Homeowner Discovers 13th Century Chapel In Front Garden

A homeowner discovered that she was sitting on an archaeological goldmine – when a 13th century chapel was excavated in her front garden.

Mary Hudd, 68, was having trees removed from the garden when workers discovered unusual footings in the front of her country cottage.

She then invited a local archaeological group to investigate – and they spent a year uncovering a 19ft x 52ft chalk block structure – and also found remnants of a stone tiled roof and plastered inner walls.

The building in Bincknoll, Wiltshire, is believed to be a medieval chapel which was last documented in 1609, and previously thought to have been lost forever.

But despite losing her front garden to the time team style excavations, Mary described the discovery as ‘brilliant’.

‘I’m interested in history and archaeology anyway so to have a bunch of people here has been fantastic.

‘I’ve certainly been helping out. I have been in the trenches on my knees. I have never spent so much time on my knees in a chapel before.

‘You just can’t believe it. I’m going to wake up one day and it will just be a dream.’

But while the impressive find has been the ‘talk of the village’, work is now underway to cover up the site once more – as the stone has slowly deteriorated and the site has been described as ‘decaying’.

Emma Elton, who led a team of volunteers from the Broad Town Archaeology group, added: ‘This is the first time I have ever found anything like this and I know Mary was very shocked.

‘It was amazing to find what everyone thought was lost. Mary has been wonderful and definitely caught the archaeology bug.

‘It’s not what you expect to find in someone’s front garden’.