Those Bedlam Bones Again 2

The early history of Bethlem featured in a well attended talk given at the Crossrail Visitor Information Centre on Wednesday evening. Project archaeologist Mike Court described some of the discoveries made at Liverpool Street, where excavations are taking place close to the original site of the hospital. Finds have included a Roman key and medieval bone skates dating from a period where the ‘Moorfields Marsh’ regularly froze over in winter.

Mike went on to describe the key find on the site: human remains removed from a burial ground adjacent to the hospital, which have received considerable press coverage in the past year ( as we have already reported), some of it quite sensational in nature. Fortunately sensationalism was not the order of the day at this event, and the focus was instead on the different types of burial discovered and the discovery that local people also used the area as a dumping ground for industrial waste!