Monument record ORF 199 - Churchyard of St Bartholemew's Church

Churchyard of St Bartholemew's Church.

Two small Test-pits within the footprint of the organ base. The sequence of layers encountered in the pits was similar, with the extant parquet floor associated with an underlying layer of pitch and a hard, cementitious bedding layer. Below this was a semi-consolidated layer of soil and mortar with inclusions of CBM, septaria, flints and mortar lumps. The flat surface of this layer suggests that it may have function as a bedding layer for an earlier floor. However, given that this layer sealed a deposit which included a redbrick fragment of likely 16th -18th century date, then evidence for medieval floor layers appear to have been previously removed in this area of the church. Under the semi-consolidated layer was a deposit of loose silty sand with mortar flecks/small lumps present throughout. The base of this deposit was not encountered in the excavation of the pits, but there was resistance at a depth of 0.90m when a survey arrow was inserted. This material was clearly not a naturally derived deposit and even in the absence of human skeletal material, the most likely interpretation is that it represents the fill of graves excavated either in the body of the existing church or in the churchyard of the earlier building if it did not share the same footprint (S1).