Monument record NDM 003 - Alleged site of a Post Medieval plague pit.

Site of Plague Pit (Alleged).
An ill-defined mound, circa 35m in diameter and circa 1m high, near the road edge of a field (Town Lands on Tithe Map) is said to cover a Plague pit. Needham is said to have been hit very hard by a plague 1663-1665. Barriers are said to have been placed at either end of the town to contain the plague (hence the name Chain Bridge). 'Tradition says that the dead were buried in a field near the Lion Inn and also in a field near the Chain Bridges on the Stowmarket Road' (R1).
Machine section cut through mound, 1981, under supervision of K Wade. Mound proved to be natural. Three pits cut into the subsoil contained medieval sherds. Two fragments only of human bone were recovered.