A moderately sized burial tomb situated on the north side of the Church of St Nicholas, New Romney, was discovered during a Watchingbrief there in 2011. Tentatively dated to the fourteenth century the tomb was formed entirely from small yellow bricks and contained the remains of a single coffined adult burial. The presence of bricks in Kent at this date is unusual and recent analysis suggests they were imported from the continent, probably as ship’s ballast. It sat within a flat-bottomed construction pit measuring approximately 2.6m long (east-west) and 1.5m wide (north-south). Cut into the construction/demolition deposits and removing the eastern end of Grave 10, its base was lined with a 0.08m thick layer of creamy white coarse crushed gritty lime mortar that acted as a bedding layer to a floor of small pale creamy yellow bricks. The chamber walls were constructed forming a compartment measuring 2.1m long (east-west) by 1.1m wide (north-south) internally. Created using similar bricks and bonded with a comparable mortar to that of the floor, the walls consisted of a series of courses laid in English bond of which only the western end wall survived to any height. Despite the heavy truncation of this brick feature examination of the surviving portion of floor revealed staining of decomposed wood and the fragmentary remains of a skeleton. Corroded iron nails beneath the skeletal remains suggest it once contained a coffined burial of an adult. Whilst no record survives of a brick tomb or an accompanying above ground monument within this portion of the churchyard, its position adjacent to the original twelfth-century north door clearly suggests the final resting place of a person of note. Though direct dating evidence for this burial is very poor, its position within the burial phasing would suggest it was of mid-late medieval date. This would conform to recent archaeological dating of the importation of this type of brick into New Romney, which indicates a date range from the mid twelfth- through to the late fourteenth century. (1) (information summarised from source)

<1> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 2011, Archaeological watching brief at St Nicholas' Church, Church Road, New Romney (Unpublished document). SKE24853.