Site Event/Activity record ECH6184 - Archaeological Watching Brief, St Mary's Church, Nantwich

Watching brief during excavation of new drainage run and pumping station within the former cemetery at St Mary's Church, Nantwich. A large number of disarticulated skeletal remains were recovered during the linear trench excavations. However, as the new trench respected the course of an earlier service cut containing a large ceramic pipe no further articulated burials were disturbed. At the southern terminus of the trench excavation, immediately south-west of the south transept entrance, two slightly damaged but largely undisturbed wooden coffins containing skeletons were observed resting on a tightly spaced line of thick parallel timbers at a depth of c.1.20 metres below the current ground surface. As these coffins both rested on the same timbers and appeared to have been interred at the same time it is likely that they represent the last phase of burials carried out wholesale in the churchyard during the cholera epidemic of c.1849. As these remains were observed at a depth greater than the formation level of the new service run they were not under threat from the groundworks. A rapid excavation was undertaken to expose a small area around the coffins and a drawing and photographic record was made. The remains were then covered with a geo-textile membrane and subsequently reburied.