Cutting through a deposit representing possible Saxon occupation within the town were two parallel northwest by southeast aligned construction trenches. Measuring 0.65m wide and positioned approximately 4m apart, each construction trench contained a foundation of large roughly worked, un mortared ragstone boulders. Each of these foundations supported a centrally positioned 0.54m wide masonry wall; both constructed using small/medium unworked pieces of ragstone rubble set in a lime mortar. The stonework of their exterior faces had been roughly worked to produce a weathering surface, suggesting that when originally constructed both walls stood above ground level. This is in contrast to the interior faces of each wall onto which a thin layer of fine creamy white lime plaster had been applied. Abutting the exterior face of the wall fragments was a 0.42m deposit of firm mixed mid-dark grey silty sand, interleaved with a series of compacted small beach pebble lenses. Despite the fact that the exterior faces of the walls were originally above its contemporary ground level, the lenses of pebbles interleaved through this deposit appear to represent the tail edges of successive road surfaces pre dating the present Church Road. This clearly indicates that the building they abut must have stood for a considerable period of time as several resurfacings could be identified abutting its masonry walls. Inside the building, running between the interior faces of each wall fragment, immediately above the foundation level, was a 0.18m thick sequence of clay floors, each sealed by its own thin occupation deposit. Over these was a single dump of loose silty sand with abundant pieces of ragstone rubble, roofing slate, peg-tile fragments in addition to early brick fragments. A closer inspection of the churches boundary wall immediately beside the soakaway pit revealed that its method of construction differed from the remainder of the boundary wall, being formed generally of larger coursed roughly worked ragstone blocks, rather than smaller unworked random rubble used in the remainder of the wall. Further consideration of the position of this piece of walling in relation to the fragments in the pit suggest that it appears to form the front wall of a building fronting onto Church Road. Though this building falls within the boundary of the present churchyard, a map dating to 1614 suggests that during this period the churchyard was smaller and only required enlarging in the later post medieval period due to the expansion of the town and population. (1)

<1> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 2005, An archaeological watching brief during groundworks associated with the construction of new drainage trenching and two new soakaway pits in the churchyard of St. Nicholas Church, New Romney, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE15822.