A number of finds have been recovered from the Mersea Road area indicating the presence of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

Almost complete hand made cinerary urn 'of Iron Age A or Saxon date' coarse brown ware, containing a few burnt bones. Found when sinking a water-tank 24/3/1938 in the north-west corner of Meanee Barracks, 15 yards from north and 14 yards from west boundary of the yard. A note in the accession register states, 'It is not now clear whether these measurements were (or could) be taken from the outer boundary of the property, perhaps more probably from the inner face of the surrounding buildings'.<1> Crummy records, of the same pot, 'A complete pot containing at least fourteen fragments of cremated human bone was discovered in the north west corner of the Meanee Barracks on 24th March 1938. The pot is unburnished and grass tempered and is most likely to be of 6th or 7th century date'.<2>

Saxon finds from Colchester in Joslin Collection. The Joslin Collection assembled in the 19th century and subsequently bought by the Colchester Corporation, consists of objects which almost without exception are recorded as having been found in Colchester but for which few find spots are known. A local archaeologist, Dr Henry Laver, was quoted in 1903 as stating that most of the shield bosses in Joslin Collection were found in the Mersea Cemetery (VCH 1903, 323). If this was the case, then the same is probably true of most of the spearheads, ferrules, and complete pots since they are all types of finds associated with cemeteries.<3><4>

A collection of objects (COLEM 1926.5318) said to have been found in the Mersea Road cemetery was accessed by the museum in 1926. The principal finds are 21 beads, 3 bronze buckles, the head of a radiate brooch, and a bone comb. The collection came via an antiques dealer from south Essex and the provenance cannot be assumed to be entirely safe.<5><6>

Three iron spearheads and an iron shield boss found during the construction of 10 Mersea Road in 1873. A second shield boss was discovered before 1897. 'The weapons were undoubtedly from inhumations although no bones are recorded as having been found'.<7><8>

Saxon burial, found, according to Cutts, in Cromwell Road east of the Mersea Road. However on Cutt's Map the finds are marked between Fairfax and Lucas Roads.<9><10><11>

Two spearheads and a low-cone shield boss, Colchester. Recorded as from 'graves adjoining the kilns' (Price Cat). The kilns to which this reference is made are not identified, but they may have been the group situated approximately 1km west of Balkerne Hill and excavated by Joslin in 1877 (Hull, 1963, 3-9) Finds from the excavation of the kilns were subsequently catalogued by Price (1888, 74-5) and clearly Joslin's discoveries must have been prominent at the time. Alternatively, these finds might be from Mersea Road Anglo-Saxon cemetery, although no kilns known from this area.<12><13>

The full extent of the cemetery is unclear (and the extent of the cemetery is tentative and very approximate), because the cemetery is known (in the main) from early find spots that are not securely located. The finds are characteristic of inhumation gravegoods, although there is also a cremation urn. The spread of finds extends at least c.200m N to S. The cemetery could potentially extend into the area of St John's Abbey Precinct, to the west of Mersea Road, but the area has not been investigated. The southern extent of the cemetery, however, was defined by CAT's excavations in the northern part (Site A) of the former Meeanee & Hyderabad Barracks in 2011.<14> Site A contained 84 burials (14 cremations and 70 inhumations), nine of which (a cremation and eight inhumations) were within partial or complete ring-ditches. Five burials contained grave-goods including Anglo-Saxon shield bosses, spear heads, knives and beads. The cremations, however, contained finds spanning the 1st-4th centuries. Two Roman burials (a cremation and a female inhumation) were underneath what appeared to be a robbed-out mausoleum, and a robbed-out tomb-base respectively. The ring-ditches formed a band across the northern side of Site A and where associated finds were recovered are of mid/late 6th to early 7th century Anglo-Saxon date.