Source/Archive record SCH6583 - An Archaeological Evaluation of Land at St Peter's Churchyard, Prestbury

This document is an interim report on the results of an archaeological evaluation conducted on land at St Peter’s churchyard, Prestbury, Cheshire. The full report will include a full assessment of the human remains. The church is located in the centre of the village of Prestbury to the south of ‘The Village’ and is centred on National Grid Reference SJ 900 769. The extension is to the north-eastern corner of the church and will contain a suite of parish facilities. A Scheduled Ancient Monument lies close to the proposed extension and is afforded protection from disturbance under The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. St. Peter’s Church was the head of one of the largest medieval parishes in Cheshire and was probably established in the Anglo-Saxon period. There are few physical remains relating directly to Anglo-Saxon church buildings, though fragments of two Anglo-Saxon stone crosses were found re-used in the church walls in the 19th century. The churchyard contains a Norman chapel, probably built c. 1150 AD when Prestbury was under the control of St. Werburgh’s Abbey, Chester. The chapel was superseded by St. Peter’s from c. 1220 AD and was ruinous by 1580. It was restored and rebuilt in the 18th century and use as crypt until the early 1800s when it went into use as a school room. It is now back in ecclesiastical use. Little of the original building survives above ground, the only 12th century section being the west door. The church was begun c. 1220 AD and contains a mix of 13th, 14th and 15th century architecture. However, there were periodic repairs and additions from the 16th century onwards. These included rebuilding of the north aisle in the 1740s and extensive renovations in 1879-1885 to designs by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The later restoration included significant rebuilding, especially of the north aisle, parts of the south aisle, the vestry and the chancel and probably inadvertently removed much of the original medieval fabric. Much of the graveyard is occupied by gravestones dating to the 17th century onwards, though burials have probably taken place at St. Peters since the 8th or 9th century AD. The sites of two former buildings, both probably 16th -18th century lie at the south-eastern end of the churchyard. However, only one, the former Sexton’s House is likely to have surviving below ground remains. The other, formerly to the west of the Norman chapel is likely to have been destroyed by 19th century grave digging. Proposed additions to the northern side of the church will principally affect late 19th century additions to the church’s fabric, though some sections of the vestry may be earlier. It was highly probable that the works would disturb burials and possible early deposits associated with the church. The most likely buried archaeological deposits to be found on the site might include human remains, buried gravestones, remains of coffins (such as iron nails and fragments of wood) and evidence of a medieval church, or earlier, with associated artefacts. The trial trenches found articulated human burials in four of the trenches at depth of c. 1.3 to 1.8 m below ground level. All of the burials were 150-250 years old and were in wooden coffins with iron coffin plates. One trench contained no archaeological deposits. Excavation was ceased in the others because of unstable ground conditions or the presence of undisturbed grave markers.