Where you can find the following sign? "Keep off the grass!" in a museum in a hospital in a park

Overcrowded, dirty and awash with sewage… it’s hardly surprising that the bubonic plague flourished in the crowded streets of London. Over 15% of London’s population was wiped out between 1665 and 1666 alone, or some 100,000 people in the space of two years. But where did all these bodies go?

The answer: in tens, if not hundreds of plague pits scattered across the city and the surrounding countryside. The majority of these sites were originally in the grounds of churches, but as the body count grew and the graveyards became overcharged with dead, then dedicated pits were hastily constructed around the fields surrounding London.Unfortunately there is very little evidence about the exact location of these plague pits. Instead, to construct the map below we have had to use a variety of sources including Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Basil Holmes’ The London Burial Grounds: Notes on Their History From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, the internet, as well as help from our social media channels!

The map below is an ongoing project and we’re always in search of new sites, so if you know of any omissions then please let us know by using the contact form at the bottom of this page.