EDO4435 - Borough Gardens, Dorchester; casual observation 1942

Workmen, excavating in the NW corner of Borough Gardens for a new static water tank during September 1942, observed over a dozen fragmentary skeletons [1]. Some of the remains were within 1 foot of the surface, with no attempt at orderly burial; others deeper were apparently in confusion. Mr W Yard, a council employee known to be a reliable informant, has estimated (in 1951) that there was a total of about 50 skeletons found here, some of children extended in different directions with no observed grave goods or signs of coffins. Some of the remains could be of more recent plague victims, but the diffusion is in favour of regular burial, and the Roman age of some is unquestioned.