360° video of 1665 Great Plague pit
A mass burial site suspected of containing 30 victims of The Great Plague of 1665 was unearthed at Crossrail’s Liverpool Street site in the City of London.
The discovery was found during excavation of the Bedlam burial ground at Crossrail’s Liverpool Street site, which will allow construction of the eastern entrance of the new station.
This unique footage shows the excavation of a mass burial pit underway at the site of Crossrail’s Liverpool Street Broadgate ticket hall in August 2015.
The site is the Bedlam Burial Ground that dates between 1569 and 1738. Using an innovative 360 degree video capture, the film shows archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) carefully revealing a mass burial, most likely made at the height of one of the 17th century plague outbreaks.
The burials all appear to have been made on the same day, and all in thin wooden coffins that were stacked up in the pit. The coffins have collapsed and rotted, giving the appearance of a slumped and distorted mass grave.