Charnel house
Clients: Spitalfields Development Group
Site supervisors: Andy Daykin and Nick Holder
During the main phase of excavation at Spitalfields Market in 1999, a remarkably well-preserved charnel house (a repository for storing bones) dating to c 1320 was discovered in the cemetery of St Mary Spital.
Although Scheduled Monument Consent had been granted to remove all the archaeological deposits on the site, it was agreed that this building should be preserved within the new development.
Detailed plans were drawn up by Norman Foster and Associates in conjunction with Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) and Ove Arup to preserve the charnel house and display it to the public. The engineering constraints of the new building meant that slots had to be cut into the wall for beams to support the new floor above and that major new piles were required on the south side of the charnel house, which meant that previously preserved areas needed excavation.
Three MoLAS members of staff dug a total of 70 medieval burials on the south side of the charnel house. During the main phase of excavation in 1999 and in subsequent phases in 2000 and 2001 a large number of mass burial pits were discovered containing up to 50 or so people in each and totalling more than 2750 in all.
The most important discovery in the final phase of work was that the mass burial pits predated the charnel house. We now believe that the mass burials were interred between 1280 and 1310 and that the charnel house was built shortly afterwards.
The large numbers of bones being disturbed during the excavation of the mass burial pits may even have been a motivation for the construction of the charnel house. Two more members of staff then removed certain tightly defined slots in the upper parts of the south wall to provide locations for supports to the new floor to be constructed above. This gave us the chance to understand better the way the building was constructed.
The charnel house has now been restored and repaired by Holden Conservation and is currently in a protective box during the main construction phase of new offices for Allen and Overy. Once the new building is complete, members of the public will be able to access a dedicated basement to view this remarkable medieval building and, by arrangement with the Museum of London, they will be able to enter and examine at close quarters this important part of medieval London.