Exploring the legacy of Ethelburga – a community project focused on the Anglo-Saxon heritage of Lyminge, a village in the Elham Valley in East Kent.
We are delighted to unveil the first view of how Queen Ethelburga's church may have looked around 650 AD shortly after her death. This view has been wonderfully recreated for us by Dom Andrews, archaeological illustrator. We have based the view above on as much actual detail as we have, but inevitably in order to … Continue reading Re-creating Queen Ethelburga’s church
The dig in the church yard began just a year ago this month. Readers of this blog will be familiar with images of the Anglo-Saxon church that we uncovered, and that we are reasonably confident was built around the middle of the 7th Century. So this could be the church built by Ethelburga for the … Continue reading Visualising Ethelburga’s church
Despite the current lock-down, we are still able to carry on with some work streams for the project. Yesterday, Gabor Thomas and I had a video conference with the team at the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture (CSCC) at the University of York who will be preparing for us the digital reconstructions … Continue reading Exploring how our church has changed through time
As the autumn leaves start to fall on the foundations of Ethelburga's church, we are slowly beginning the process of restoring the churchyard following the end of the dig and the start of the next phase of the project. The viewing platform has now been dismantled. Our contractors, Astral, will return to site on Monday … Continue reading Restoring the dig site
The team spent today planning so there were no finds as such. There were more planning boards and tapes around than trowels. However, we have come across an image that is of interest for Lyminge as it shows the tragic demolition of St Mary's church at Reculver in 1809. This church was originally built in … Continue reading Day 41 – A quiet day on site
The BBC were on site in the morning recording for the South East News programme. We were initially scheduled to give a live broadcast on the lunchtime bulletin, but this was pulled at the last moment. The broadcast went out on the 6.30pm bulletin, available here on IPlayer but only until 7pm on 21 August. … Continue reading Day 38 – Media Day!
When we began to excavate burials within the chancel of the Anglo-Saxon church, we thought it was likely they were later medieval and not contemporary with the church itself. Up to now we have found no finds to give any kind of date. However, at last we have some pottery, from what appears to be … Continue reading Day 34 – Confirmation of some earlier speculation
The start of Week 6 was grey and gloomy and it was necessary to dodge rain through the day. However, we have continued to work on the burials in the chancel and also have now begun to expand the trench by the War Memorial. We have already found sealed middle Saxon pottery in this area … Continue reading Day 31 – Broadening our investigations
