In 1934, Bedlington Urban District Council began to lay out a site for a new council housing estate at area known as Millfeld to the south of the town, on land above Attlee Country Park.
During the start of the works council workers were levelling a ridge and revealed five sunken cist burials. The cists were constructed with sandstone side slabs and cover stones. One contained the remains of a female burial and an earthenware pot. The skeleton was complete and its position indicated that it had been buried in a crouching position. It was also in a good state of preservation. Another was a burial with a ‘beaker’. There was what was described as a large chamber with a side opening, containing only a few human bone fragments and a flint knife. Next to this chamber was a small cist which contained the remains of a cremation and an earthenware pot later described as a ‘vase’. The final cist contained a burial only.
There was no controlled excavation done at that time and the cists and contents were apparently damaged by on lookers.
The bones were taken away for forensic examination by the South Northumberland Coroner and then given to the vicar, Reverend J. B. Purvis to be buried in the grounds of Saint Cuthbert’s Parish Church, Bedlington.
The beaker was once housed at the Museum of Antiquities which was an archaeological museum at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne; its collections were merged into the Hancock Museum which is now what is known as, The Great North Museum.
A photograph in the Newcastle City Library Local Studies Collection shows one of the burials in situ, while another in the collection shows an enclosure with a round barrow found near the Millfield area, Bedlington and dated 1920.
Bedlington St Cuthbert