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Summary

Site of St Bartholomew's Hospital and parish church, Lincoln.

Full description

St Bartholomew's church served the medieval suburb of Westcastle and is first recorded in about 1189. The site of the church has been excavated but little survived the landscaping of the grounds of the Lawn Hospital (built about 1817). A leper hospital, also dedicated to St Bartholomew, and certainly attached to the church, is first recorded in 1312. The precise location of the hospital is not known and the Union Workhouse may have occupied part of its site.
Excavations at The Lawn produced evidence for intensive use of the cemetery of the church in the late medieval period. Documentary sources make it clear that these were not burials of parishioners but those of canons and others from the Close and Castle.
The hospital attached to the church in the 13th century had been dissolved before about 1350. {1}

A mechanical digger excavated a trench unsupervised by archaeologists at The Lawn in 1985. Although graves had not been noticed within the excavation area, it soon became apparent that human remains were present on the spoil heap and that the trench had cut through a number of burials presumed to have belonged to the inmates of the medieval leper hospital known to have been close by. Members of the Trust for Lincolnshire Archaeology then carried out fuller recording of the graves, all visible human remains were collected from the surface of the spoil heap, but those that were more deeply buried could not be retrieved.
Archaeological recording was undertaken during groundwork for the installation of a children's play frame. The work exposed disarticulated human remains. It was established that these remains were contained in the backfill of a trench previously excavated in 1985. {2}{3}

<1> Jones, Michael, J; Stocker, D.; and Vince, A., 2003, The City by the Pool including LARA, Pages 218, 220-1, 301, 306-8, 336 (Bibliographic Reference). SLI9142.

<2> Lindsey Archaeological Services, Dec 2007, Archaeological Recording at The Lawn, Union Road, Lincoln, LPAL07 (Report). SLI11762.

<3> Lindsey Archaeological Services, Dec 2007, Archaeological Recording at The Lawn, Union Road, Lincoln, LCNCC 2007.192 (Archive). SLI11763.

Monument Types

• HOSPITAL (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CEMETERY (Medieval - 1189 AD to 1538 AD?)
• CHURCH (Medieval to Post Medieval - 1189 AD to 1817 AD?)
• LEPER HOSPITAL (Medieval - 1312 AD to 1350 AD?)

Associated Finds

• HUMAN REMAINS (Medieval - 1189 AD to 1538 AD?)
• HUMAN REMAINS (Medieval - 1312 AD to 1350 AD?)

Associated Events

• Archaeological watching brief at the Lawn, Union Road, Lincoln
• Archaeological recording at The Lawn in 1985

Protected Status

• Conservation Area

Sources and further reading

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.