21 



On some Slceletons discovered at Barber's Bridge, near Gloucester, 

 in 1868. Bead at a Meeting of the Cotteswold Club, on the 5th 

 April, 1871, at Tibberton, by Capt. Price. 



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

 taking oS 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 

 Taylok, 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 had often pointed out the 

 spot to her as that on which these Welshmen had been biu-ied: 

 that she perfectly well remembered being always afraid, in 



