7th Century Saint’s Remains to Be Reinterred in Folkestone

The remains of a 7th Century saint, formally identified as St Eanswythe, are scheduled for final reinterment in Folkestone this Sunday. These relics, belonging to Folkestone’s patron saint, were concealed within a wall of the church of St Mary and St Eanswythe during the Reformation period and subsequently found again in the 1800s. In 2020, scientists extracted the bones from the church wall for carbon dating, confirming their identity as St Eanswythe, recognized as one of England’s earliest saints. The remains have now been placed into a newly designed reliquary, which is a container specifically for relics, and will be returned to their location within the wall. This event concludes the Finding Eanswythe Project, which determined that the remains belonged to a female and dated them to the period between 631 and 641 AD. St Eanswythe, a Kentish royal saint with ancestry tracing back to Anglo-Saxon kings, is traditionally credited with establishing one of England’s earliest monastic communities around 660 AD. Among the miracles attributed to her is the apparent ability to make water flow uphill. Dr. Andrew Richardson of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust stated that he and the archaeological team involved in examining her bones were acutely aware of the delicate nature of their task. He informed BBC Radio Kent, “We moved into the church and set up a lab and we examined both the bones and the lead container they had been stored in.” He added, “When I got the radiocarbon dates, I was nervous when I opened the e-mail to see what those dates would be.” The reliquary is scheduled to be positioned within the wall at the exact spot where the bones were discovered in the 1800s. The precise date of the bones’ rediscovery remains a subject of debate, with various claims suggesting findings in 1835, 1855, and 1885.