Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/132

110 ignorance of the tier of kistvaen interments below: and used so long that the Norman masons found the soil sufficiently solid to build upon, even above the second era of graves. These graves of the upper tier, which had already become solid within a century or less from the Conquest, must in a Saxon, or perhaps a British village, have been Saxon. And as when they were dug, the still deeper kistvaens were unknown or forgotten, and belonged to a mode of sepulture then passed away, we are thrown back upon the times before the foundation of the kingdom of Mercia—thrown back upon the Romanized British period for their date.

In rebuilding the Decorated chancel-arch, which had evidently been rebuilt in a bad style more than once before, and of which the north capital had sunk seven inches below the level of its south companion, we found the cause of its sinking was a kistvaen of a person about twelve years old, nearly two feet below the foundation. In underpinning various parts of the church walls which were leaning, numerous instances appeared in which the walls had been built across or along the kistvaens according to their position; or where from any cause the foundation had been unusually deep, a kistvaen had been sometimes cut through and part left untouched. In all instances, the kistvaens had evidently been unknown or unnoticed by the Norman masons; and yet the churchyard had been well filled at the time: for holes were found filled with large accumulations of crumbling bones, apparently made by the sides of the Norman foundations and coeval with them.

Like many other country churches it had a coating of green mould or moss for five or six feet up the walls inside, and in winter and rainy weather the water soaked in from the outside and stood in pools in the remote corners of the church floor. Possibly this constant wet may have assisted to preserve the ancient bones from entire decay. The enormous accumulations of soil outside of the walls have now been removed down to the level of the floor: and a drain (in some places nine feet deep) has been carried across the churchyard, and has effectually dried the church. But these removals and drains, narrow as they were made for the sake of avoiding graves, have sufficed to disclose numerous kistvaens; in general so deep that the deepest modern graves were some inches, and ordinary graves two or three feet above them. Ancient