Church welcomes new graves plan

The graves were first disturbed in the 19th Century

A revised method of removing an estimated 7,000 bodies from a graveyard to make way for the Channel Tunnel rail link has been welcomed by Church of England officials.

The cemetery, near St Pancras station in north London, dates back to the 18th Century and includes the graves of refugees who fled to England during the French revolution in 1789.

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link Company (CTRL) had been criticised for the "unacceptable" way in which the remains were being dug up and was forced to put forward new proposals.

The exhumation is being carried out by a specialist contractor and the remains will be reinterred in a north London cemetery.

A society that cares for the dead demonstrates that it values life

Reverend Nicholas Wheeler

About 3,500 bodies have been recovered from the site so far and it is thought the same number again still remain.

The Reverend Nicholas Wheeler, who is in charge of St Pancras Old Church, adjacent to the burial site, said the new plans were "an improvement".

He said that if the land had still been a Church of England churchyard the new method would still not have been acceptable because it involved separating the bodies from the coffins.

But he said the Church appreciated the way the contractors had been willing to reconsider their methods.

"Union Railways and Rail Link Engineering have demonstrated that commercial considerations can take second place to moral ones and we welcome that.

Archaeological study

"We hope this case will set a precedent for the future as it will not be the last time that the development of a world city like London must wrestle with the ethical implications.

"A society that cares for the dead demonstrates that it values life."

The graves had first been disturbed in the 19th Century when St Pancras railway station was built.

Until recently, archaeologists had been working at the site hoping to build up a picture of life in London during the Industrial Revolution.