It has been a cherished dream of churchgoers to All Saints' to extend the church.  This will allow for more space, toilets and a kitchen, and most important of all, level access for wheelchairs and coffins.  Planning permission was granted in 2004, but construction which started in 2009 had to wait for the necessary funds to be raised!

One of the conditions that the council will always impose when development of an historic site is planned is an archaeological survey.  This is often very expensive, so the church was very fortunate that local archaeologist Dr Gerald Cramp and his team of helpers volunteered to conduct the dig.

On Friday 12th February Dr Cramp presented their findings to a packed Church Hall.  And they are little short of amazing, as they tell us so much we didn't know about the early history of the church and the village.  The finds dated from Anglo-Saxon times to a c20th drain no-one knew about!

The Church
A spoil heap from previous alterations to the church was found including:

• Roof tiles
• Medieval floor tiles with geometric patterns and one with a shield
• Later larger stone floor slabs
• Old window glass dating back to the c14th, and old leading
• Pieces of old masonry including a window sill, and part of a c13th/14th arch.  Some had the remains of red painted plaster from the middle ages.

Put together with written sources, our picture of what the church looked like hundreds of years ago is so much clearer. 

Graves
The team found a number of graves of differing dates, some damaged by later drainage works.  The shape determined by whether it was burial in cloth or coffin.  They must be over 100 years old because there is no written record of any graves being there.  All bones found were reverently reinterred.

Domestic use of the site
Perhaps the most interesting finds of all show that the churchyard by the west end was not always a graveyard.  Dr Cramp found a large pebbled surface at least 12m (40 feet) long by 5½m (18 feet) wide with c12th pottery on top of it, meaning it could be a lot older.  The interpretation is that it was a late Anglo-Saxon / Norman long house.  To confirm its domestic use they found large amounts of pottery, oysters, buckles and loom weights.

Dr Cramp and his team are to be congratulated for such a significant advance in unraveling Hartley's history.