Park Street burial ground and Birmingham’s population expansion
MOLA Headland team
17.04.2019
In 1780 historian William Hutton wrote ‘…instead of the church burying the dead, the dead would have in time buried the church…’. He was talking about the great numbers of people dying in Birmingham, resulting in the walls of St Martin-in-the-Bullring church nearing collapse as the number buried overwhelmed the churchyard. In this blog Mary Ruddy from WSP, Archaeological Consultant on HS2’s Park Street excavation, explores the effects that population growth in 19th century Birmingham had on the city and its inhabitants.
