EDO5420 - Shaftesbury Abbey, Shaftesbury; excavation 1952-5

Between 1952 and 1955 the new owners of the Abbey Church site; Miss L Sydenham and Miss Carter, with the assistance of Mr G E Chambers, FSA, cleared the site of debris in order to render them accessible to visitors. They also opened a museum on the site. Mr Chambers conducted some tentative exploration, which suggested that previous excavations conducted by Doran Webb in 1902 and Claridge in 1931 and others had left little in the way of undisturbed archaeology. However, in 1955 a fall of rubble revealed a tomb recess within the south wall of the Presbytery. 'The ashlar lining of the recess had been inserted into the rubble core of the wall, and had been carefully faced internally with 0.5ins of plaster. A wooden coffin within had resolved itself into a thick sediment at the bottom of the recess, but the nails were in order apart from having sunk with the wood. The skeleton had bee removed, perhaps at the dissolution, but a piece of the skull had been left, some pins and a small gold ring. The tomb was certainly later than the 12th century, as the ashlar lining included a piece of moulded string or abacus of that period. A late 14th or early 15th century date is suggested.' [1].