An archaeological evaluation at Beeleigh Abbey, Maldon, Essex: July 2003

Beeleigh Abbey is a Premonstratensian house founded in the late 12th century. A 2.4m x 0.8m evaluation trench was manually excavated within the east side of the site of the abbey cloister, in an area which will be affected by new service-trenches associated with the proposed remodelling of a modern kitchen extension. Modern ground-disturbance was found to have removed all earlier horizontal stratigraphy down to natural subsoil, which lay at a depth of 0.5m. One deeper feature, a 0.7m-wide east-west trench with post-medieval or modern backfill, was of uncertain purpose. If a robber-trench, its location does not fit well with the known structural elements of the abbey.