Long-term excavations at the rural village of Poulton in Cheshire have produced extensive evidence for a high status late Prehistoric and Romano-British settlement which continued into the Saxon, and then Medieval Periods. The site is famously the location for a short-lived Cistercian Abbey, who left behind a rural farming community who were buried in the local chapel graveyard. Excavation of this area has revealed over 800 interments, whose analysis have revealed the harsh lives and deaths of the medieval peasants who farmed the land for the monks.