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Cross Bones is a post-medieval disused burial ground in The Borough, Southwark, south London, in what is now known as Redcross Way. Thanks to volunteers, the Garden of Remembrance is open to visitors from 12noon till 3 pm on weekdays and some Saturdays.

Cross Bones is on the east side of Union Street bounded by properties on Borough High Street. It was closed in 1853 because it was "completely overcharged with dead", and further burials were deemed "inconsistent with a due regard for the public health and public decency". Southwark poet and playwright John Constable writes that, in 1883, the land was sold as a building site, prompting an objection from Lord Brabazon in a letter to The Times, asking that the land be saved from "such desecration".

Constable writes that the sale was declared null and void the following year under the Disused Burial Grounds Act 1884, and that subsequent attempts to develop the site were opposed by local people, as was its brief use as a fairground. However, after removal of remains to the parish facilities at Brookwood the site was covered in warehousing and other commercial buildings. The Jubilee Line Extension required this and other neighbouring sites to be used for construction purposes and a new electricity sub station. This required a formal archaeological dig as a requirement of the comprehensive redevelopment of the site.

Excavations were conducted on the land by the Museum of London Archaeology Service between 1991 and 1998 in connection with the construction of London Underground's Jubilee line. Southwark Council reports that the archaeologists found a highly overcrowded graveyard with bodies piled on top of one another. Tests showed those buried had suffered from smallpox, tuberculosis, Paget's disease, osteoarthritis, and vitamin D deficiency.


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