3-011-732 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Helmingham Church, Suffolk, 1864. '...the present Rector, [Rev. George Cardew] fancying he could perceive everywhere traces of very early occupation, determined to prove the point by excavation. The result has verified his conjectures: wherever he has dug he has found ancient remains, embracing a wide period, from the flint spear-head of the early Briton to the Bellermine pottery of Henry and Elizabeth...It is the traces of Roman occupation, however, which are most numerous. Unmistakable signs of the presence of this people have been found in almost every excavation; and the countless fragments of their pottery...[and] heaps of oyster- shells, prove that it was not a single family, but a considerable population, that in those early times occupied the spot. Some Romans of rank and position must also have been here...Helmingham Church having evidently been built on some sacred spot of the heathen, as was frequently the case with early Christian churches. That these ancient remains were not previously discovered or noticed is very surprising; for - to say nothing of them very shallow depth - one rector had built a summer-house in and over four of the graves, and another planted a hedge of laurels in the very midst of a row of skeletons!'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.