Quote:quote:Graves destroyed by Chunnel diggers By Evening Standard (2002)
More than 1,000 graves are being destroyed by contractors building the King's Cross Channel Tunnel terminal in what
government advisers have called "a desecration" and "an outrage against human dignity". Archaeologists excavating
human remains from up to 2,000 graves have been suddenly ordered off the site of the Camley Street Cemetery at St
Pancras as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link company (CTRL) prepares to start digging them out. They had completed
work on only about 100 graves. The experts wanted to identify the graves and then contact living relatives of the dead.
They also believed they could gather vital information which would help build up a picture of life in London during the
Industrial Revolution. "There will be many people alive who have relatives buried in this graveyard," said English
Heritage. "The archaeologists were excavating these remains with respect, as they are required to do. Normally that
is done using sheets to protect the remains from public view, and with meticulous care. "Now, instead, the company
will be sending bulldozers straight through the lot, loading the soil, bones, bits of coffin and name plates into what they
call a muck- away truck. Archaeologists will then pick over them for bones. "It is a total desecration of human remains.
If this were happening anywhere else - if it were an aboriginal cemetery somewhere, for example - there would be an
outcry. It is outrageous that they can just drive through a churchyard - people's grandparents and great-grandparents -
in this way." English Heritage is powerless to act, despite what it says is the invaluable record the graveyard contains of
life in London, with the most recent of the graves dating from 1854. CTRL - which operates under a special Act of
Parliament, giving it virtual carte blanche - has obtained a Home Office licence to remove the graves, although English
Heritage says it is missing the usual clause insisting on their "respectful and dignified removal". The row echoes that
surrounding the building of St Pancras Station in the mid-19th Century, when the Midland Railway company cut
through the same graveyard, disturbing 40,000 graves. The public outcry that resulted led to the appointment of the
novelist Thomas Hardy to ensure that the remains were correctly treated. "It seems today that little has been learned.
It is of great concern that this may set a precedent for the way early modern burial grounds are treated," said English
Heritage.