HIGH COURT ACTION.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17386, 26 March 1928, Page 7

HIGH COURT ACTION.

SKELETONS AS WITNESSES. CHURCHYARD SCENES. The sacking of Ipswick by the Danes was i-ecalled when Mr Justice Rc-mer heard an action in which the discovery of skeletons figured. The vica. of St. Lawrence, Ipswich, and nis Church Council, claimed a declaration that a pathway formed part of the churchyard and sought an Order on Mr Arthur J. Ridley to remove buildings he had put

up on the path. Mr Vaisey, K.C., said plaintiffs based their claim partly on th e fact that a coffin-shaped brick vault stuck out from the churchyard into the subsoil of the footpath. They also relied on

the discovery years ago of skeletons under the footpatn. These skeletons all lay with their heads to the west and their feet to the east, the usual method of churchyard burial, with their heads being under the defendant's property. It was suggested by the defence that bones were found in all parts' of the subsoil of Ipswich, because in the tenth and eleventh centuries Ipswich was sacked and the people massacred. But the bones of these were not buried in an orderly manner. Mr Arthur John Smith, a churchwarden when skeletons were found 17 years ago said that when excavations wer e made under the footpath defendant's foreman said he had cut through two layers of skeletons. • *> The Judge: Six parishioners cut in

half! Is anything going to be done about it! The hearing was adjourned.