Nazi secret fallen upon by teacher
HUMAN remains held at a church in Kent have been confirmed as those of one of the earliest English saints in a “stunning result of national importance”.
Bones dating back to around the seventh century are almost certainly those of St Eanswythe, a Kentish saint and who was the daughter and granddaughter of Anglo-Saxon kings. The relics survived the upheavals of the Reformation, hidden in a church wall, and were discovered in 1885.
The patron saint of Folkestone, the princess is believed to have founded one of the first convents in England, most likely around AD660 in the original town centre.
She is thought to have died in her late teens or early 20s and the abbey either fell into the sea or was ransacked by Vikings.
Pagan
Now more than 1,300 years after her death, local archaeologists and historians, working with Queen’s University in Belfast, have confirmed that human remains kept in the town’s Church of St Mary and St Eanswythe are almost certainly those of the saint.
The remarkable discovery was revealed at a special event at the church last night to mark the start of British ScienceWeek 2020.
Dr Andrew Richardson, from Canterbury Archaeological Trust, said: “This locally based community partnership has produced a stunning result of national importance.
“It now looks highly probable that we have the only surviving remains of a member of the Kentish royal house, and of one of Anglo-Saxon saints.”
Tooth and bone samples were carbon dated and the results pointed to a high probability of a mid-seventh century date of death.
Her grandfather, King Ethelbert, was the first English king to convert to Christianity under Augustine, who landed not far from Folkestone in AD 597 to re-establish Christianity, which had almost been wiped the earliest out by the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Dr Richardson added: “There is more work to be done to realise the full potential of this discovery.
“But certainly the project represents a wonderful conjunction not only of archaeology and history, but also of a continuous living faith tradition at Folkestone from the mid-seventh century right down to the present day.”
The project, locally led and run,
Remains of St Eanswythe, often depicted as a crowned abbess, above, were identified after relics were found hidden in the wall of St Mary’s and St Eanswythe Church, left and inset
was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Rev Dr Lesley Hardy, director of the Finding Eanswythe project, said: “As you walk through the streets of Folkestone, you are walking, layer upon layer, over ancient history that is now largely hidden from view.
“Finding Eanswythe was about bringing that forgotten history back to the surface.”
A TEACHER stumbled upon a piece of wartime history when she nearly fell into a secret German command bunker.
Christine Le Huray was taking a photograph of pupils at her school in Guernsey when she stepped in a mysterious large hole.
A team from Festung Guernsey, which restores wartime fortifications on the island, was called in to investigate.
They found that the hole was the entrance to a hidden German bunker made during the Nazi occupation of the Channel island.
The specialists then discovered a network of four rooms connected by a long corridor which was lined in granite. German graffiti was discovered on the walls.
Christine said: “We had stumbled upon part of history.”