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Browse our interactive map of the plague pits in London, from the Black Death in the 14th century to the Great Plague in the 1600's.
Nov 2, 2015 · During this scourge, which killed an estimated 100,000, or a quarter of London’s population, piles of bodies were tossed into deep pits in unconsecrated ground. The corpses consigned to plague...
One of the two emergency burial grounds in London during the time of the Black Death, East Smithfield is a medieval cemetery that reveals much of London’s personal history. East Smithfield was built in either late 1348 or early 1349. (The other cemetery was called West Smithfield.)
Mar 20, 2013 · Deep beneath the surface of London’s Charterhouse Square, a grisly secret has been unearthed. Last week, thirteen bodies, neatly arranged in rows, were discovered by construction workers digging a shaft for the city’s new Crossrail project near Smithfield Market.
Feb 17, 2011 · At Rochester (Kent) men and women cast their dead children into communal graves 'from which arose such a stench that it was barely possible to go past a churchyard'. Modern excavation of such pits...
There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death mainly spread from person-to-person as pneumonic plague, thus explaining the quick inland spread of the epidemic, which was faster than would be expected if the primary vector was rat fleas causing bubonic plague.
A plague pit is the informal term used to refer to mass graves in which victims of the Black Death were buried. The term is most often used to describe pits located in Great Britain , but can be applied to any place where bubonic plague victims were buried.
