Holy Trinity Church, Hildersham, Cambridgeshire. Archeaological Evaluation and Monitoring

Between March 2014 and December 2015 archaeological monitoring was undertaken within the graveyard of Holy Trinity Church, Hildersham during groundworks carried out in advance and post-construction of a porch extension and toilet, together with its associated services and soakaway(s). These groundworks involved excavation down to a depth of 1.4 metres within the proposed 12.5m2 footprint for the porch located on the north side of the church , alongside the digging of five additional service trenches across the graveyard, the longest of which was 90m from the church to the main gateway onto the road. In total 43 burials were encountered during this work, some nineteen of which were found within the footprint for the new church porch. All of the latter were fully skeletonised, these consisting of at least eight adults and five juveniles interred as shroud burials, being most likely Early Medieval in date. Given the similarity between these fully excavated burials and those recorded but not excavated within the associated service trenches, it seems possible we could be looking at a Medieval date for all of these umarked early graves. Just four sherds of 12th century AD St.Neots and greyware pottery were recovered from the main excavation, two sherds of this being associated with grave fill