Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 2012: summary

Archaeological monitoring at the Tithe Barn car park, Tithe Barn and Gatehouse, St Osyth Priory, The Bury, St Osyth, Essex, CO16 8NZ: June-July 2022
by Dr Elliott Hicks (with contributions from Charlotte Britton, Dr Elizabeth Foulds, Dr Hannah Russ, Kim Devereux-West, Marina Chorro-Giner and Emma Tong (Archaeology.biz) and Megan Beale (CAT))

Date report completed: April 2024
Location: the Tithe Barn car park, Tithe Barn and Gatehouse, St Osyth Priory, The Bury, St Osyth, Essex, CO16 8NZ
Map reference(s): TM 12035 15760 (centre)
File size: 6355 kb
Project type: Archaeological monitoring
Significance of the results:
Keywords:

Summary. Archaeological monitoring was carried out at the Tithe Barn car park, Tithe Barn and Gatehouse, St Osyth Priory, The Bury, St Osyth, Essex, during the excavation of trenches for new services to buildings within the Priory precinct, including the tithe barn car park, tithe barn and the gatehouse. A Scheduled Ancient Monument, St Osyth Priory contains buildings dating from the 12th to the 19th centuries. It was originally established as an Augustinian abbey in the 1120s and then underwent extensive redevelopment as a manor house and country park from the mid-16th century onwards. Groundworks at the site revealed ten medieval or early post-medieval inhumation burials, as well as a pit dating to this same period. A series of structural remains associated with the subsequent redevelopment of the priory as a manor house consisted of four walls (one of which was depicted on an 18th-century map of the estate, and another on late 19th-century Ordnance Survey mapping of the area), three culverts, two foundations, one brick plinth, and one wall or floor. A ditch and a dumped deposit dating to the 20th century were also uncovered.