Renovation work meets archaeological dig

Builders renovating a pub in Coventry have found that it was built on a medieval leprosy colony.

Dating up to about 900 years ago, the remains which include a skull, legs, arms and a jaw bone were found in the male toilet area of the Four Provinces pub which is in Coventry''s Spon End.

Chris Patrick, an archaeologist looking at the site, said that the area was probably once a hospital treating lepers because it is on the outskirts of the city.

He said: "There would have been a place where they would have lived and slept and ate.

"And of course as many of them died here they would have been buried in a cemetery which is where the bones would have come from."

Meanwhile in Colchester thousands of human remains have been found close to the city centre which was to be the site of a new commercial development.

It is thought the area used to be a burial ground in medieval times.


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