Site Event/Activity record ECH7205 - Archaeological Watching Brief at St Oswald’s Church, Malpas

An archaeological watching brief was carried out in 2022-2023 during the excavation of groundworks along the grade II listed, southern and western graveyard walls of St Oswald’s Church. St Oswald's Church (grade I listed) was built in the second half of the 14th century in the vicinity of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle, Malpas Castle. The objectives of the watching brief were to identify, record or exhume buried human remains impacted by the repair work to the walls, for recording and reburial in a suitable area of the graveyard. To record the location, dimensions and nature of any deposits, features, structures or artefacts of archaeological significance. The site measured 183 m², running along the lengths of the southern and western walls of the churchyard. The repair works of the wall consisted of tension micro-piles, embedded into the walls, which were then reinforced by vertical concrete piers. The concrete was poured into 78 pits dug directly behind the wall where the piles were located. The pits were excavated by handtools using shovels, and when reaching bedrock, breakers 76 articulated skeletons were uncovered and 4068 separate fragments of disarticulated human bone collected. These were recorded and reinterred on site. No archaeological features other than grave cuts were found within the mitigation area. The grave-cuts within the cemetery were found between the average depths of 600mm and 1000mm below the surface. Very few finds were uncovered in association with burials. Those that could be connected were often coffin furniture in the form of iron coffin handles, iron coffin nails, copper plated coffin studs (Plate 1), metal name plates and metal breast plates. All the coffin furnishing recorded on site was dated only as far back as the 18th century. Most other finds were uncovered from the unstratified subsoil (1001), including several pieces of Medieval floor tile and the fragment of a 16th century chafing dish, decorated with a double sgraffito technique, the only known example of its kind in the region. (1)