0.45m of topsoil including larg quantities of rooftile and mortar, proibably representing a demolition layer. The solid flint and mortar wall base survived to a depth of 0.35m which lay on a footing of alternate layers of mortar and unconsolidated flints. The base of the footing was not encountered in the 1m deep drain run (S2).

See S3 for more detail.