PILE OF SKELETONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

PILE OF SKELETONS.

FIND IN SURREY GARDEN. The latest discovery of skeletons in the garden of Chalk Hill, Guildov/n Avenue, Guildford, the residence of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Kempster, brings the total to date to forty. With the Cnds_r?cre pieces of AnglovSaxon pottery. When skeletons were first found in August, it was thought that, they were those of malefactors, who * were hanged on tho old Guildford gibbet, but in the moro reccnfc discoveries there are indications of a much earlier origin. Eighteen of the skeletons were m groups of two, three, and four, and 80nne singly, and for tho most part close to the surface, The position and direction, pointed to haphazard bnrials as distinct from systematic interment, at a particular date. .. Another lot, comprising twenty-two, were found lying in a deeper excavation, and heaped together. No trace of a coffin has been found. In tho largo group was the skeleton of a child, between four and five jears of age, judging by its dentition, A copper coin, believed to bo of the date of Charles 11,, was also discovered., One of the skulls ha 3 been sent to the Royal College of Surgeons. The wh'oj# of tho garden has not yet been dug up; and so as not to destroy evidence, which may bo helpful, digging has ceased for the present*