25 



[The following is the paper by the late Major Price, previously referred to :— 

 kindly lent to Mr. Piper, and read by him. 



ON SOME SKELETONS DISCOVEEED AT BAHBER'S 

 BEIDGE, NEAE GLOUCESTEE, IN 1868. 



In the Spring of 1868, a gang of men were employed in taking off the crown of 

 the hillock on which we now stand for the purpose of filling up a pool which, at 

 that time, lay at its base. In the course of the work a number of skeletons were 

 discovered lying side by side at a depth of from 18 inches to 2 feet below the 

 surface of the ground ; 86 in all were exhumed, and the remains re- interred in 

 one grave on the spot. Various attempts were made to account for the presence 

 of so many bodies in this field. It was known that, in the latter part of the last 

 century, when the canal was being excavated, a number of bodies were also 

 discovered close by, but no explanation was given of the circumstance, excepting 

 that they were assumed to be the bodies of men who had fallen in some of the many 

 skirmishes which took place in this neighbourhood during the civil wars. The 

 foreman of the works at that time lodged at a house occupied by the daughter of 

 an old blacksmith, named Taylor, who had died a year or two before, at the age 

 of 97. Having heard that enquiries were made respecting these bodies, she told 

 the foreman that they were the remains of Welshmen, who had been engaged in 

 the Siege of Gloucester, and had been slain on the spot; that when she was a child, 

 she was in the habit of passing through this field with her father to visit relations 

 in Hartpury, and that he often pointed out the spot to her as that on which these 

 Welshmen had been buried ; that she perfectly well remembered being always 

 afraid, in consequence, of passing through this field alone at night ; and that she 

 had often heard her father say, still more recently, that, if ever the mounds were 

 disturbed at Barber's Bridge, there would be found the bodies of many soldiers 

 who were killed down below by the brook side, and brought up there to be 

 buried ; that they were Welshman who had fought at Highnam, and had been 

 driven back, and met at the brook by another body of soldiers, and there 

 surrounded and killed ; that there was no bridge over the brook then : that the 

 bridge had been built in his lifetime : that he had been told by his father, that 

 his grandfather was an eye-witness of the fight. This woman— Hannah Taylor, 

 died in the early part only of last month, but has frequently repeated these 

 statements, invariably closing them with these words, " they were Welshmen, 

 and they were very fine men." 



A stirrup, discovered under the bridge, on the site of the ancient ford or 

 passage across the brook, and which it was natural to suppose was in some way 

 connected with the other remains, seemed to point to an earlier period than the 

 civil wars. The Society of Antiquaries, to whose inspection it was submitted 

 by Mr. Niblett, however, pronounced it to be of the 13th century (see their 



