Archaeological monitoring and recording at St Margaret's Church, Topsham, Devon

An archaeological watching brief was undertaken by Oakford Archaeology in April 2026 at St Margaret's Church, Topsham, Devon. The site has been occupied probably since the 10th century and is currently occupied by the 19th century parish church of St Margarets. The work was therefore required by the Diocese Advisory Committee, as advised by Andy Crabb, the DAC Archaeologist. A watching brief was maintained during the excavation of a new foundation for a water pump and associated drainage trench on the west side of the church. The pump foundation trench measured approximately 1.9m long, 1m wide and was excavated to a depth of 1.63m, while the drainage trench extending northwest towards the road measured 10.8m in length, 0.35m wide and 0.7m deep. The work revealed a simple deposit sequence consisting of a mid red sand at a depth of 0.73m. Interpreted as a natural subsoil his was overlain by a 0.11m thick mid brownish red sand with rare charcoal flecks. This possible earlier topsoil was in turn overlain by a 0.1m thick mid greyish brown sandy clay with rare slate fragments, lime fleck and charcoal fleck. This was overlain by a 0.29m thick mid pinkish brown sandy clay with rare slate fragments, lime fleck, sub-angular stone and cbm. These two deposits have been interpreted as upcast from the excavation of the new church of St Margaret's in 1874-6 and were in turn sealed underneath a mid greyish brown clayey silt (100) topsoil with rare slate fragments. A total of 15 post-1780 industrial whitewares including blue-and-white transfer print, creamware and a single, square aqua blue glass bottle with ribbing on two faces (late 19th century) were recovered from the topsoil. nothing of significance was found