The search for Cnut's Minster still takes up much of our time:
- Cranfield issued the updated Ground Penetrating Radar survey report for All Saints church at Ashdon, but there was little evidence for an earlier church underlying the current one. We are now investigating early charters and patronage.
- Further resistivity surveys have been carried out in Ashdon and Steventon End, but we have still not found any evidence of a lost church.
- Plans are progressing for the dating of wood and mortar in St. Botolph's church in Hadstock, though this may take a while to gain approval.
- We received funding from the Essex Heritage Trust, with matched funding from the Battlefields Trust, for our investigations into St. Andrew's Church in Ashingdon, and St. Nicholas's Church in Canewdon. The historical review by a church architectural historian has been completed for both, with no obvious signs of an earlier church at either. The investigations of early charters and patronage of the churches is underway and we hope to have results from that by Easter. We will look into possibilities of ground penetrating radar surveys at these churches as we did at All Saints, Ashdon.
A review of Asheldham as a potential site for Assandun concluded that it was fairly low probability, so we are not planning any further work there currently. We will be doing a similar exercise for Ashen later in the year.
The presentation at the Battlefields Trust East Anglia Region Study Day on Saturday 19th October 2024 in Peterborough was well-received by the audience there. Here is a link to the slides presented that day: BT EA Study Day Presentation 2024-10-19
One of our team will be speaking at the Essex Record Office event on 21st June 2025.
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