Monument record 13005 - Excavated Medieval Burials, Grosvenor Park

<1> Chester Archaeology, Archaeology in the Park: Grosvenor Park, Chester 2007, p.10 (Newsletter). SCH6469.

A series of excavations have been carried out in Grosvenor Park, in partnership with Chester University, as part of the Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research/CAER Project. The project began in 2007 and one of its principle objectives was to locate the remains of Cholmondeley’s Mansion (CHER 11045). It is thought that the house occupied the site of earlier medieval buildings attached to the collegiate church of St John (CHER 11033), including a chapel dedicated to St Anne (CHER 11033/4), and a range of petty canons houses (CHER 11033/11/3). Following the Dissolution, the buildings of St John’s College mostly became private residences, and this part of Chester became the preserve of the gentry.

In the 2007 season of excavation, at least four human burials were recorded at the southern end of Trench I. These burials were quite shallow and in fact had narrowly missed being disturbed during construction work associated with Lord Cholmondeley’s house in the late seventeenth century. They lay outside the historical limits of St John’s cemetery and may well have been deliberately buried in unconsecrated ground. Two of these burials were entirely uncovered during the recent work and they were aligned with heads to the west, as one expects in Christian burials. The hands and wrists of one of the skeletons were under the lumbar vertebrae, suggesting that the hands may have been tied behind the back. Furthermore, the alignment of the legs, ankles and feet suggest that the feet were also tied together. This has raised the possibility that this person may have been treated as a criminal prior to death and possibly that this was an area for the burial of the socially marginalised.

<2> L-P Archaeology, 2019, Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project (CAER): Interim Archaeological Excavation Report for 2017, R4442, paragraph 2.5 (Client Report). SCH8888.

The area of burials excavated in 2007 was also the area where the medieval ‘petty canons’ (minor clergy) houses are thought to lie. Early maps indicate that the old boundary of St John's Churchyard was much straighter than the sinuous line of the existing Park boundary railing. In the excavations of 2012-14, a substantial north-south ditch (CHER 13003) was identified a short distance to the east of the burials, it is thought that this may have served as the boundary to the ecclesiastical precinct, this would place the burials partly within St John’s former churchyard. The period of the burials, whether pre- or post- the Reformation, is unclear.