A project to establish the location of two unmarked burials at the church of St Peter and St Paul, Mottistone, Isle of Wight.

Mottistone church and graveyard annex

Dave Staughton

Introduction

The 12th century St Peter and St Paul Church is situated in the Mottistone parish on the Isle of Wight. The church stands on an approximately triangular piece of land measuring 0.4 acres, with Church Lane to the south and west, and the B3399 road to the north. As the churchyard surrounding the church is completely occupied, an additional burial ground annex, measuring 0.3 acres, was established in the early 19th century across Church Lane to the south.

In January 2023, the Society received a request from the Mottistone churchwarden, who inquired if we could assist in locating two burials in the burial ground annex. One of the burials, which occurred in 1974, is documented in the church register, while there is a suggestion that another burial from 1967 may also be present. However, the burial locations of both individuals were not recorded on the graveyard plan.

After agreeing to provide assistance to the church, it was determined that a non-invasive geophysical survey would be carried out, in addition to a review of documentary evidence.

Document Research

Church burial register excerpt 1974

The burial register of the church provides evidence that Arthur Irwin PHILLIPS was committed on 19th December 1974, although his burial is not marked on the graveyard plan drawing. It is noteworthy that the deceased’s abode is listed as ‘Pitt Place, Mottistone’. This is a residential care home, now called The Grange, located just 1km to the east of the church. This provides a possible explanation for Arthur’s burial location being Mottistone.

Church marriage register excerpt 1962

Looking in the records for the family history of Arthur it was found he married Alice BAXTER in 1962 at Wroxall, Isle of Wight. Although there was a suspicion from earlier investigations by the Church Chancellor’s Office that Alice may also have been buried at Mottistone, there is no record of this in the burial register. The death of an Alice PHILLIPS in the first quarter of 1967, seven years earlier than Arthur’s death, on the Isle of Wight is listed at the General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO). This gave some uncertainty about Alice’s burial location as it was possible that Arthur moved to the care home after Alice’s death.

Clipping from the Isle of Wight County Press 1967

A search in the archives of the local paper, The County Press, for that period revealed an announcement confirming the death of Alice at St Mary’s Hospital in Newport, Isle of Wight, matching the date of the GRO record. This announcement confirmed Alice was also a resident at Pitt Place when she died, suggesting she may also be buried at Mottistone.

Further research of the church records revealed a service was held at Mottistone for the funeral of Alice PHILLIPS on 22nd February 1967. Although there is no documented confirmation of the burial it is likely she was indeed buried in the graveyard.

Church service record 1967

After establishing the high probability that both Arthur and Alice were buried at Mottistone, we aimed to use a geophysical survey to identify two unmarked burials.

Survey Location

OS map 1898 with survey area shown in red. Aerial photo 1948, also with 1898 map overlaid

We selected an area in the north-west of the graveyard (shown in red on the above map), based on advice from the churchwarden. The Ordnance Survey map of 1898 indicated a pathway within the graveyard which crosses the edge of our chosen survey area. This pathway was visible on an aerial photograph from 1948, suggesting it had been in use over an extended period of time.

Geophysical Survey

Modern burials will usually be at least 1.5m below surface level. Geophysical techniques such as resistivity and gradiometry will typically reach depths of around 1m depending on several factors. Due to the depth of burial, there would not be an expectation of detecting the buried remains or coffin but rather the disturbed soil within the grave-cut. This disturbance would loosen the structure of the soil, mix any existing stratification, and could result in a change of moisture content. Such changes would be small, and detection would be challenging.

North-west corner of the graveyard

Research in the literature suggests the geophysical techniques offering the highest potential for detection of burials would include Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Resistivity and Magnetics (gradiometry). We do not currently have access to GPR equipment and our choice of method was influenced by two further factors. First, the most significant variable would likely be the change in soil compaction, resulting in differences in soil conductivity, suggesting resistivity measurements may detect soil disturbance due to grave-cuts. Second, operating the gradiometer requires the equipment to be moved at a constant speed above the surface and would prove very difficult due to the existing grave markers. We therefore decided to use resistivity.

Our selected survey area was 10m by 10m. We chose a sampling grid of 0.25m along each traverse by 0.5m traverse spacing resulting in 8,000 data points (minus any missing due to obstructions). A group of us met at the graveyard on Wednesday 1st February to conduct the geophysical survey. The grid was measured and marked out and then the data were acquired, the whole process being completed in approximately three hours.

The resulting raw data were processed to remove anomalous readings, mostly high resistance (darker) values where the contact probes encountered obstructions such as stones. A correction was applied to remove an underlying east-west gradient across the area, probably due to higher moisture levels down-slope. The data were finally resampled to aid visual interpretation.

The resulting data were overlaid on an aerial photograph of the graveyard and the location of known burials and headstones plotted. The more recent of these burials can be seen as areas of higher resistance (darker), especially a recently disturbed family plot near the south-east corner of the survey area. The location of the historic pathway can be seen as a lower resistance (lighter) linear feature corresponding to its known location. This low resistance is interpreted as due to compaction. The two darker areas highlighted are interpreted as the grave-cuts for the missing burials of Alice and Arthur Phillips. The slight difference in values between these two areas could be interpreted as variance in compaction as a result of the time elapsed from the burial date until present.

Conclusions

This project set out to identify the location of two unmarked burials from approximately 50 years ago. Firstly, using documentary evidence we confirmed the likelihood these burials existed in the graveyard. Having established they did, we used a geophysical survey to provide an indication of the burial locations. The results of the survey indicate the location of two grave-cuts which do not correspond to known burials. We have reasonable confidence in concluding that these features correspond to the missing burials. To further support this interpretation, we propose using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) as an additional approach. This follow-up depends on our having access to GPR equipment.

Archaeology Group conducting geophysical survey

Survey completed!