SNN101487 - SMR Report Form

This is a re-appraisal of the earthworks on the south-east of the church, and the identification of possibly similar earthworks north of the church in the churchyard annexe. Any possible continuation between SP7471 6314 and 7467 6315 is either destroyed by school building construction or buried under the raised level of school playing fields east of the churchyard extension. However there is some settlement and parching of the edge of the raised area at SP7468 6315 that might be indicative of the effects of buried features on drainage. The linear earthwork previously reported south-east and east of the church has a slight curvature, and appears to be accompanied by a ditch and counterscarp on the east, a terrace and scarp south of the church. The latter might be due to graveyard landscaping, but seems to mimic its counterparts further east. Horizontal mid-19th century grave slabs partly overlying the bank show tilt due to settlement. Graves on the bank predate the restoration of the church in 1863 and the bank is therefore unlikely to be a biproduct of restoration work. However the bank is clearly visible in a drawing of the church dated by Thomas Trotter c. 1800, Plate 36 in the Royal Commission Inventory Vol V. It is suggested that the church lies in the south-west of an oval enclosure internally 80 by 45 metres, formed by a bank, ditch and counterscarp bank, although the profile is somewhat flatter on the north, suggesting a wider ditch between equal banks. This enclosure has a flattened south-west abutting off-axis to the earthwork suggested by this writer in 1993 as a ringwork. A sketch accompanying this report shows a possible sunken building platform designated P. The church was merely a dependent chapel of St. Peter’s Church, Northampton, until 1850. According to the Peterborough Mss of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Swainton’s edition 1996) p245, Henry I was at Thorpe (Kingsthorpe) over Easter 1114.