Monument record BRD 018 - Chequer Meadow; Staunch Meadow (Un)

Various undated features including a large number of skeletons have been found within the Scheduled area of the Middle Saxon Occupation site Chequer Meadow / Staunch Meadow. (S6).

1847 The Ipswich Journal reported `Large numbers of skeletons, both male and female, found in large-low mound in Staunch Meadow, Brandon, as early as 1847' (S1)(R3).

1847 The Suffolk Herald reported the discovery of "several hundreds of skeletons, …...To all appearances the bones are those of young men of athletic frames, and, most probably, from the imperfect and shattered condition of some of the skull bones." and interprited these remains as "slain during the contest of the Parliament and the Roundheads, or may be of an earlier fray,…... The bones were reinterred in pits dug for the purpose by order of Mr Balwin"(S10).

1895-1896: At least 120 skeleton excavated from this (? Same) cemetery by C S Myers, `found with the skeletons of horses but no associated objects other than iron fragments' (S1)(S2)(S3)(S4). It has been suggested that the skeletal material relates to the Early Anglo Saxon cemetery two excavated by the SAU (S11).

1980-1988: Excavations by SAU locates various undatable features - details in excavation archive (R4).

1997: Monitoring by Gill, D. located two small undated ditches on the west side of the meadow (S7).
Details in (S8).

2007: Animal bones sampled as part of radiocarbon dating bone samples recovered from gravel sites (S9).
Undated features within the Scheduled area of the Middle Saxon Occupation site Chequer Meadow / Staunch Meadow (S6).