The church in this pretty little village dates back to Saxon times. However there is now a problem with the drainage of surface water. This became particularly noticeable during the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Access to the church is across a field and was prohibited for many months during this time. On re-opening the church it was found to be severely affected by dry rot.
The parishioners attempted to dig a trench from the north east corner in an easterly direction to channel the water away and down the slope to the river. They were aiming foe a rotten oak tree which they hoped to remove and use the hole as a soakaway drain. However, they soon met brickwork which they assumed belonged to vaults (there seems to be no current record available of who is buried where). WAG was asked to do a Geophysics survey to try to find a way through.
Spring 2003
The survey was done by members of the Wolverhampton Archaeology Group (Janice Holland, Martin Holland, Emma Hughes) and the Wolverhampton City College Excavation Team (Annie Saunders, Neil McGuinness, Matthew Hollingworth, Richard Hall, Bryony Ryder, Ray Holmes, Derek Jones) on Sunday March 2nd 2003. A smaller WAG team returned on Saturday March 8th 2003 (JH, MH, Carole Griffiths) to complete the geophysics..
4 geophysics grids were laid out on the eastern and northern aspects of the church. Gradiometry and resistivity surveys were done. The gradiometry showed very little activity apart from near some graves which could have been caused by metal artifacts such as vases for flowers. However, there were two areas of very high resistance to the east and north of the church. One of these areas was marked by a stone on the ground which said there was a vault beneath. There was an area of lower resistance between the two which could, with careful digging, allow a pipe to be laid.
A plan of the northern and eastern wall of the church was drawn and on it was marked the position of the geophysics grids. This was to enable exact location of geophysics features on the surface of the ground. The geophysics images and the site plan were merged using Photoshop and the result is shown below.
A report was submitted to David Rudge within a fortnight of the work being completed. It remains to be seen if it is now possible to dig a trench to allow the water to drain.
March 2003 The Field Archaeology students returned to the site and were able to dig a trench where the geophysics suggested. Hopefully, the surface water will run off properly and the church will be safe.