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Monument Types

• CEMETERY (Unknown date)
• CEMETERY (EARLY MEDIEVAL - 411 AD to 1065 AD (between))
• CEMETERY (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
• CEMETERY (POST MEDIEVAL - 1540 AD to 1900 AD (between))

Associated Events

• College Yard nr north door (Ref: WCM100031)
• Archaeological Watching Brief in 1990, 3 College Precincts (Ref: WCM100158)
• Cathedral floodlighting (Ref: WCM100197)
• 10 College Yard (Ref: WCM100247)
• 8 College Yard (Ref: WCM100278)
• Worcester Cathedral: N of crypt (Ref: WCM100295)
• Worcester Cathedral: N of crypt (Ref: WCM100296)
• 5a College Yard (Ref: WCM100299)
• College Yard paving (Ref: WCM100300)
• 10 College Yard (Ref: WCM100301)
• 7 College Yard (Ref: WCM100302)
• Cathedral sprinkler pipe (Ref: WCM100492)
• Cathedral cable trench (Ref: WCM100493)
• 6 College Yard (Ref: WCM100595)
• College Street, outside Talbot Hotel (Ref: WCM100725)
• Cathedral roundabout (Ref: WCM101135)
• Cathedral Roundabout (Ref: WCM102094)

Full description

The area of the cathedral close lying between the church and the city, known in the post-medieval period as College Yard.

Access to the lay cemetery from the city was via two entries through the properties along Lich Street: the principal entrance was the College Gate (WCM 96352) at the end of the High Street; the Lich Gate (WCM 96353) provided pedestrian access opposite St Michael's, the cemetery chapel.

Within the cemetery stood a number of ecclesiastical buildings, including St Michael in Bedwardine (WCM 96050), the bell tower or clochium (WCM 96359) and the charnel chapel of St Thomas (WCM 96384). The lay cemetery received burials from Worcester parishes over which the medieval cathedral maintained its burial monopoly.

The Lay Cemetery may be taken to have had an Anglo-Saxon origin, accommodating lay burials from the cathedral's substantial rural parish. The earliest reference in this respect is late 11th-century, the monk Hemming referring back to St Oswald in the 10th century, preaching to crowds while standing on the tomb of an 8th-century nobleman and his wife {1}.

Throughout the period between the Dissolution and the 19th century, the cemetery presented a serious overcrowding problem. In 1641 it was claimed that 'the churchyard is raised by graves above three foot within the memory of man'. In 1644 the Angel Lane burial ground (WCM 96095) was opened as an overspill burial ground to relieve the pressure on the cathedral cemetery. In 1692 the bishop directed that the gravemaker should make new interments evenly over the whole area of the cemetery and should not concentrate new graves near the church and north porch. Tenements encroaching on the cemetery around St Michael's were removed gradually in the course of the late 18th and early 19th century {2}.

Ground levels across the Lay Cemetery were drastically reduced by the architect Perkins in 1865-6 {3}.

A small sample of the north-west corner of the cemetery was excavated in the cellar of 5a College Yard (WCM 100299). This revealed extremely dense intercut burials of adults and children and a possible multiple grave, possibly within an area of the cemetery used for the poorer section of the city population {4}. A watching-brief at 3 College Precincts in 1990 (WCM 100158) found reburied human bone, suggesting that the cemetery had once extended beyond its known historical eastern limit, running under the backs of the tenements fronting onto Sidbury along the east side of the close {5}.

Sources and further reading

Related records

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