Reblogged from Flickering Lamps:

Today, Spitalfields often feels like something of a battleground between the area’s rich and varied heritage and the seemingly unstoppable march of gentrification and redevelopment. Located on the north-eastern edge of the City of London, in recent decades it has been transformed from a mostly working-class district that was home to textile producers and a large fruit and vegetable market to a hub for high-end boutiques and trendy restaurants. It was the construction of a new office block in 1999 that led to the rediscovery of a medieval charnel house – the oldest building in Spitalfields – which had lain undiscovered for around 300 years.
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It is interesting. I spent my grammar school life in Spitalfields Market from the age of 11 to 17 at the Central Foundation Grammar School for girls. Half of the school was in the City of London, it was built on the border line. Only the school hall remains which has now be transformed to a restaurant. The rest is the new market area and now it seems below there was even another interesting building.
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This was one I hadn’t heard of.
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Fascinating, Sue. I like that we’ve become enough enlightened to preserve our past in this way. When the subway was built in Prague, an unimaginable amount of things were found, many of them preserved behind glass walls.
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Sadly, these days, too many are ‘preserved’ by burying them beneath the tarmac. I’m waiting to see what is done about a recent find locally… around 40 ‘unusual’ Anglo-Saxon burials, at least a thousand years old and possibly half as much again, many of them with their hands tied behind their backs. They were found as the ground was cleared for building a care home… I await developments.
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