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Baby

Age: 0

Sex: female

Date: 13 Dec 1957

Place: North Orbital Road, Denham

The body of a newly-born girl was found wrapped up in a plastic cellophane bag in a bush on the North Orbital Road between Denham railway station and Mill End on Friday 13 December 1957.

The body was found at about lunch-time, 1pm, on the Friday by a man that lived in a caravan at the side of the road. He found it half-way up a bank between his caravan home and a footpath.

The police said that one of the theories they had was that the child had been thrown from a car. The stretch of road where the body was found was described as lonely.

A detective said that the child was found lying face downwards on a bank that fell away from the North Orbital Road and that its lower half was wrapped in transparent paper. Other pieces of newspaper were also found nearby.

The plastic paper was described as being 52in long by 21in wide.

The inquest into the child's death was held at Amersham General Hospital.

The child was found to have weighed 7½lb.

The pathologist that carried out the post mortem noted that the left leg and left side of the scalp had abrasions consistent with rats having gnawed at its body. He said that he thought that the child's cause of death was due to exposure and said, 'The child had never received any attention after it was born'.

The pathologist went on to say that it was possible that the child had been alive when it was placed where it was found, but added that on the other hand there was no direct evidence that it had died as a result of exposure and that it was possible that the child might have died at home.

The post mortem also revealed that the child had died between 24 and 48 hours before it was found and that it had been left behind the bushes within 24 hours of birth.

The police said that they had made extensive checks with hospitals, clinics, doctors and midwives in an endeavour to trace the identity of the child's mother but without success.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Buckinghamshire Examiner - Friday 20 December 1957, p1

see Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 27 December 1957, p1

see Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette - Friday 20 December 1957