Strange Discovery of Human Remains.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 4513, 15 November 1884, Page 3

Strange Discovery of Human Remains.

j Thi: workmen engaged In making somo ! sewer.connections at St. AJbunscamo uj _n a pit containing^ very large squantity of human remains. Strange to say, they con- , I sis'ted almost entirely of skull and limb bones, only one rib being found, the skulls ' ~ being certainly;more than a hundred in ''■■'. number, and the whole, find amounting to > quitea cartload. The fact that skulls, leg, % and arm bones alone were found would :1aa3'.:... to the supposition that some'wholesale pro- \ ■ cess of decapitation "and dismemberment '! had been carried on in some .bygone days, ' The remains were.interred'but four feet '. from the surface and about two from tho roadside, and in very close proximity to the foundation of the wall which, in the-•"•' ■-. Roman period, surrounded Verulam. The '•"' pit containing the' remains, which are clearly those of both old and very young , persons, is about feut feet in diameter.. Some twenty years ago a, similar,; qu(mtl&i_j of human bones wore found. It is recorded ' that in theyear;l74s, atthe timebf Ch'arls-Hl Edward's, v rebellion—to which period tho bones' apparently date—a riurnber of exocucutions took place in immediate proximity' to the spot where the remains are,,now fuund, but this would in no way account for the largo number found, as only .about . ten executions Jobk place hero . "