A BACAS team recently undertook a geophysical survey of the floor of St. Mary’s Church in Great Bedwyn. They also surveyed a strip of the churchyard projecting from the south side of the building. The aims were too use geophysical techniques to look down up to four metres below the current floor level in the aisles to try to locate the walls and floors of the Saxon buildings thought to be under the existing building and, secondly, to identify the positions of tombs, vaults or graves.
Victorian renovation masks most other architectural detail. A heating system installed in Victorian time has severely disrupted the floor, with pipe channels running centrally both down the main body of the church and through the transepts. There are some mediaeval tiles, but the chancel has glazed Victorian tiles, particularly close to the high altar, and there is a suspended wooden floor just west of the crossing, where the current nave altar is set.
The report is now available for download.