IMC 2014: Sessions

In 2011 Pontefract and District Archaeological Society were allowed to undertake a rescue dig to try to locate the remains of any monastic buildings within the curtilage of Pontefract Infirmary.

Founded in 1256 AD and falling into a state of disrepair after the dissolution in 1539, the exact site of the church and other buildings has long remained a mystery. It was believed that little remained of the friary, due to the local hospital’s constant building, demolition, and landscaping projects within the area known as Friar Wood. Friar Wood sits on the edge of the royalist English Civil War siege lines, later becoming liquorice fields. Documentary evidence from the dissolution tells us of a cemetery sitting to the north of the church with gardens on the other three sides. Public Utilities employees when working to the west of the hospital’s dispensary would often come across elements of human skeletons and although they did not always report their discoveries, rumours abounded. The cemetery was located and the remains of several buttresses were excavated: as the excavation progressed two very interesting almost complete skeletons from outside the cemetery were excavated. This lecture will share the results of the research of these late 13th- to early 14th-century Christians.