Site Event/Activity record ECH5951 - Survey, Excavation and Osteological Studies, Trench 1, Chapel House Farm, Poulton, Cheshire

Research project comprising field walking, resistivity survey and excavation. Field walking was undertaken in a field immediately adjacent to what was believed to be the chapel site. The raised area believed to be the chapel site was subject to a resistivity survey which revealed the outline of a rectangular building. Subsequent excavations (Trench 1) uncovered the chapel foundations, medieval and post medieval artefacts and an estimated 2000 human burials outside the building. (1) A published article examines the assemblage of prehistoric lithics and stone tools (see 1799/5) which were found during the Chapel excavation (Trench 1), described above, and excavations of an Iron Age/Roman settlement immediately to the north (trenches 16 and 50, see ECH5952). 229 worked chert and flint tools were found in residual contexts from the Chapel excavation (Trench 1), also a Neolithic polished stone axe was recovered during the excavation of Roman period ditches surrounding a structure pre-dating the medieval chapel. The level of interpretation that can be attained is limited by the absence of stratified material but is nevertheless important given that the nature of early prehistoric land use is still poorly understood in lowland Cheshire. (2) Post excavation analysis of hundreds of skeletons recovered from the Chapel burial ground has led to the following specialist studies/articles:- Analysis of Human Skeletal Material from the Poulton Research Project: 1995-2012. 2013 (3) Broken Bones: Trauma Analysis on a Medieval Population from Poulton, Cheshire. 2018. (4) Living Like Common People: Excavating a medieval peasant farming community at Poulton. 2019 (5) Paget's disease of bone in two medieval skeletons from Poulton Chapel, Cheshire, UK. 2019 (6) Blood is thicker than baptismal water: A late medieval perinatal burial in a small household chest. 2020 (7)