Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

A charnel pit containing redeposited human bones was found cut by the still extant late 11th century foundations. This pit almost certainly contained Saxon burials disturbed and reinterred during the c.1096 building work.

Monument Types

• HUMAN REMAINS (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 1065 AD)

Full description

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A number of small trenches were excavated immediately south of St Gabriels Chapel. Cutting across the Roman mosaic was a massive east-west wall foundation, which proved to be earlier than the foundations of the present Cathedral Choir of 1096, and therefore may relate to Lanfranc's early Norman Cathedral or the Anglo-Saxon Cathedral.

A charnel pit containing redeposited human bones was found cut by the still extant late 11th century foundations. This pit almost certainly contained Saxon burials disturbed and reinterred during the c.1096 building work. From the 12th to the 15th centuries the whole area was used as the Cathedral cemetery, monks being buried to the east of St Gabriel's Chapel and lay persons to the west. These two graveyards were seperated by a wall running south from the chapel (demolished c.1850) the foundations of which were also discovered, along with eighteen burials belonging to the cemetery itself. These were overlain by a brick drain of c.1500, which is still in use.

Andrews, G., 1985, The Archaeology of Canterbury: An Assessment (Unpublished document). SKE30429.

Driver, J. C., Rady, J., Sparks, M., 1990, Excavations in the Cathedral Precincts, 2 Linacre Garden, 'Meister Omers' and St Gabriel's Chapel. (Monograph). SKE29781.

Sources and further reading