An Anglo-Saxon structure should await discovery somewhere, perhaps under the present church or a little to the S near the curve of the churchyard. Its presence is implied by the discovery in 1962 of inhumation burials of an interesting type just S of the present churchyard but still inside the town walls. Rough lumps of stone and tile were used to line the graves, and in particular were placed around the skulls. The techniques indicate a pre-Conquest date, and may go back to middle Saxon times. Those at St Mary's were thought at the time of excavation to be C9 but the evidence for this is not clear. It seems likely that St Marys churchyard once extended as far as the S wall of the town and has been encroached upon in Medieval times, concurrently the site of the church itself may have shifted northwards. <1>