Church Archaeology 12

Like many precincts, that at Peterborough Cathedral is subdivided into many different areas, and numerous ancient boundary walls survive, albeit repaired or rebuilt on several occasions – a process that continues today. Major repairs to one of these walls, ‘Wall 29’, on the south side of the deanery courtyard and on the north side of the cathedral cemetery, with the deanery gateway at one end and the deanery house at the other (Fig 1), took place in early 2008. They were accompanied by an archaeological watching brief and related research that led to several important discoveries. Wall 29 was found to have been (re)built in the mid-17th century but the discovery of greatest significance was a collection of fragments from 11 grave covers and upright markers, broadly speaking minor monuments of 11th- and early 12th-century date. It is argued here, with the aid of strong documentary evidence, that they were associated with the knights of Peterborough Abbey. A further discovery was the remnants of a modestly sized but high quality late medieval house which might have stood in the cemetery. This, the gravestones, and the wall itself are linked to the history of lay burial in Peterborough, the development of the abbey’s lay cemetery and to the related development of the deanery on the north side of that cemetery.

London’s medieval religious houses are fast becoming some of the best-documented in the UK and an exceptionally well-researched group in the context of western European cities, thanks in large part to the Greater London publication programme commissioned by English Heritage (EH). This programme has involved the assessment, analysis and publication of numerous archaeological excavations undertaken mainly in the 1970s and 1980s on the sites of five of London’s monasteries (Hinton and Thomas 1997). Developer funding and further EH support raised the number of houses to nine, and more recent developer-funded fieldwork will again increase the number. The resulting series of monographs on this sample of London’s monastic houses covers a number of orders (not including mendicants), both urban/suburban (intra-mural and extra-mural) and semi-rural or rural houses, and will include houses for women as well as for men. This review identifies particular aspects where the publication programme has produced high-quality information and has highlighted the potential for further research, some of which is already in progress.

With the Church Act in 1706, the General Assembly of South Carolina established the Church of England as the official church of the colony and defined ten parishes. Soon after, missionaries were dispatched from England and churches constructed. Little archaeological research has been conducted on colonial South Carolina Anglican churches, so any archaeological intervention offers a rare opportunity to understand them. This article summarises investigations at St Paul’s parish church Hollywood, S C, U S A

The Church Buildings Council (CBC, formerly known as the CCC) of the Church of England has recently produced a guidance note on best practice and management models for dealing with ruined churches, accessible from the Archaeology section of the Churchcare web site (http://www.churchcare.co.uk). The background to the production of this guidance, and suggestions for the way forward, are the subject of this article.