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gruesome truth about plague pits and the Tube

canada goose outlet store uk When the canada goose bubonic plague broke out in London in 1665, it wasn the first time the disease terrified the city. But it was one of the deadliest outbreaks that the city had ever seen and, possibly, the most infamous. canada goose outlet store uk

It long been thought canada goose coats that there might be victims of that crippling epidemic buried underneath London under and alongside the trains people use every day.

canada goose outlet uk The canada goose store plague wiped out a great deal of 17th century Britain. In London, it thought that fatalities reached up to 100,000, roughly one fifth of the population. Popular accounts of the epidemic described its horror in detail. And they described the mass graves, known as pits which are said to have gouged land across the city. Hundreds of bodies were said to have been hastily buried in these pits without coffins, care or ceremony. canada goose outlet uk

canada goose outlet uk sale Two hundred uk canada goose outlet years later, London opened its first underground railway the world first in 1863. By the century close, a spider web of track linked stations as far as Shepherd Bush and Bank, Hammersmith and Mansion House. canada goose outlet uk sale

canada goose outlet parka If you look at these early routes, you notice something odd: They don take canada goose uk shop the canada goose black friday sale straightest, fastest line from point A to B. Instead, they meander. They curve. Almost like they avoiding something. canada goose outlet parka

View image of This map from 1938 shows London’s early Underground

canada goose outlet mall It didn take long to put two and two together. When engineers went to design these underground railroads, the story goes, they tried to avoid plague pits either because they didn want to disturb buy canada goose jacket the dead, or because the bodies were packed too thickly to bore through. canada goose outlet mall

canada goose outlet official [Tube train lines] meander. They curve. Almost like they avoiding something. canada goose outlet official

canada goose vest outlet Various resources hold that there are a number of places where engineers hit bodies or tried to avoid them. Catharine Arnold, in her 2006 book Necropolis: London and Its Dead, writes: the spot where Brompton Road and Knightsbridge now meet, Canada Goose Outlet excavations for the Piccadilly cheap Canada Goose Line between Knightsbridge and South Kensington Underground stations unearthed a canada goose uk outlet pit so dense with human remains that it could not be tunnelled through. This is said to account for the curving nature of the track between the two stations. crowd sourced (but double checked, its creator told me) canada goose clearance map of London plague pits by the group Historic UK, later picked up by publications buy canada goose jacket cheap ranging from the Daily Mail to the Telegraph, mentions that a runaway lane for trains at Elephant Castle junction is Canada Goose online blocked off by a plague pit, while the Victoria Line drilled through a pit under Green Park. canada goose vest outlet

canada goose jacket outlet Underground system passes through many burial grounds and plague pits, says Peter Ackroyd in his 2012 book, London Under. canada goose jacket outlet

canada goose outlet online uk View Canada Goose Online image of Many people believe that plague pits, like the one here, are scattered throughout London canada goose outlet online uk

But did plague pits or canadian goose jacket human burials at all really affect the shape of London underground lines?

canada goose outlet trillium parka black As it turns out, probably not. But the truth, in some ways, is Canada Goose Coats On Sale even stranger and even more morbid. canada goose outlet trillium parka black

canada goose outlet winnipeg When I asked London transport historians about the plague pit Tube connection, the overall response was a collective eye canada goose coats on sale roll. One after another told me that, in all of their record scouring of Underground history, they never come across any mentions of plague pits. the Transport for London Corporate Archives, I was told that there are no specific references to plague pits in their records, he wrote Canada Goose Jackets in his book London Urban Legends: The Corpse on the Tube and Other Stories. wanted to make sure plague pits really are everywhere in London lore so I went through the files on the planning and construction of the Victoria line and the Fleet line, which became the Jubilee line, under Green Park. Wood, like everyone else, turned up empty. canada goose outlet winnipeg

canada goose outlet los angeles View image of An 1868 illustration of St Pancras station, then the terminus of the Midland Railway canada goose outlet los angeles

canada goose https://www.winterdownparkas.com outlet factory Not only that. Aside from one well known example at St Pancras railway station in the 1860s, experts say they hadn come across mentions of human remains of any kind in their research of the Underground early years. found dead bodies at all, says transport journalist and expert Christian Wolmar. canada goose outlet factory

canada goose outlet kokemuksia Experts were also quick to point out that we know why the subway lines curve, and it not because of plague pits. It because of cost. canada goose outlet kokemuksia

canada goose outlet store montreal The first routes, including the Circle, District and Metropolitan railways, were built using mainly and cover construction. canada goose factory sale This meant digging a trench about 30ft wide by 20ft deep, bricking in walls and a roof, then shovelling everything over with about 6ft of topsoil. As a result, the railway companies had to purchase any private property affected by construction. In 1860, for example, the Metropolitan Railway bought and demolished some 1,000 homes for the line from King Cross to Farringdon. canada goose outlet store montreal

canada goose outlet in canada View image of A 19th century photograph shows uk canada goose an underground line being built using and cover canada goose outlet in canada

canada goose outlet store toronto Even canada goose outlet when canada goose clearance sale tunnelling was used more frequently as it was later with Canada Goose sale the Central, Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Hammersmith City and Northern lines people believed that building collapses could occur if a tunnel was dug cheap canada goose uk underneath. So the law still required that the railway companies buy any property they passed under. canada goose outlet store toronto

canada goose outlet orlando As a result, whenever they could, the companies dug under publicly owned roads. canada goose outlet orlando

canada goose uk site View image of 1855 proposal for a railway under Oxford Street and Piccadilly (Credit: Credit: Alamy) canada goose uk site

canada goose jacket outlet uk It easy to see just how much of the Tube is explained this way by looking at a geographically accurate map, which you can see here. Looking it as an overlay on Google Maps, like with, makes it easier to see the roads canada goose jacket outlet uk.