Source/Archive record SCH9452 - Archaeological Watching Brief at St Oswald’s Church, Malpas

Report of an archaeological watching brief 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. Most 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.