LEFT: Some of the amateur archaeologists at the site in 1985 – back row left to right, Ray Freeman, Daphne Gale, Betty Smith (visitor) and Heather Robinson. Front Joan and Peter King.
LEFT: Daphne’s near perfect set of teeth.
- one is named after me - because it gave a human side to it some- how and it was a bit of light-heartedness.’ the team also found two buttons made of animal bone plus fragments of small clay pipes and a tiny frag-
ment of wood, which Mr Allen identified as pine. From these finds, Mr Allen concluded the burials were post 1500 as this was when pine began to be imported. the digging continued until the team had unearthed the remains of ten bodies. Clearly the site was a burial ground. At this stage Mrs Freeman had four theories as to whose
remains had been discovered – plague victims brought in by ships, Spanish Catholics who had been based at Dartmouth Castle in the 1600s, Huguenots from a community who lived in the area from 1685 to 1744 or Civil war soldiers. but none of these theories were watertight as the site was
a difficult landing place for ships and none of the remains showed any signs of war injury such as musket shot or sword slashes. Also, if the graves did belong to Spanish Catholics why weren’t there more of them, and if they were the final resting place of Huguenots why didn’t the site contain the remains of any women or children? On day four the amateur archaeologists found ‘Daphne’ – the first and only complete skeleton and the first and only female remains. retired orthopaedic surgeon, Freddy Durbin, who was part of the dig, thought Daphne was a female aged between 16 to 20 years old as her leg bones had not finished growing.
Mrs Freeman deduced Daphne and Christopher had been buried together as their coffins must have been touching. She also determined their graves had cut across at right angles through the lower legs of another skeleton, ‘Shirley,’
ABOVE: The original buri- al ground containing the remains of 14 skeletons in the Robinsons’ garden.
which suggested the grave digger did not know of the exis- tence of other burials. Mrs Freeman’s exhaustive search for answers took her to the diocesan records office in exeter where she studied acres of microfiche film in her hunt for documented burial grounds. but the search proved fruitless.
A breakthrough came when she revisited the records office, when she discovered two vital clues to the unmarked graves. the first was a covenant dated 1600 between landowner george Southcote and the feoffees of the nearby St Petrox Church that land to the west and north side of the church should be enjoyed by “all the inhabitants of the parish of St Petrox and their family, friends, servants and all others whatsoever.”
Mrs Freeman then discovered another St Petrox register, dated 1652-92, which was so dog-eared it had not been cop- ied onto microfiche. the ragged page of scribbles contained two entries which provided the final clue to the mystery. the tattered note written by a 17th Century registry clerk revealed a Frenchman from a banker ship had been buried at One gunne (the name of the point on which Heather’s house stands) on December 7th 1676.
Another Frenchman, from another ship from the “west
endis” had also been buried at One gunne five days later. Heather said: ‘these chance scribbles indicated that One
gunne Point was the customary place to bury foreigners who died on ships coming into the port but who did not wish to be buried at sea, and others who had no connection with the parish.
‘Foreigner in those days would have applied equally to those who came from other parts of britain such as royalist soldiers during the Civil war, some of whom would have died from disease.’
Once all of the skeletons had been retrieved and the mys-
tery solved, the robinsons decided to give them a Christian burial in their garden. Heather said: ‘My husband had a plaque made and the
reverend Alan teague said some beautiful prayers. we felt we had done the right thing by them. Interview by Ginny Ware
61
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144