Baby

The mummified body of a baby was found in Ecclesall Woods in a brown paper parcel.

It was thought that it had been in a mummified state for several years.

The Coroner said that there was no evidence of its identity, sex, cause of death or whether it had been born live.

It had been wrapped up in a bed sheet over which was a woman's blue navy dress and a double sheet of a newspaper dated 1927.

It was said that a park keeper who had cleared paper and rubbish from the place where it was found two days earlier had not seen it then.

A policeman that examined the child’s body said that mummification in the United Kingdom was rare and that in his opinion it was highly probable that it had been born dead and said that it was several years since its birth.

The doctor said that it would have been quite impossible for mummification to have taken place in the wood, noting that it would have required a dry place such as a cupboard and that he thought that the body had been deposited in the wood recently.