Thomas Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings

Thomas Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings

Thomas Bateman at Calver Low, Derbyshire in 1860

Having been informed, on the 30th of August, that some skeletons had been discovered the day before, by men baring the rock preparatory to quarrying it, at the verge of the cliff overlooking the limekilns at Calver Low, I immediately went to the place and found that there had been five skeletons buried in a line side by side, a few feet apart, in graves sunk down to the rock which is there about two feet below the turf. The bodies were all extended at length with the heads to the west, so as not merely to admit of the corpses facing the east, as is the Christian custom of burial yet observed, but in this case also to face the village, and the pleasant valley extending towards Baslow--either motive may have prompted the arrangement, as there is reason to believe the interments to be of the Anglo-Saxon period, although it was suggested at the time, in one of the local papers, that they were remains of some who perished during the ravages of the plague at Eyam in 1666.

In returning to the narrative, it will be best to describe the several skeletons, numbering from the north, premising that the legs of all had been cut away, owing to their being so near the border of a cliff, which descends for a considerable distance almost perpendicularly, having long been quarried for lime burning.

1.-A young person with very slender bones, the femur 17 1/2 inches long, undisturbed with the exception of the skull, which had been broken and robbed of the teeth previous to our visit; a small bit of coarse red pottery was picked up amongst the earth near the bones.

2.-Removed before our arrival, but from the few bones preserved, it appears that the person was older than the first, although the femur measures 16 1/2 inches only-the skull thin, a good deal decayed and very imperfect.

3.-Removed-the skull very perfect when found, since despoiled of the whole of the facial bones. The calvarium and lower jaw have been recovered. The former presents, when viewed from above, an oval outline with a very full occipital protuberance; the latter is well formed, and the state of the teeth indicates an early adult age. Imperfection in the thigh bones prevents measurement, they do not however appear to have been very long.