Churchyard surrounding the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Layer Marney, located to the SW of Layer Marney Tower.

The present church replaced a Norman building, although nothing is known about the location of this building, nor the location of its associated churchyard. If they were in the same location, the current churchyard could be much earlier than the early C16, the date of the current church.

Two test pits were excavated by Colchester Archaeological Trust in August 2019, both measuring 1m x 1m in size and both excavated to 0.5m in depth. Three layers were identified in TP3. A thin layer of topsoil (L3, 0.1m thick) overlay made ground containing large quantities of peg tile as well as some animal bone, post-medieval glass and an iron nail (L4, 0.43m thick). Below this made ground was a layer of silty clay with frequent flecks of mortar, fragments of CBM and small and medium stones (L2, over 0.2m thick) identified in the internal test-pits. TP4 contained three layers – a layer of topsoil (L3, 0.1-0.2m thick), which contained fragments of post-medieval brick. This overlay a solid gravel layer (L5, 0.08-0.23m thick). The gravel layer sealed silty clay with frequent flecks of mortar and fragments of CBM (L2, over 0.24m thick).<1>