A HOUSING development on the site of Kent Cricket Club’s St Lawrence Ground headquarters has unearthed body parts from a medieval leper cemetery.
Persimmon Homes are due to build 70 homes opposite the Bat and Ball pub but work will be complicated because the houses are on top of an ancient leper burial ground.
A preliminary survey a year ago by Canterbury Archaeology Trust revealed the graveyard last year.
The former St Lawrence Hospital was on the site centuries before cricket was invented and victims were buried in the grounds.
It is believed victims from the Black Death which decimated England in the late 14th century might lie in special constructed plague pits.
The hospital stood on the site from around the 12th century until Henry VIII ordered its destruction in 1536.
The land, used as a car park by the club, was sold off to help finance a major redevelopment of the club’s historic headquarters.
The £10 million revamp includes plans to build a 130 room hotel, conference facilities, improved stands and the 73 flats and houses is seen as the cricket club's salvation.
But the law says the human remains have to be treated sensitively; which means the skeleton remains may have to be removed and buried elsewhere. They pose no threat to human health.
Marion Green, education officer at the Trust, said: "We have carried out preliminary work on the site and have found several medieval burials but we haven't carried out a detailed survey of the site yet.
Paul Millman, Kent chief executive, said the club had known about the medieval remains for some time.
He said:"Everything has been done properly and an archaeological survey was carried out last year.The ground was the site of a former leper hospital and we know more work will have to be carried out before development can continue.The developers are well aware of this."
Although there were worries that the scheme could be a victim of the world wide housing recession work as far as Kent is concerned work on the site continues.
Mr Millman says he has been given assurances that work on the site will continue.
POSTED: 30/04/2008 01:00:00
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