Excavations in the courtyard of the University of Gloucestershire’s City Campus have revealed new details about the history of a medieval church that once stood in its place — and the people buried there.
The university purchased a department store in downtown Gloucestershire in 2021 with a goal of transforming it into a campus building with shared facilities for the city.
As part of the construction project, archaeologists uncovered a section of an 18th-century church in 2023, according to the university. The church was built around 1750 to replace a medieval church.
Now, archaeologists are learning more about the history of the church as they continue to excavate the site.
The size and form of the medieval church were unknown until archaeologists began working on the project, according to an April 11 news release from the University of Gloucestershire.
“The medieval church was demolished in the mid-1650s, with documentary sources indicating that much of its stonework was utilized to repair other parish churches in the town, such as those sustaining damage during the English Civil War,” principal manager at Cotswold Archaeology, Steve Sheldon, said in the release.
“A new parish church, on or near the site of the medieval precursor, was constructed in the mid-18th century. The latter survived until the early 1960s when it was demolished to make way for the department store,” he continued.
Along with limestone and brick foundations, archaeologists found 83 “brick-lined burial vaults” from within the church and “in the associated burial ground”, according to the release.
These vaults were cleared before the construction of the department store, archaeologists said.
However, outside the vaults, archaeologists uncovered about 150 post-medieval burials in the courtyard, and another 170 burials from an earlier period were found even deeper, according to the release.
Most of the earlier burials are “provisionally thought to relate to the medieval church,” the university said.
More than 300 skeletons were recorded and excavated and will be studied in order to “learn more about the lives of those buried within the church yard,” the university said.
“As this was an urban church, the story it will tell about the health of Gloucester’s population over a period of around 1,000 years will be most interesting,” senior project officer at Cotswold Archaeology, Cliff Bateman, said. “For example, on a very basic level, the impact of increased sugar in the diet during the 16th century was visibly clear in terms of dental health. The full results of these studies will be published in due course.”
Aside from the human remains, remains of the church itself were also identified.
Architectural pieces from the centuries-old churches will be displayed in the new campus building. University of Gloucestershire
“Although the footprint of the medieval church was not identified during the current archaeological works, the identification of a limestone wall with surviving lime plaster most probably represents part of the earlier church,” Sheldon said. “If so, it is now evident that the floor plans of the two churches were not coincident, with the medieval church being constructed much further to the south, away from the St Aldate Street frontage.”
“In addition to the limestone wall, a number of worked stone objects were recovered, including part of a mid-14th-century window arch with some internal tracery, associated with the medieval church,” he said.
The architectural features found at the site will eventually be displayed on the campus for students, staff and visitors, the university said.
Gloucestershire is in western England, about a 100-mile drive northwest from London.
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