St. Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks Excavation

Several KAS members took part in this 16-week excavation (now completed). The original church was probably of eleventh-century foundation, possibly Norman, and during the excavation, many burials of medieval date were unearthed, including the remains of a twelfth-century priest with a pewter chalice on his chest and knotted gold braid around his neck.

Other burials ranged through the medieval period, the post-medieval period, and right up to the nineteenth century; a total of some 500 interments. Lead coffins from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were the best preserved and yielded many fine burial garments and even flowers, sprigs of rosemary, and lavender. The excavation was under the directorship of Mike Webber of the Oxford Archaeological Unit and it has been described as being as important as that carried out beneath Christ Church, Spitalfields, in the 1980s.

A certain amount of criticism has been leveled at this excavation regarding the opening of the coffins or fairly recent dale and the method of disposal of the human remains. It must be made clear that this part of the operation was not carried out by the archaeologists but by contractors. It is likely that this treatment of the exhumed remains may lead to tighter regulations on the disposal of ancient bodies should the occasion again arise during the excavation of a church interior.