Charterhouse Square — Plague Pit Beneath Your Feet
Charterhouse Square in London sits above a medieval plague burial site where thousands of Black Death victims were neatly interred starting in 1348. Established by Sir Walter de Manny just 2.5 meters below ground, this orderly emergency graveyard received over 200 bodies daily. Excavations in 2013 for the Crossrail project uncovered 13 skeletons, with Yersinia pestis DNA in their teeth confirming three distinct plague outbreaks spanning into the 15th century.
London · from the walk “Monks, Martyrs & Revolutionaries” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Charterhouse Square, EC1M 6AX
- Sir Walter de Manny established the Charterhouse Square burial ground outside London's city walls in 1348.
- Medieval chronicler Robert of Avesbury recorded that over 200 plague victims were buried at Charterhouse Square daily.
- Crossrail workers excavating a shaft at Charterhouse Square in 2013 uncovered 13 skeletons buried 2.5 meters underground.
- DNA tests on skeletons from Charterhouse Square revealed Yersinia pestis bacteria from three separate plague outbreaks.
Why was Charterhouse Square in London established as a burial ground in 1348?
Take a look around you. Lovely square, isn't it? Georgian townhouses... a tidy green lawn... people walking their dogs, children heading to school. But right now, you are standing on top of one of London's darkest secrets. Just two and a half meters beneath your feet... lie the dead.......... In thirteen forty eight, a knight named Sir Walter de Manny, a close ally of King Edward the Third, established this ground as an emergency burial site — deliberately placed Outside the medieval city walls. The Black Death had swept across Europe and reached London in the winter of thirteen forty eight. The city's churchyards were full. Bodies were piling up faster than anyone could bury them.......... But here's what most people get wrong about this place. This was Not a chaotic pit where bodies were thrown in haphazardly. It was an official burial ground with individual, ordered graves, carefully arranged to prevent the further spread of plague. The bodies lay in neat rows, placed with what dignity could be managed in the midst of catastrophe.......... Now, the numbers are staggering... and contested. Papal Bulls from thirteen fifty one recorded over sixty thousand victims, while the historian John Stowe claimed over one hundred thousand in his fifteen ninety eight Survey of London. The chronicler Robert of Avesbury, considered the most reliable source, wrote that more than two hundred bodies were carried here for burial Every Single Day.......... For centuries, the dead lay undisturbed. Then, in twenty thirteen... Crossrail happened. Workers sinking a shaft for the new rail link uncovered thirteen skeletons, lined up neatly in two rows. From the skeletons' teeth, scientists extracted traces of Dna from the Yersinia Pestis bacterium — the very organism responsible for the Black Death — confirming what historians had long suspected but never proven.......... Analysis of Dna and isotopes revealed something even more surprising. There were actually Three separate periods of plague burials here — from thirteen forty eight, thirteen sixty one, and the early fifteenth century, as outbreaks kept returning. One skeleton belonged to a young man in his mid twenties. Isotope analysis of his teeth revealed he was born in rural East Anglia before moving to London, where he met his fate.......... And then there are the ghost stories. Legend has it that schoolboys at the nearby Charterhouse School used to dare each other to crawl across the square at midnight. Supposedly, if you pressed your ear against the stones, you could hear the screams of the plague victims below. An urban legend, of course... but one that has persisted for generations.......... So next time you see someone casually sitting on the grass here, having their lunch... just remember what lies beneath.