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Plague Pits

In Ireland we have mass famine graveyards. In certain areas you go have to the local parish offices to make sure the site isn't a unmarked mass grave. Or if you have lots of money, pay someone to loose records. Where my mother lives, about a mile away someone wanted to build a house but when they went to dig foundations they found a forgotten country graveyard. So they couldn't build, ended up loosing alot of money and suing the farmer who sold them the land. Now the land has a protection order attached to it. However the local heritage group have taken charge and are looking for funds to restore it to it's former state.
 
Is there a time limit on when these graveyards cannot be built upon?
 
There are a number of 'lost' mass graves from the English Civil War dotted around the country waiting to be found.
 
Yea, there's one near where I used to live - in Billericay in Essex!
 
Does anyone know if there's any 'lost' civil war burial plots around Edge Hill? That's not far from me.
 
EssexSpook said:
Is there a time limit on when these graveyards cannot be built upon?
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I was always told that a hundred & one years after the last burial a graveyard could be cleared & built on!!!!

It does seem to vary a bit though, I know of fairly recent non-conformist sites, where the grave yard has been tarred & turned into a car park as well as a chapel turned into a night club!!! But there is a garden in a courtyard within the Bank of England, which they are not allowed to build on as it's the graveyard of a church, (St Mildred Walbrook?), demolished in the 1870's, as the bank expanded.
 
FelixAntonius said:
I was always told that a hundred & one years after the last burial a graveyard could be cleared & built on!!!!

It does seem to vary a bit though, I know of fairly recent non-conformist sites, where the grave yard has been tarred & turned into a car park as well as a chapel turned into a night club!!! But there is a garden in a courtyard within the Bank of England, which they are not allowed to build on as it's the graveyard of a church, (St Mildred Walbrook?), demolished in the 1870's, as the bank expanded.
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When was the building built? If the church was only demolished in the 1870s, it's plausible that the building was built before the 101 years was up, so they'd be legally allowed to build on it now but may have chosen not to.
 
fluffle9 said:
When was the building built? If the church was only demolished in the 1870s, it's plausible that the building was built before the 101 years was up, so they'd be legally allowed to build on it now but may have chosen not to.
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A valid point fluffle9. I got the date wrong by a hundred years, the church was St Christopher-le-Stocks and was demolished in 1781. Still your comment applies.
 
For those of you who would like an interesting read on an epidemic, how plague pits sometimes were found/considered as a source and how they traced a great London epidemic back to an open public spring, you might want to pick up a copy of:

THE GHOST MAP : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world
by Steven Johnson
 
volfie said:
For those of you who would like an interesting read on an epidemic, how plague pits sometimes were found/considered as a source and how they traced a great London epidemic back to an open public spring, you might want to pick up a copy of:

THE GHOST MAP : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world
by Steven Johnson
Click to expand...
Cool! Cheers for that. I'll go ferret now...
 
There was what I had always been told was an ancient burial mound in the village I grew up in. I did a bit of research recently and it turns out it was more than likely the base of a windmill. Mundane. :(
 
McAvennie said:
There was what I had always been told was an ancient burial mound in the village I grew up in. I did a bit of research recently and it turns out it was more than likely the base of a windmill. Mundane. :(
Click to expand...
We had a "WW2 bomb crater" that was actually a small disused quarry. The legend must have sprung up over only one or two generations.
 
Oh we have several WWII bomb craters as well!

The story goes returning bombers dumped their leftover bombs in the fields. I have no reason to believe they aren't, but two or three of them are in the middle of the woods and there are at least two or three reasonable sized villages around that would have been better targets than the tiny hamlet I grew up in...

It's all lies!

EDIT:

Actually, seems it might not be lies on the craters. Interesting find (for me anyway).
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ient=safari&gws_rd=cr&ei=DHJUVcidLMjTUcLlgaAM
 
I am typing this only a few miles away from the Basingstoke suburb of Lychpit (i.e. corpse-pit).
It is unclear whether the corpses originally buried there were Viking invaders, Civil War casualties, or plague victims. What an evocative name for a village though!
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I am typing this only a few miles away from the Basingstoke suburb of Lychpit (i.e. corpse-pit).
It is unclear whether the corpses originally buried there were Viking invaders, Civil War casualties, or plague victims. What an evocative name for a village though!
Click to expand...

Perhaps a little exploratory dig is called for?
 
An apposite time to discover a plague grave.

In April 2020, the skeletal remains of a 12-year-old were found in River Valley Park, in Swords, North County Dublin.

The bones, now removed from the area for analysis date back to the 15th century. Experts at the National Museum of Ireland said the bones became exposed due to the unseasonably dry weather in March and April.

Sadly, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the site could not be excavated. However, Fingal County Council told the Irish Times that with the easing of restrictions the examination has begun.

The site where the remains were found by walkers is a recorded archaeological monument, where archaeologists from the National Monuments Service excavated six skeletons in 1999.

They said the bones "were medieval in date and as the burials were deposited in an irregular fashion within a flood plain it was thought they may reflect some form of communal hasty burial of victims of plague or other trauma."

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/medieval-plague-graves-dublin
 
I'm not sure I would want to dig up a plague pit - Yersinia pestis is thought to hang around in soil, which explains its re-occurrence after periods of quiet. This paper gives an example, even if it's only 40 weeks rather than 400 years:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18757820/

I'm also interested to know what builders were vaccinated with; there is currently no vaccine for Y. pestis approved in the UK, although the Americans have one, and I believe the Russians do too. The efficacy of these is limited. Certainly Dstl spend quite a lot of time looking for effective plague vaccines.
 
Building a retirement home on a plague pit. Hmmm.

Archaeologists digging in the German city of Nuremberg ahead of the construction of a new retirement home have uncovered what may be the largest mass burial of plague victims ever uncovered in Europe.

Excavations are ongoing, but the centuries-old remains of more than 500 individuals have been unearthed so far, and the team believes there could have been as many as 1,500 people interred therein.

Precise dating is also yet to be performed, but tentative estimates suggest the eight plague pits were created around the first half of the 17th century. Some of the bones appear tinted green because for some time the site was used to dispose of waste from a nearby copper mill, Spiegel reports.

"We will secure and archive all human remains that are found in the future construction areas," says Nuremberg Department of Heritage Conservation archaeologist Melanie Langbein and chief anthropologist Florian Melzer. "We currently assume that once the work is completed in the spring, this will be the largest emergency cemetery for plague victims excavated in Europe."

bones-grave.jpg


An unearthed section of one of the pits. (In Terra Veritas)

Bubonic plague has been associated with many of history's most devastating pandemics, chiefly the Black Death of the 14th century and the Justinian plague that kicked off in the 6th century. Yet the highly contagious, flea-borne infection reemerged frequently in smaller outbreaks through the ages. Following the Black Death in Europe, local epidemics recurred for around 400 years, ravaging cities. ...

https://www.sciencealert.com/giant-...-largest-mass-burial-site-ever-seen-in-europe
 
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