Digital reconstruction reveals Norman Conquest man’s face

Research of the skeleton revealed Conquest Man was stocky and muscular, just over five feet (1.5m) tall, 50 to 60 years old with multiple healed fractures.

He had been laid to rest in a coffin made from an oak tree felled in about 1079.

Booth said he was “what we’d now call Scandinavian” and “possibly only came to Barton in his adulthood to live a life and then be buried there.”

He said Conquest Man would have been an everyday person who now helps to “plot the way Barton’s community today has developed”.

“He’s not some stranger. He’s not some oddity with a dirty beard and mud on his face.

“This man is representation of that 11th Century mingling and coming and going and shared common culture.”

The oldest parts of St Peter’s Church, such as its Anglo-Saxon tower and baptistery, were built in the early 11th Century.

After being declared redundant in 1972, the church and its churchyard were excavated, with the remains of nearly 3,000 people found.

“People come from all across the world to study [them],” Booth said.

He added he would “love” for Conquest Man to “enthuse the next generation of researchers” to apply techniques across the whole collection and “say something probably astonishing about the community of Barton”.

Conquest Man is permanently on display at St Peter’s Church and can be seen as part of Heritage Open Days on 20 September from 12:00 to 16:00 BST.

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