Here are Historic England’s ten top archaeological discoveries of the decade.
Needless to say, the discovery of Richard III’s remains figures high on the list. He’d been thought to have been buried in Leicester Greyfriars…or maybe thrown into the River Soar! But no, Greyfriars was the place. However, what I didn’t know was that Greyfriars itself had also been lost for 400 years as well!
Uh-oh, someone hasn’t read ‘Finding Richard III: The Official Account of Research by the Retrieval and Reburial Project’ (otherwise known as Looking For Richard). Ebook and paperback. It’s all in there – how we sifted the evidence to check he really was buried by the Franciscan friars; how we followed the clues to find the priory church, lost after the dissolution of the monasteries; how we rejected the location for the church that the archaeologists predicted; how the archaeologists refused to look for Richard anyway (and charged us £800 extra to exhume him), then claimed the credit for finding him! I’m just preparing the 3rd reprint as I write this. It’s quite a story, well worth reading. Cheers, Annette.
LikeLike
You all did such professional and endless research on this. We’re forever grateful, Annette.
LikeLike
[…] brought to Greyfriars for Burial. Artwork Emma […]
LikeLike
[…] remains have now been discovered at the site of the monastery and comparisons with Richard III are already being made. The promising-looking large skeleton unfortunately still has the two toes […]
LikeLike
[…] that I can adopt any moral high ground, because we’ve learned a great deal about Richard, much of it definitely to his advantage, and I’ve been as interested as anyone. But deep down […]
LikeLike
[…] a nursery school isn’t a car park, and Henry I’s remains don’t have anywhere near the cachet of Richard III’s. Now […]
LikeLike
[…] Cecil at Burleigh near Stamford – only omitting Henry, Earl of Huntingdon who lived on Leicester High […]
LikeLike
[…] this intriguing list of twenty , the discovery of Richard III’s remains comes in at number two! He was pipped at the post by an extremely old cheese from Egypt. Eh? Old […]
LikeLike
[…] of Philippa Langley MBE who was responsible for the discovery of the grave of Richard III at Leicester. The following points are of […]
LikeLike
[…] soon be a mtDNA line to test the evidence, or his Y-chromosome could be linked to that found in Leicester in […]
LikeLike
[…] She wrote to the Leicester Museum asking to be able to conduct excavations where the convent of the Grey Friars once stood and that recently had become a private car park. Audrey’s proposal was rejected […]
LikeLike
[…] in which she grew up. St Paul’s Street, Stamford, was on the site of what was once either Greyfriars or Whitefriars. The medieval mystery of which one it was has inspired her for the past ten years, […]
LikeLike
[…] but that was just a yarn. At the time of his death he was recorded as having been lain to rest at Grey Friars, Leicester, and that is indeed where he was found in 2012. So Richard wasn’t buried under a car park. They […]
LikeLike
[…] link reveals an interesting account of about the discovery and archaeology of Richard’s original resting place in Leicester, and the modern techniques used to find out all that could be […]
LikeLike
[…] Turi King, best known for her work identifying Richard III from the remains discovered under a Leicester city car […]
LikeLike
[…] fact that upset the Yorkists for centuries. In 2012 a parking lot was being expanded in the town of Leicester near to the historic battle site. As excavation was being done to prepare for the new expansion a […]
LikeLike
[…] local myths – like willow stakes pinning bodies down at Stoke or dead kings being thrown into the Soar at Leicester etc – that have evolved over the years, usually a creation of the Georgians. But no – it is […]
LikeLike
[…] dealt after he was dead and long past harm. But finally Richard was handed over to the friars of Greyfriars in Leicester, who were then able to give him a decent if hasty burial with the usual funeral rites of the […]
LikeLike
[…] close to York, not Leicester.4) His head was taken to York on the day of the battle and returned to Leicester Greyfriars in time for his burial three days later, which assumes rather too much of late mediaeval transport […]
LikeLike
[…] help noticing that complete omission of any mention of the finding of Richard III’s remains at Greyfriars. It seems to me that until now the Leicester University archaeological department has rushed to […]
LikeLike
[…] not scoliosis, their statements are best described as lies, as shown by the evidence found in Leicester almost a dozen years […]
LikeLike
[…] fiction (written to please the Tudors) even though Richard’s remains have been found in Greyfriars, Leicester and proved he only suffered from scoliosis, which wouldn;t have been evident to anyone […]
LikeLike
The New Murrey and Blue blog 
Leave a reply to Audrey Strange – murreyandblue Cancel reply