St. Catherine's Church, Sacombe Archival Report

The Heritage Network was commissioned by Mike Dales Partnership Ltd to undertake a programme of archaeological monitoring during groundworks at St Catherine's Church, Sacombe, Hertfordshire. The groundworks consisted of the excavation of a soakaway pit, 1.4m by 1.4m wide by 1.4m deep. Two drain run trenches were also excavated from the north of the church and the corner of the north porch, 8m and 5m north-east and north-west respectively, to the soakaway (Figure 2, Plate 2). The groundworks revealed a sequence of chalk bedrock overlain by 0.35m of greyish brown sandy silt graveyard soil with frequent chalk fragments, sealed below a 0.20m thick layer of topsoil and turf. Within the soakaway, two human burials were encountered, 101 and 102. The edges of both of these burials were clipped but no human skeletal remains were encountered from within the fills (sections 1 and 2, Plates 2 and 3). A small quantity of human bone was recovered from the graveyard soil, including fragments of long bone, as well as numerous small fragments that could not be identified. A brief assessment showed that the material was disarticulated remains from several individuals. Photographs were taken of the best preserved and most identifiable bones. The bone was retained on site for re-burial.