194 Variation and Correlation of the Human Skull 
Eagle's woollen warehouse. The bulk of my informants agree that the bones were 
found in excavating for Kinloch's ; one states that they were found in building 
Brown and Eagle's. I think there can be no doubt that the site was under 
Kinloch's, perhaps half-way back to Gower's Walk. Messrs E. R. Barton and 
W. H. Peile, who drew up a report at the time and saw the bones in situ, state that 
about 150 to 200 yards down Gower's Walk was a hoarding of boards enclosing 
about an acre of ground between Gower's Walk and Backchurch Lane, " where a 
number of houses had been pulled down and excavations commenced for the 
purpose of laying the foundations of \hlank left]!' The length of Gower's Walk 
to Hooper Street from Commercial Road is 299 yards and Brown and Eagle's is 
situated at the bottom, or corner of Hooper Street. Kinloch's building is a little 
less than 200 yards down Backchurch Lane from Commercial Road. I think 
therefore that there is no doubt about Kinloch's being the actual site. 
Turning to the history of the site, I find that the district, now called Goodman's 
Fields, was originally far more extensive, and in maps of Roman and Anglo-Saxon 
London is marked with "Roman cemeteries*." Our skulls, however, are certainly 
not Roman or Romano-British. Further in plans of London from the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, " White Chapel " stands in the fields, and between this and 
Rosemary Lane west of Cable Street there appears to be nothing in the nature of 
a church or burial-ground, only open countryf. In somewhat later plansj I find 
a lane running up through open fields towards the back of St Mary's Church 
("White Chapel "). This lane gradually gets more defined ; a first piece, " Church 
Lane," runs from St Mary's Church not quite south, then a piece, Back Church 
Street, turns at the back of St Mary's west and east, almost where Commercial 
Road (so-called in 1803, formerly White Horse Lane) now lies, and lastly a long 
south piece corresponding to the present Backchurch Lane. This string of three 
portions continues as Church Street, Church Lane, Backchurch Lane, etc., through 
a whole series of maps and plans, until the real " back church " lane was destroyed 
when the Commercial Road was carried through into the Whitechapel Road 
(1865-70), and the two pieces west of St Mary's and east of Gower's Walk became 
finally Church Lane and Backchurch Lane. Even as late as 1772 we find the 
space east of Church Lane occupied by fields or closes; for example in "A New 
Plan of London and Westminster" from Noortbouch's History of London. We may 
therefore assert that Church Lane from St Mary's south to Cable Street became 
from a field track a definite road about 1658. About the time of the Great Plague 
we see it on R. Blome's Plan, 1664, with no west enclosures and in Doornech's 
Plan, 1666, with long horizontal fields to west. A remarkable "Plan des villes de 
Londres, etc." 1668, shows smaller closes (but no houses) on the west side of Church 
* Dartou's Plan of Anglo-Saxon London and Britton's Plan. 
t Londiiium, vulgo London, 1582, and Aggas, 1586, do not extend quite so far ; J. Bowles' Plan 
shows Goodman's Fields stretching east and south of "White Chapel." Kytter, 1604, shows open 
country. J. Speed, 1610, goes only to the Minories. The "Plan of City of London as fortified by 
Act of Parliament 1642-3 " is not clear but the fortifications seem to cross the site under discussion. 
X The Lane is not in Walton, 1654, but it is in W. Fairthorne, 1658, and R. Newcourt, 1668. 
