Origins The earliest known mention of the cemetery comes from
John Stow's
A Survey of London (1598), which describes a "Single Woman's churchyard" in Southwark, near
the Clink: By 1769 it had become a general pauper's cemetery for the local area, which was a notorious
slum. The graveyard was described again in a 1795 history of
St. Saviour's, Southwark: The origin of the name "Cross Bones" for the site is also unknown. Its earliest known mention is in an 1833 work by antiquarian William Taylor, who is also the first historian to explicitly state that the modern site on Redcross Street is the same as the "single woman's churchyard" of Stow's era. The land was sold in 1883 to be redeveloped, prompting an objection from
Lord Brabazon in a letter to
The Times, asking that it be saved from "such desecration." The sale was declared null and void the following year under the
Disused Burial Grounds Act 1884, and further attempts in the following years to develop the site (including a brief period as a fairground) were opposed by local people. However, after the removal of some of the remains to the parish facilities in
Brookwood Cemetery,
Surrey, the site was covered in warehousing and other commercial buildings, including a timber yard.
Excavations In 1928, workmen pulling down a school built at the corner of Redcross Street and Union Street found "many human skeletons" underneath the foundations. In 1989,
Transport for London bought a large plot (including the then-derelict Cross Bones site) forming a triangle between Redcross Street, Union Street, and Southwark Street, with the intention of using the land as a work site for the
Jubilee line extension. Investigations of the site ahead of its redevelopment were conducted by the
Museum of London Archaeology Service between 1991 and 1998. Archaeologists found a highly overcrowded graveyard with bodies piled on top of one another, with those buried there having suffered diseases including
smallpox,
tuberculosis,
Paget's disease,
osteoarthritis, and
vitamin D deficiency. One dig alone in 1992 uncovered 148 graves, dating from between 1800 and 1853. More than a third of the bodies were
perinatal (between 22 weeks
gestation and seven days after birth), and a further 11 percent were under one year old. The adults were mostly women aged 36 and older. In 2006,
Southwark Council also installed a brass plaque: Cross Bones Graveyard In medieval times this was an unconsecrated graveyard for prostitutes or 'Winchester Geese'By the 18th century it had become a paupers' burial ground, which closed in 1853.Here, local people have created a memorial shrine. The Outcast DeadRIP In 2013, Friends of Cross Bones and the
Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) started campaigning together for Cross Bones to become an official garden of remembrance, dedicated to "the outcast dead." In 2019 the campaign succeeded, and BOST was granted a 30-year lease over the site by Transport for London. Cross Bones is currently open to the public. The entrance gates are on Redcross Way, as is a permanent shrine where visitors can leave messages, ribbons, flowers and other tokens. Since June 2004, a short memorial ceremony has also been held at the gates on the 23rd of each month by Friends of Cross Bones. ==Depictions in media==