Human remains found in town garden

10:50am Friday 3rd October 2008

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HUMAN remains have been unearthed in a Ledbury garden this week, but nobody is calling the police and reporting a crime.

Archaeologists and volunteers with the Victoria County History project have been hard at work in the grounds of Abbots Lodge, a black and white building that, from the late 15th century to the early 20th, was the town’s vicarage.

Project spokesperson, Dr Sylvia Pinches said: “We have found bone fragments and it is definitely human bone, including part of a skull.”

But this is not so surprising given that Abbots Lodge, the home of Ann and David Tombs, is adjacent to St Michael and All Angels Church.

Dr Pinches and Chris Atkinson from Herefordshire Council’ s archaeology department believe that the graveyard originally extended much further, covering where the Abbots Lodge garden is now.

In fact, Abbots Lodge itself may have been built in the middle of a large medieval graveyard.

Dr Pinches said the remains of a 19th century gravelled carriageway with a brick foundation had also been found.

And the digging team, who dug four test pits, also discovered what they were looking for.

The project’s “England’s Past for Everyone” volunteers are keen to discover the boundaries of Ledbury up the outbreak of the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century.

Other digs in Ledbury gardens will take place in the weeks ahead, in the search for pottery.

Shards of mediaeval pottery were found in the Abbots Lodge garden, and also remains of pottery from the 18th and 19th centuries.

These fragments will be sent for detailed analysis by expert Vince Alan of York University.

Finds of mediaeval pottery will give some impression of how large Ledbury was in the Middle Ages.

Dr Pinches was very pleased by the number of local volunteers who turned up for the Abbots Lodge dig.

As many as 17 took part and received invaluable training, to put them in good stead for further digs in Ledbury’s ancient gardens.