Baby

The body of a newly born child was found near St Matthews Church on Tuesday morning 15 October 1096.

The body was found by a gardener who was cleaning the shrubberies and mowing the grass on a sunken piece of waste ground near the church. He said that he saw a brown paper parcel tied up with string and that when he picked it up and cut the string, he found part of a blanket inside with some white oilcloth and that within the oilcloth wrapping he then found the child’s body.

He said that the road near to where he found the parcel was open to the public, but not used much.

The parcel had been seen earlier by another gardener whilst he was mowing.

The parcel had been tied up with old window cord and that the only mark on the paper was a capital 'D', that had been made with a blue pencil.

When the doctor carried out the post-mortem, he said that the child's features were unrecognisable and that the lower part of the body was decomposed and the internal organs missing. He said that the child weighed less than two pounds.

He said that owing to the state of decomposition he could not determine the child's sex or give a cause of death.

He said that the child might have been about 6 weeks old.

He added that the child might have been dead for between 6 months and 2 years.

An open verdict was returned.