Site Event/Activity record ESF28993 - Monitoring - St Mary's Church, Flowton

2019: An archaeological watching brief was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology during groundworks associated with the development of a small extension for a kitchen and toilet facility on the north side of Flowton church. This work was conducted following a previous evaluation phase which discovered deep deposits of made ground and rubble. The small extension footprint covers an area of 0.07 hectares adjacent to the north wall of the Church. The land is currently part of the northern extent of the current graveyard.Four monitoring visits were conducted on the 15th, 18th 21st and 25th of November 2019. The visits observed all ground impacting work including the two-stage excavation of a new pipe trench, the levelling on the development area and foundation trenching. The natural geological substrate consisting of compact grey and orange chalk-flecked clay was revealed at an average depth of 1.00m below present ground level. This was overlain by a made ground deposit averaging 0.70m in thickness, which was in turn sealed by 0.20-0.30m of mid brown topsoil . The excavation of a new pipe trench was monitored on two sperate visits on the 15th and 25th of November 2019. Approximately 20m of trench was excavated measuring 1.00m in width and 0.90m in depth. The development area was levelled on the 18th of November. This involved 0.60m of material being removed from the northern edge and 0.20m from the southern edge next to the church wall. Most of the material removed was topsoil but on the northerly most edge c.0.30m of made ground was also removed. Footing trenches and pads were excavated on the 18th and 21st of November 2019. All footings were excavated to a depth of 1.20m from the levelled surface. Footing pads were excavated either side of the retained buttress. (S1)