THE leader of a project hoping to find Kidderminster’s missing Saxon monastery says group members are trying to keep their sense of excitement “under control” after setting a date to begin a dig.

Archaeologists will begin the four-week dig under St Mary’s churchyard on Tuesday, August 27. It will take place from Tuesday to Saturday each week.

More than 125 people have applied to Kidderminster Civic Society to help the team from Worcestershire Archaeology with the dig. It means Historic Kidderminster Project leader Nigel Gilbert has called off a planned appeal for volunteers, which would have asked for 60 to 100.

“It is first come, first served,” he added. “Anybody can still submit their names but now we can’t be totally sure new names would get on the list.”

The Civic Society was awarded nearly £50,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to search for the monastery, which refers to the “minster” part of the town’s name but which has never been found.

A radar survey of the churchyard in 2006, as part of the first stage of the Historic Kidderminster Project, found evidence of a structure several feet underground a few yards from the northside of the church.

Mr Gilbert said: “We are confident about finding something but we are trying to keep our sense of excitement under control. We know something is there and it would be fantastic if there is evidence of a Saxon monastery.

“There is understood to be a medieval chapel under the churchyard so it could be that. We know there is something there but what it is remains to be seen.”

Before the dig gets under way, project leaders must give members of the public the chance to contact the group about removing the bones of their ancestors. Mr Gilbert said nobody had been buried in the churchyard since the 1850s.

A Saxon deed from the year 736 refers to a monastery builtin the area. A 19th century town historian, the Rev John Burton, believed it was destroyed by Danish Vikings on their way to Bridgnorth.