Monument record CSM 013 - Church of St Mary (Med)

Church.
May 2002: A blocked rood stair was revealed during stabilisation work. The stair would have originally been partially external to the north wall of the nave. This part had been removed and the resulting aperture blocked with ?Tudor brick. A photographic record was made (S1).

2014: Four small test-pits (0.25 x 0.25m, 0.2m deep) and one larger test-pit (1.6m by 0.7m, 0.2m deep) were excavated by an archaeologist in the body of the nave and south aisle with two smaller interventions undertaken by the project engineer against the interior face of the north nave and south aisle walls. The results indicated some variation in the character of the underlying ground surface with, as could be expected, evidence for burials, including an inscribed ledger stone. However, no earlier floor levels were encountered and the evidence provided by the presence of a flat-topped pad/footing around the base of one of the aisle piers suggested that the medieval floor level was similar to that of the existing floor. In addition, the vestiges of the pre-aisle south nave wall was encountered in two of the test-pits which, along with the pad/footing for the aisle piers, survived to a level above that proposed as the formation level for the heating system (S2). Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2014 (S5).

2015: Monitoring, The principal recorded features were as follows: A ledger stone located below a pew floor base close to the north nave doorway was not thought to be in situ. The stone would originally have been set in the floor above the Maundrell family vault/tomb. A marble wall monument in the chancel recorded the same information that was transcribed from the stone.
A wall stub running between the three easternmost arches of the south aisle arcade was interpreted as the vestiges of the earlier south nave wall. This wall would have been extensively demolished to
accommodate the insertion of the arcade arches.
A void which opened up close to the south aisle doorway was thought to have been caused by a collapsed coffin.
The lower section of the now blocked rood stair was revealed by the removal wood boarding from the internal face of the north nave wall.
Evidence for the tying in of the later brick-built buttresses was recordedon the internal faces of the south aisle wall and the north nave wall, although that to the north was complicated by the presence of a possible surviving jamb that arguably may have related to an earlier opening.
Three vents recorded through the north nave wall were interpreted as relatively recent insertions providing air flow behind the wall boarding and under the pew floor bases in order to try and reduce the effects of damp.
Also Rom cremation (S3).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2015 (S4)