Client: Martin Ashley Architects - Dorchester Abbey

The Abbey Church at Dorchester was once part of the large and important monastery at Dorchester in Oxfordshire. As part of a project to maintain and develop the church, underfloor heating is being designed by Martin Ashley Architects. They were concerned that the pipes running beneath the floor would disturb burials that had taken place within the church. We were asked to carry out a Ground Probing Radar (GPR) survey over the floor areas affected.

The survey was carried out using a 400MHz antenna. The western end of the nave and the People's Chapel are large open spaces surfaced with stone flags and ledgers so it was possible to carry out an orthogonal 0.5m gridded survey in these areas.

The results were very productive with over 40 anomalies being found which were interpreted as graves and vaulted structures containing burials.

The adjacent figures show radargrams illustrating examples of the types of anomalies found together with a time slice plot of the radar data and the final interpretation. Though there appears to be no obvious route corridors for the heating pipes, the radar indicated that there was sufficient depth of cover over some graves to allow the pipes to pass safely over without disturbing the burials.

REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF MARTIN ASHLEY ARCHITECTS WITH KIND PERMISSION FROM THE PCC OF DORCHESTER ABBEY