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102
CORNER OF LIVERPOOL STREET AND BLOMFIELD STREET.
In July last, ten cases of bones, representing the remains of from probably
200 to 300 bodies, discovered in excavating a site for an underground latrine
at the corner of Liverpool Street and Blomfield Street, were exhumed under the
supervision of your Medical Officer of Health, and dealt with in accordance
with the terms of a Licence issued by the Home Secretary.
The question as to whether the above were the remains of persons who
had died during the great plague having been raised in the Press, your
Medical Officer's Report on the subject to the Sanitary Committee is reproduced
here for the purpose of future reference.
"The spot where these bones were found originally formed a portion
"of the South side of Bethlem* [see footnote] burial ground thrown into
"the public way in Liverpool Street when the North London Railway
"was built.
"The remains themselves show unmistakable evidence of having been
"disturbed on a previous occasion, and it is probable that, during the
"erection of Broad Street Station, when the roadway was widened,
"many of the bones then exhumed were collected and re-buried at the
"place where the excavations are now in progress.
"There is no direct evidence that this was a plague pit—a critical
"examination of the bones indeed shows that they must have been
"originally interred at widely different periods—this in itself negatives
"the assumption.
"That persons who died during the great plague were buried in the
"neighbourhood is evidenced by Defoe's notes on the subject, referred to
"by Mrs. Basil Holmes in a chapter on Pest-fields and Plague-pits in
"her work on the 'London Burial Grounds.'
"The accompanying extracts also bear upon the question.
" Extract from 'Creighton's History of Epidemics in Britain.''
"'In excavating the foundations of the Broad Street terminus of
"'the North London Railway, the workmen came upon a stratum
"'4 feet below the surface and descending 8 or 10 feet lower,
"'which was full of uncoffined skeletons. Some hundreds of them
"'were collected and reinterred. (Notes and Queries 3rd Ser.
*Respecting the Bethlem Burial Ground, Stow remarks:—
"In the year 1569, Sir Thomas Roe, Merchant Taylor, Mayor, caused to be enclosed with
"a wall of brick about 1 acre of ground, being part of the Hospital of Bethlem. This he did for
"burial and ease of such parishes in London as wanted ground convenient within their parishes.
"The lady, his wife, was there buried (by whose persuasion he enclosed it)."