NHER 1860 (Building record) - St Edmund's Church, Caistor St Edmund

St Edmunds Church.
Stands within east ramparts of Roman town and contains much Roman brick (and presumably flint). Saxon remains identified by A. Whittingham as blocked south window in nave and door to west gallery (royal gallery for Edward the Confessor?) Present nave windows 15th century. Perpendicular floor rises to east. Fine 14th century c. chancel arch. Chancel has two Early English 13th century lancets on each side; piscina on south with arched niche to east of it. Low side window beneath southwest chancel window. Tudor priest's door. 14th century tower of knapped flint with stone corners and decorated west window, Tudor battlements. One bell of 1592 (two others stolen) North porch with piscina; carved corbel heads and graffiti on doorway. South door blocked. Fine 15th century carved font with symbols and lions. Wall paintings of St Christopher and St John badly faded. Royal arms of Queen Anne 1714. Matrix of brass. Organ 1856 by Mark Noble senior. Graveslab in sanctuary with coat of arms 1708.
Information from (S1).
R. R. Clarke (NCM).

January 1975. Visit.
Within ramparts of Roman town. Reused Roman material; Late Saxon traces, otherwise 13th to 15th century. It should be noted that there was a spring of cold water at the southeast corner of the chancel - significance to site of church?
E. Rose (NAU), 18 January 1975.

Bell is 14th century with original clapper (rare) but rehung. Two others were stolen.
Information from P. Cattermole.
E. Rose (NAU), 30 January 1986.

13 July 1993. NAU air photography (S2).
Church visible.
S. Massey (NLA), 8 February 2001.

6 August 1993. NLA air photography (S3).
Church and surrounding area to be clearly seen.
H. Clare (NLA), 5 February 2001.

15 October 1993. NLA air photography (S4).
Church clearly visible.
H. Clare (NLA), 21 February 2001.

August-September 2009. Trial Trenching.
Two trenches excavated within footprint of proposed extension and associated soakaway.
This work revealed evidence of an earlier church probably dating to the Middle Saxon period. The lower parts of the south wall of the nave were exposed and seen to be made from reused Roman materials and built in a Roman style. Medieval child and infant burials and an extensive dump of roof tiles dating to the mid-19th century were also recovered. Boundary gullies and rubbish pits of Roman date were excavated and were overlain by three adult burials and one child burial of medieval or post-medieval date.
See report (S5) for further details. The results of this work are also summarised in (S8).
S. Howard (HES), 21 April 2011.

May 2010. Radiocarbon dating.
An AMS date of cal AD 890-1030 at 95% probability (Beta-278188; 1070 +/- 40 BP) was obtained for a femur taken from a small charnel-type deposit under the church foundations - providing further evidence for the presence of a church on the site before the 11th century.
See (S6).
S. Howard (HES), 12 September 2011. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 1 April 2025.

June 2010. Watching brief.
The buttress foundations for the church were encountered at a depth of approximately 1.15m below the modern ground surface and are associated with a phase of construction dating to AD 1800 when the thatched roof was replaced with tile resulting in the pitch being lowered and the current roof beams being inserted. Two sherds of late medieval pottery and a single piece of animal bone were recovered. No human skeletal remains were observed.
See (S7).
S. Howard (HES), 4 July 2011.

November 2020. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of drainage improvement works within the churchyard, including the excavation of two deep soakaway pits and various drainage trenches.
The soakaway pit to the south of the church encountered a clay-lined Roman pit at a depth of c.1.2m. The clay lining contained frequent fragments of Roman ceramic building material (including pieces likely derived from hypocaust systems) and was heat affected – suggesting this feature represented the remains of a dismantled oven or kiln. Its single fill produced several Roman pottery sherds of 2nd-century or later date and fragments of animal bone. The pit truncated a subsoil containing Roman pottery and was overlain by a second subsoil layer. Directly above this upper subsoil was the poorly-preserved remains of another clay-lined feature. This was also potentially an oven-type structure as it had partially scorched margins and contained fragments of fired clay potentially derived from a superstructure. No dating evidence was recovered from this feature, although its stratigraphic position suggests it was potentially Saxon. It was overlain by a deep cemetery soil that contained few finds.
The soakaway pit to the west of the church revealed evidence for multiple inhumation burials, with skeletal remains associated with six adult individuals of probable medieval date lifted for reburial elsewhere. These burials were encountered at depths of between 0.95m and 1.3m and were all aligned east-to-west. None appeared to have been interred within coffins and one contains several reburied disarticulated long bones. Three later, but much deeper, grave cuts were also recorded – all of which are thought to have been associated with graves of 18th- to 19th-century date. Following the removal of the medieval burials the soakaway was dug down through a deep sequence of subsoil layers that contained much Roman material, including pottery, tile fragments, part of a large Purbeck Marble stone mortar, a piece of vessel glass, a fragment of opus signinum and an iron nail, along with a piece of iron smelting slag, butchered animal bone and oyster shells. Of particular interest is a sandy oxidised white ware mortarium sherd with a stamp from a potter who probable worked at Caistor (five of the seven known examples of his stamp having been found here).
Drainage trenches dug to the north of the church were much shallower and disturbed only a soil deposit containing abundant 18th- to 19th-century brick and tile fragments and other building rubble. This material is indicative of significant landscaping – most likely associated with the large-scale restoration work of 1898.
Other unstratified finds of note include a Middle Saxon decorative hanging bowl mount which was found in one of the cemetery soil deposits. It is possible that this was derived from an object that had originally been placed within a grave.
See report (S9) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 1 April 2025.