King Richard III found under a car park?

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Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:56 pm

Long story short - King Richard III loses battle, his horse (in the Shakespeare version) and the Crown. Head bashed in with a poleaxe, body taken to Leicester, and buried under the choir of Grey Friars friary.

Friary demolished after the dissolution of the monasteries, garden built with memorial to Richard III. Site lost. King becomes unfortunate rhyming slang but has no known grave.

Clever historians locate site, now a council car park.

Car park dug up, garden and friary found, with skeleton of a tall bloke with battle damage under where the choir would be.

'Strong evidence' Richard III's body has been found

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:03 pm

Thanks RC, what a fascinating story. I'm sure I'll be following it.

I've always been curious and maybe it's a dumb question: I know it's been over 500 years, but how do such important places end up buried like this in the first place? It's not like dirt is continuously raining from the sky, so how do we end up with Richard III deep under a car park?

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:15 pm

Another long story short - Catholic Church tells King Henry VIII he can't just marry who he pleases, King says 'Feck you, I'll start my own church'

All abbeys and monastries burned to ground, stone and roof lead sold off. Site becomes garden of a private house, also later demolished, and re-used. Flattened site abandoned, car invented, tarmaced over for parking.

I should be a history teacher. Smile

If you ever get 'Time Team' where you are, Bo, you'll see that massive palaces, castles & abbeys disappear almost without trace, as later generations put all this old stone lying around to good use. Historic sites basically become quarries, where all the stone is conveniently already cut to shape and dressed. Hadrian's wall in Northumberland, built by the Romans in the 2nd Century to keep the Scots out, is a shadow of its former self, but the area has the best built farm field walls in the country!

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:47 pm

Living in the colonies, I have no sense of such deep history. Thanks again RC.

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 10:12 pm

What a shame, but thanks for the history lesson RC.

@Bo I am part Chickasaw.

I have a sense of deep history and try to install that in my children. Very Happy

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 12:05 am

Time Team is fantastic!We live in a large,fairly young country over here.The fact that you have a few thousand years of history packed into a fairly small area is an alien concept to us.
There is a saying.An Englishman considers a hundred miles a long distance.An American considers a hundred years a long time.

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 12:11 am

I've always been passionate about archaeology and stories like this are really exciting. A lot of American history is buried under parking lots as well, especially Revolutionary and Civil War battlegrounds.

Just one of many examples -- a burial ground under a school parking lot in Lynchburg, VA:

Quote:

Soldiers buried under High School parking lot

Data on Union Soldiers who died as Prisoners of War in Lynchburg, 1861-1865 buried under the auditorium parking lot at E.C. Glass High School:

- Witham, Pvt. Charles W., 10th Maine Infantry, Company G
Died July 24, 1862 at the Fairgrounds [POW Camp]
- Boyd, Pvt. William C., 27th Indiana Infantry, Company E
Died August 6, 1862 of typhoid at the Fairgrounds [POW Camp]
- Kinerson, Pvt. Albert, 1st Vermont Cavalry, Company D
Died: August 15, 1862 [Probably at the Fairgrounds]
- Berry, Pvt. James, 55th Ohio Infantry, Company K
Died: November 15, 1862 [Probably at the Fairgrounds]
- Wood, Pvt. Samuel D., 26th Michigan Infantry
Died of starvation sometime after May 12, 1864 when he was taken prisoner at
Spotsylvania Court House
- Robinson, Corpl. John. 1st Maryland Infantry, Company D
Died sometime after May 8, 1864, shot by a Confederate guard

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:38 am

^^^JF was this also a case where archaeologists found out about the burial ground after the parking lot was built? Or did someone knowingly build a school on top? It seems there's so much detailed information available about who's buried there, someone should have known. It's only been 150 years, for goodness' sake, it just boggle my mind.

@Doc H. and RC: I think mr bo and I would enjoy the Time Team show. We'll check it out.

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:10 am

^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Team

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:24 am

bohigal wrote:

^^^JF was this also a case where archaeologists found out about the burial ground after the parking lot was built? Or did someone knowingly build a school on top?

From a blog post about it:

Quote:

During the Civil War there was a Prisoner of War camp on the site of E.C. Glass High School on Memorial Avenue. In front of the High School there is a monument honoring and listing the names of the 42 (or was it 43) soldiers from Lynchburg that died during World War I.

There isnt a marker at E.C. Glass High School to honor the 6 union solders buried on the grounds. Now of course E.C. Glass was built in 1952, when Lynchburg was very much in the throngs segregation - the Jim Crow era. The fact that they are buried under the parking lot where vehicles drive over them may be reflective of local attitudes at that time of continued southern defiance and resistance. As a child, I remember traveling through Virginia on my way to visit family in North Carolina and seeing segregated entrances in businesses; one for "colored" and one for "whites only."

As with so many things, it's complicated......

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 4:13 am

bohigal wrote:

I think mr bo and I would enjoy the Time Team show. We'll check it out.

There are many episodes on You Tube if you search for Time Team.

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 11:22 am

And sometimes memory fades and records are misplaced or forgotten.The first crew of the CSS Hunley was found under the stadium at The Citadel in South Carolina.

http://www.historynet.com/hunley-crewmen-found-december-1999-civil-war-times-feature.htm

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 11:50 am

Things like that often happen after a protracted Civil or Local war, history is rewritten by the victors and people eventually forget.

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 10:15 pm

I had a hunch.. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:56 am

My home city
Benjy Broadbent wasn't that far off
[img]http://ts3.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=4506804425786398&id=0620d6d79238ee0cd230e72e56a20e66[/img]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/leicester/article_4.shtml

Bow Bridge is only about 1/2 mile from actual site

more http://www.messagetoeagle.com/richard3tombhumremains.php

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:56 pm

The first capitol of Texas is now an Auto Zone - not hidden under their parking lot, mind you, but actually until it burned a few years ago operating out of the original building. How does this happen? Because people don't give a rat's arse about history sometimes Rolling Eyes

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