Workmen clearing Watford Parish Churchyard for the Garden of Remembrance have not had any finds so dramatic as those of some years ago.

Then, workmen levelling the ground came across a row of skeletons buried side by side without any coffins. In order to avoid disturbing them they deviated from the proposed line of excavation. On another occasion digging for a water main revealed skeletons four deep, also with no trace of coffins.

Many people in Watford suffered in the Great Plague and it may be that this was a smaller version of the “Plague Pits” in which victims of the Great Plague were buried in London.

[From the Watford Observer of December 28, 1951]