Monument record MKE 007 - Church of St Peter

Church. Restored 1829, chancel 1902. Drawing circa 1790. Details in (S1)(S2).
According to AF Northcote, who was rector in 1920s-1930s, in his 'Notes on the history of Monks Eleigh', 1930, 'bits of Roman tile have turned up near the Church, and some brick incorporated in the tower appear to be Roman'. Other church guides suggest the bricks are late Medieval (S3).

Evidence of an earlier church was found during the monitoring of groundworks. Bonded flint remains, truncated just below floor level, showed the positions of the nave’s N and W walls before the church was remodelled and enlarged during the 15th century. The floor level of the earlier church was lower than that of the present one and had been built up with a thick layer (200–300mm) of lime mortar with flint as part of the foundations of the later church. There were no post-medieval burials inside the nave cutting through these formation layers (within the monitored areas), and evidence of how the steeply sloping site had been engineered for the present building was well preserved. An alignment of 4 post-medieval ‘crucible’ pits were recorded beneath the Victorian tiled floor within the tower; the pits were temporary features used to melt down the lead strips from windows that were being dismantled for repair or replacement. The use of the pits was not closely dated, but 1 produced 3 sherds of an iron-glazed blackware tankard indicating that they were no earlier than the 16th century. The crucible pits were cut into the top of a sequence of alternating bands of clay and mortar rubble, these layers formed part of the 15th-century tower’s foundations and infilled its entire floor area. The infill covered the vestigial remains of bonded medieval flintwork, which could possibly be interpreted as evidence of the church’s former tower (S4).