Bishopsmill
School, Norton
In February 2003 Tees Archaeology started the
excavation
of an early Christian cemetary in Norton. By the time the work had been finished
over 100 skeletons had been discovered and
excavated.
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Bishopsmill School lies just to the north-east
of the village green of Norton in the district
of Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England.
Bishopsmill School was built in the mid 1970s
on land that was originally pasture belonging
to Northcote Hill Farm.
Map Reference NZ 446 223
In 1994, during the installation of a timber
fence and temporary classroom, human remains
were discovered. An evaluation trench excavated
a further 15 individuals, whose alignment
along with the lack of grave goods strongly suggested
that this population was Christian. Subsequently,
an iron strap found in association with one
of the skeletons has been identified as a
mid-Saxon
chest fitting. In 1995 the remains of a further
4 individuals were uncovered in a nearby
garden, indicating that the cemetery was much
more extensive.
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No further work took place until February 2003,
when extensions and refurbishment to the school
enabled Tees Archaeology to excavate areas around
the school and remove all human remains from
the site. This work produced a total of eighty-three
graves and 107 individuals, the majority of which
were oriented east-west, together with a large
quantity of charnel. In four graves there were
double burials and in three cases the heads were
at opposite ends of the grave. We can only speculate
as to what was going on in these twin graves,
as it seems unlikely that partners would die
at the same time. We can only speculate that
the spouses decided to join their partners in
death. Some of the remains at the site were in
very poor condition and this is due to a combination
of extensive medieval ploughing, ploughing during
the Second World War (when the land was used
for cereal production as part of the Dig For
Victory war effort), the construction of the
school in the 1970s and also the acidic nature
of the soil combined with the high water table.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of this
cemetery was the recovery of iron artefacts from
several, but not all, of the graves. These take
the form of small, unspectacular, hinge straps
and corner brackets from wooden chests. Some
of these clearly possessed locks as an iron key
was also found at the foot of one of the bodies.
In life each person would have had a wooden chest
to store their personal possessions, the belongings
being divided up upon their death and the chest
used as their coffin. Chest fittings such as
those found at Bishopsmill School are relatively
rare and the nearest examples previously found
were at Ripon and York, in Yorkshire.
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Skeleton in grave,
Bishopsmill School, Norton
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In 1984, a Pagan Anglo Saxon Cemetery containing
120 burials was excavated at Norton. This had
been in use between 550AD and 610AD. The Anglo
Saxon Cemetery at Bishopsmill School dates from
the acceptance of Christianity in the area in
the early 600s AD and may have started at the
time the Pagan Anglo Saxon cemetery went out
of use continuing in use until the present church
at Norton, St Mary’s, was built in the
1080s AD. The size of the cemetery found suggests
that it served a much wider area than Norton
alone and that there must have been a settlement
and a church in the immediate area, although
the exact whereabouts are unknown.
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