London - When builders digging up Stephen and Nicky West’s patio for an extension came to the back door clutching a human skull, the couple were understandably alarmed.
But fear turned to fascination after experts said four bodies unearthed by the workmen came from a burial site dating back as much as 1,400 years to the middle Saxon period.
Archaeologists believe the skeletons may have been there since 650AD and are part of a much larger burial ground under the home in the Warwickshire village of Ratley.
They say the remains of two women, a man and a child aged between ten and 12 provide an insight into an obscure period.
Analysis of the bones shows that the population at the time suffered from periods of malnourishment and would often have been in near-constant pain because of infections. Mr West, 55, said: “It was a bit of a shock to find out I’ve been living above an ancient burial site all these years.
“It’s a privilege to be so close to such amazing history - and as long as they don’t wake me up, I’m quite happy for it to stay that way.”
He added: “We had builders in as we were extending the back of our house, and I heard one of them knock on the door. I was absolutely amazed when I saw a workman standing holding a skull - he just said “I think there’s something you should see”.
“I was praying that the bodies were really old and we hadn’t stumbled across something more grisly.
“But the archaeologists came over within a couple of hours and said it was quite likely there were a lot more bodies under the house.”
Mr West said he had joked at the start of the building work that they might find something from the English Civil War because their house is near the site of the battle of Edgehill, where the army of Charles I clashed with Parliamentarians in 1642. But the remarkable archaeological find pre-dates that by nearly 1,000 years.
Carbon-dating from two of the skeletons showed that they died between 650 and 820 AD.
England was then divided into a number of kingdoms and the area may have been a frontier in another war between the Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce and the eventually dominant Anglian kingdom of Mercia.
Stuart Palmer, of Archaeology Warwickshire, said: “The discovery of this previously unsuspected burial ground is an extremely rare and important addition to what has previously been an archaeologically invisible period of Warwickshire’s history.”
Mr West, who runs an online bird feed company, said further digs may be limited.
“We’re interested to know what’s down there, but to be honest we’d like to keep the bit of the house we live in standing where it is, so we won’t be searching too hard.”
The early Anglo-Saxons founded much of England as we know it, including developing systems of justice and currency. They ruled England through the upheavals of the Viking age right up to the Norman Conquest of 1066. - Daily Mail