Evidence of a medieval leper colony has been uncovered by builders who are renovating a pub in Coventry. Human remains thought to date back some 900 years were found in the area of the men's toilets at the Four Provinces pub in the Spon End area of the city. Legs, arms and a jaw bone as well as a skull were found and are to be tested for evidence of leprosy.
An archaeologist said he believed they came from a patient at a hospital that stood in the area centuries ago. Chris Patrick said: "It would have been treating mostly lepers, located on the outskirts of the city. "There would have been a place where they would have lived and slept and ate. "And of course as many of them died here they would have been buried in a cemetery which is where the bones would have come from, we think."
(BBC News - 5 February 2007)
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