Grave Concerns

The name derives from "Bone Hill", which is possibly a reference to the district having been used for occasional burials from at least Saxon times, though more likely it derives from the unusual events of the mid sixteenth century. For, in about 1549, cart-loads of human bones were periodically brought here - some one thousand loads in total - to make space in St Paul's charnel-house for new interments. The dried bones were simply deposited on the moor and capped with a thin layer of soil.

The area was used as a formal cemetary from 1665 to accommodate the bodies of victims of the Great Plague. The final burial took place here in 1854.