Christ Church, Spitalfields: investigations of the burial crypt 1984-1986
Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields, 2003. https://doi.org/10.5284/1000367. How to cite using this DOI
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Primary contact
Jez
Reeve
Community Organisations Forum Tower Hamlets
Norvin House, 1st Floor
45-55 Commercial Street
London
E1 6BD
UK
Tel: 020 7426 9975
Fax: 020 7426 9979
Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 345
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1000367
- How to cite using this DOI
Overview
Christ Church with All Saints, Spitalfields, one of the finest baroque churches in the British Isles, dominates a London parish just outside the eastern boundary of the City. It lies at the centre of an area of contrasts between opulence and poverty, with an economy based, historically, on a largely immigrant textile industry, a long-established vegetable market, and the overspill of financial businesses from the City itself.
The parish retains the character established during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, an admixture of a wide range of economy and population. The area between Commercial Street and Brick Lane has variously been a centre for Huguenot craftsmen and merchants who came as refugees from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, for a thriving Jewish community during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and for the present Bengali community who have continued the tradition of the area as cloth and clothing manufacturers.
Christ Church itself was one of the Fifty New Churches commissioned during the reign of Queen Anne. Under the terms of the 1711 New Churches Act the dramatic increase in the population of London during the previous seventy years was acknowledged by a demand to provide a church for every 4,750 people. On finding that 100 000 of the population were Huguenots or nonconformists, the commission reduced the number of new churches to be built from 72 to 50. Of these, only 12 were completed. Christ Church was one of six designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. It was constructed between 1714 and 1729 at a cost of £39,162.17s.6d, whilst parochial status was conferred on Spitalfields in 1728.
Christ Church, was designed to possess what Vanburgh called 'awful majesty', with the floor of the church raised high above the streets and a large space between the floors and the deep foundations which had to carry a tower weighing 19 000 tons. At some time during the 1720s the floor of the vaults was lowered to increasing the available burial space. Between 8 July 1729 and 23 February 1859 at least 1 000 individuals were interred in the vaults, whilst more than 67 000 were buried in the churchyard during its period of use. Further burials were prohibited by an order in Queen's Council of April 1858 and a further order dated 1867 ensured that the vaults were sealed. During the 1960s, and prior to the introduction of the Faculty Jurisdiction Measure of 1964, which was introduced to vet and control all proposals for work in churches, the eastern half of the vaults was cleared and refurbished for use as a shelter for 'alcoholic vagrants'. No records apparently survive to show whether or not any interments were found and removed, and consequently it is uncertain whether any burials which took place there were cleared out or replaced in the western half of the vaults in the 19th or early 20th century. The remainder of the vaults, excavated archaeologically between October 1984 and September 1986, contained an estimated 1000 individuals.
Archaeological examination of these vaults was made possible by the restoration programme begun during the 1970s. This programme included the installation of under-floor heating and other services to be created in the crypt in order to avoid compromising the architectural integrity of the church fabric.
Commercial clearance of the vaults was considered, but it was decided that full archaeological investigation of the deposits would provide an unparalleled opportunity to research 18th and 19th century funerary practice, and to retrieve a unique sample of named and provenanced individuals for anthropological and forensic research.
Excavations
The excavations were directed by Ms Jez Reeve for the Incumbent and Parochial Church Council. As there were no precedents for this type of excavation a site-specific excavation and recording methodology was designed, based on the single-context recording system and using design taxonomies to assist with the rapid identification of funereal furniture. Examination of the vaults provided the excavators with a series of problems specific to churches-in-use. Many of these have been encountered and described before. They included the poor lighting which made recognition of soil changes extremely difficult, and the use of 35mm cameras which proved inadequate for dealing with detailed features. Other logistical issues, which had to be overcome, were those associated with excavating deposits from the side, rather than in the reverse stratigraphic sequence, in which they had been deposited. All surveying had to be carried out using parallel, but independent grid lines without the aid of a theodolite, and the difficulties of triangulation in such as confined space meant that often the excavators had to rely on the superior accuracy of Hawksmoor's surveying.
This recording system is outlined in detail in CBA Research Report 85.
The interments, coffins and other artefacts
More than 950 interments were excavated from coffins, together with a few which were interred without coffins, making the total nearer to one thousand. Of these, some 42% were identified by the information recorded on coffin breastplates and inscriptions. These are commonly of iron, lead or tin, bearing the name, age and date of death of the individual, and usually attached to the lid of the coffin at the shoulder. Where these have perished the same information is often available from inscriptions on internal lead coffins, or small plates attached to the end or side of a coffin.
Interments from most years between 1729 and 1853 were excavated, so that for this period we have obtained an almost continual record of the types of coffins, furnishings and clothing used here. The range is enormous: more than 100 different styles of breastplate, nearly 60 designs of upholstery patterning, 9 types of lead coffin construction, together with an almost infinite variety of symbolic elements, constructional components and individual quirks. Some coffins were furnished internally with items such as mattresses, pillows, decorative frills and linings.
Physical anthropology
The study undertaken by physical anthropologists at the British Museum of Natural History was a long-term project. The large percentage of named, aged and sexed individuals from this site, as well as contributing to human biological studies and mortuary archaeology, enabled the project to assess the degree of social stratification represented in this burial population. Work carried out on the skeletal material tell us in detail about the general health of the local population, their diet, living and working conditions.
Initial results based on the testing of visual observations indicate that of 390 named interments less than 10 were attributed to the wrong sex. However, ageing techniques from gross observations proved far less reliable. Both dental and skeletal analysis show a reasonable degree of accuracy for younger individuals below the age of 30 or 35. Beyond this age estimates were found to be extremely unreliable. Pathological analysis of the skeletal material showed a high occurrence of osteo-arthritis, but little evidence of infection or trauma.
Legal and ethical concerns
The excavation of human remains is subject to both legal and ethical considerations. Under English law a Home Office licence is required prior to the disinterment of any human remains, as well as a statutory Church Faculty covering works within churches in use and the reinterment in consecrated ground of any human remains which are disturbed. The procedure is the same for a commercial clearance.
Public notice was given prior to the excavation of the intention to clear the vaults at the western end of the church.
The ethics of disturbing human remains, whether accidentally or by design, is an essential issue for the archaeologist to tackle. One must consider not only the attitudes of contemporary society, but those of the relatives of the deceased and those of the excavators themselves. It is entirely inappropriate for the archaeologist to treat human remains simply as 'artefacts', regardless of her or his own views. The inherent difficulty of fully empathising with everyone's else's ideas and beliefs (in the past and the present) makes it necessary that a balanced respectful attitude is taken to the treatment of human remains. The terms of the Home Office licence dictate that the removal should be conducted "with due care and attention to decency". It should be said that the response from members of the public whose relatives were interred in the vaults at Christ Church, Spitalfields was supportive, and often displayed considerable interest in the project.
