Newcastle, St. Bartholomew's Nunnery cemetery

HER Number:
1432

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
Newcastle, St. Bartholomew's Nunnery cemetery

Place:
Newcastle

Map Sheet:
NZ26SW

Class:
Religious Ritual and Funerary

Site Type: Broad:
Mixed Cemetery

Site Type: Specific:
Churchyard

General Period:
Medieval

Specific Period:

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
In 1834-5 Grainger cleared and developed the site of the nunnery, "the Nuns' field". In the course of this work there were discovered coffins of stone, lead and wood, 3-4 feet deep, embedded in clay, a lot of bones including "several entire skulls", and "a fragment of a blue marble tombstone", with a Lombardic inscription round its margin and a cross shaft incised in the centre. It was also reported that human remains had been found under the pavement in Grainger Street. It was suggested, quite reasonably, that these were from the nuns' cemetery but, without a precise findspot or clear association with the nunnery church, it is impossible to be wholly certain.

Easting:
2476

Northing:
6419

Grid Reference:
NZ24766419

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 1432 >> Newcastle Courant, 1835, 21 March 1835, p. 4 col. 4 M.A. Richardson, 1844, Local Historian's Table Book, Historical Division, IV, 200 Newcastle Library Local Studies, Newcastle Cuttings, (date unknown), Old Newcastle: Traces of the Nuns II, 40