It has been eight years since work began excavating the former Park Street Burial Ground in Birmingham city centre to make way for the new HS2 Curzon Street train station. While just over 5,000 of the 9,000 bodies removed from the grave have since been reinterred in Witton Cemetery, HS2 has confirmed that the remaining 4,000 bodies are still yet to be reburied.
Excavation and Discovery
The graves dated back between 1807 and 1873, and work began to dig them up 145 years later. Archaeologists from the MOLA Headland Infrastructure consortium worked to excavate the graves between July 2018 and May 2019. During the process, the specialists discovered thousands of coffins containing late Brummies, including babies and children. Among the items they were laid to rest with were toys, strings of beads, and bowls of salt, which were then believed to ward off bad spirits and keep loved ones safe in the afterlife.
HS2's Response
A HS2 spokesperson said that research work was still being undertaken on the congregation and that it had carried out the excavation in line with its commitments and an undertaking with the Archbishops' Council. It added that all of those removed from their original graves had been treated with dignity, care, and respect while in storage. Although it initially planned to have all the people in question reinterred within five years, it had been granted an extension for academic research by the Secretary of State as per Schedule 20 of the High Speed Rail Act (2017). It says that it hopes that studies on the bodies will reveal more about the 'ordinary people who made Birmingham the city it is today' by researching 'what diseases they had, what they ate, and where they came from'.
Historical Context
Park Street Burial Ground opened after the churchyard at St Martin's church at the Bullring became full, with records estimating around 18,840 people were interred there during the time it was open. HS2 said that the burial ground had been truncated before its work began on the station, by railway cuttings in 1855 and 1894. It said that none of the 5,000 people it had removed from their original resting places had been identified through grave markers or name plates during its investigations. It added that it was working to create a monument and memorial for the congregation to commemorate them.
A spokesperson for HS2 told BirminghamLive: "All of the remains excavated from the nineteenth-century burial ground at Park Street have been treated with dignity, care and respect and will be reinterred together at Birmingham's Witton Cemetery, with a suitable monument to mark their new resting place. The burials happened at a pivotal time in the city's development, as Birmingham grew from a small town to an industrial powerhouse whose products were exported across the globe. The archaeological investigations aim to reveal more about the lives of the ordinary people who made Birmingham the city it is today - the diseases they suffered, what they ate and where they came from - which is why we are grateful for the extra time allowed to carry out this research. As part of this work, we are also developing plans to share the discoveries from across the project with the local community. These will outline opportunities for local displays, engagement activities, and other ways of sharing our findings."
Church of England Response
A Church of England spokesperson told BirminghamLive that it would continue to work with HS2 to ensure that those removed from their resting places would be treated correctly. They said: "We recognise that this is an emotive subject. Burial grounds are places of deep significance for communities, even where individual identities are no longer known. The Church's role in the HS2 burial ground work is primarily pastoral and advisory and we continue to engage with HS2 Ltd and others to emphasise the importance of dignity, care and transparency, and to ensure that reburial and memorialisation are carried out reverentially and with appropriate respect."
As of writing, no date for reburial of the remaining bodies had been announced by HS2. Park Street is not the only English burial site that HS2 has excavated as part of its rail works. London's St James burial ground was also excavated, the site of the original grave of Captain Matthew Flinders who led the first circumnavigation of Australia. His body was located among the 50,000 human remains in the burial ground, and he has been relocated to the Church of St Mary and the Holy Rood in Donington, near Spalding, where a number of his family members were buried.
The first HS2 services between Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common in London are expected to begin between May 2036 and October 2039.
