Monument record IPS 729 - Church of St Mary-le-Tower, Tower Street, Ipswich, (IAS 0902)

Two test-pits were hand excavated within the churchyard of St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich, Suffolk, in advance of the creation of a proposed garden of remembrance. The main aim of the fieldwork was to check if any in-situ human burials existed within the top 0.7m of the footprint of the proposed garden. No such burials were encountered within either test-pit although a large amount of disarticulated bone along with post-medieval brick and tile and other debris was noted. A small amount of pottery was recovered, which has been dated to the Middle Anglo-Saxon period and the early medieval period. (Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service Field Team for St. Mary-le-Tower PCC) (S1).
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2013 (S3)

No in-situ burials, tombs or vaults were encountered in either test-pit suggesting that any burials that may exist in his area are situated at depths greater than 0.7m. The material the test-pits were cut through is typical of an established and well used churchyard with no obvious stratigraphic layering, other than the slightly darker topsoil noted in Test Pit 1, and abundant amounts of disarticulated human bone present. This is a result of the repeated re-excavation of earlier inhumations whilst cutting graves for later burials over a period of many years. The Anglo-Saxon and early medieval pottery recovered from the test-pits is undoubtedly residual material, it having been found amongst later artefacts. Its presence is not entirely unusual given the site’s location within a known large Anglo-Saxon and medieval settlement (S1).