St. Mary's Church, Church End, Redbourn, Hertfordshire. Archaeological Watching Brief (OASIS ID: heritage1-189862)
The Heritage Network, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5284/1048334. How to cite using this DOI
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- ADS Collection: 3226
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1048334
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
As part of the faculty requirements, the Heritage Network was commissioned to undertake a programme of archaeological monitoring during the excavation of a service trench for a new electricity cable at St Mary's Church, Redbourn, Hertfordshire. The study area lies to the south of the modern town of Redbourn and within the churchyard of St Mary's Church, centred at NGR TL 09995 11550. The groundworks consisted of a machine-excavated service trench, measuring 51.4m in length, 0.30m in width and 0.30m in depth. The trench ran from the western side of the south porch southwards alongside the existing path. It curved westwards, around the northern end of the carpark, before turning to run south again to the new mower shed.
Only the northern half of the trench was observed as no burials have been made in the southern half of the churchyard, owing to the high water table from the buried watercourse that runs across the southern end of the churchyard. The stratigraphy exposed in the trench sections comprised brown (10YR 4/3) loose clayey sand with frequent gravel and some root activity. This has been interpreted as a cemetery soil. The natural substratum was not reached during the present works. A number of unstratified finds was present in the spoil. These included fragments of disarticulated human bone, post-medieval brick and tile fragments, and clay pipe fragments. The disarticulated human bone fragments were reburied on site. No significant archaeological features or deposits were revealed during the works.
