A post-medieval burial ground in The Borough, Southwark, London. It is bounded to the east by Borough High Street, west by Redcross Way; to the south is Union Street, with Southwark Street to the north. The graveyard was already regarded as “ancient” in the 16th century, when it was known as ‘”the Single Woman’s churchyard”. This was a reference to the ‘Winchester Geese’, the prostitutes licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within the Liberty of the Clink. The tradition of a prostitutes’ graveyard persisted through to Victorian times – by then it had become a pauper’s burial ground known locally as ‘Cross Bones’.
Cross Bones was closed in 1853, described as being “completely overcharged with dead… further burials… [would be] inconsistent with a due regard for public health and public decency” The site was then used as a builder’s yard. Its proposed sale for development was declared null and void under the 1884 Disused Burial Grounds Act and it was abandoned as derelict land.
In the 1990s the ground was dug up during work on the Jubilee Line Extension. Museum of London archaeologists removed some 150 skeletons – 1% of an estimated total of 15,000 burials. In 1996, the writer John Constable revived the legend of Cross Bones, specifically identifying it as the source of his cycle of mystery plays performed on Easter Sunday 2000 in Shakespeare’s Globe and Southwark Cathedral. This work, ‘revealed by The Goose to John Crow’ also gave rise to the annual Halloween of Cross Bones festival, which has been celebrated at the graveyard every year since 1998. Cross Bones has become an inclusive pilgrimage site. There is a long established shrine at the gates in Redcross Way, and work is progressing on a memorial Goose Garden in the southernmost part of the site.
