Dunstable Yesteryear – A missing burial site.
This image shows Albion Street in Dunstable prior to the Eleanor’s Court reconstruction.
When the buildings on the left were demolished in 1981, members of the Manshead Archaeological Society took advantage of the opportunity to study the site, uncovering a Roman skeleton.
However, no evidence supported an intriguing mention in William Derbyshire’s 1872 history of Dunstable. He documented the finding of several coffins and skeletons when buildings were first built on what was then known as Albion Road.
According to Mr Derbyshire, this was the location that was allegedly utilised as a burial site in Dunstable after the Pope excommunicated England in 1209.
The decision, which devastated mediaeval people who feared eternal damnation, resulted from King John’s refusal of a Papal decree to recognise Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury.
For three years, burial was prohibited in the consecrated ground at Dunstable Priory, and the deceased had to be interred in common fields. These later became part of a large new development in Dunstable in the Victorian era.
Historian Hugh Garrod has traced a reference in Dunstable’s Vestry Minutes of 1854 about the cost of surfacing and providing pavements in the new highways of Albion Road, Edward Street, Mount Street, Regent Street, Winfield Street, and Drummond Street Street alongside what is now Osborn House).
As construction progressed, more discoveries were made. On October 24, 1871, the Leighton Buzzard Observer reported that workmen constructing foundations for new dwellings on Mr Eli Horn’s property at the top of Albion Street discovered a virtually complete human skeleton.
In the days before pathology and archaeology, the authorities merely contacted a local doctor, Dr. Hicks, who identified the bones as female. He grabbed hold of the skeleton to perform his surgery!
Mr Horn’s residential address was in High Street South, indicating that he owned property in Albion Street. The assumption is that this occurred near the Princes Street end of the road, although no corroboration has yet been located.
Yesteryear was compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of the Dunstable and District Local History Society.
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