Excavations reveal centuries of burials at the Tower of London

Beneath one of London’s most visited landmarks, a stretch of disturbed ground is revealing lives and deaths from a very dark period in Earth’s history.

What has emerged is forcing a fresh look at who lived around the chapel, how they were buried, and what moments of crisis shaped the site.

Digging beneath the chapel

Archaeologists working during accessibility upgrades at the Tower of London chapel uncovered the remains of more than 20 people, including a tightly grouped set of burials that may date to a plague outbreak.

Engineers needed a way to reach the chapel floor, so archaeologists dug where foundations, graves, and old floors were expected.

The work was led by Dr. Katie Faillace, a bioarchaeologist at Cardiff University, whose team studies people through their chemical traces.

Her research follows how diet and movement leave lasting marks in teeth and bone, letting skeletons carry personal histories.

“Undertaking these two excavations has provided us with a generational opportunity to enhance our understanding of the evolution of the Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula, and the buildings which stood before it,” said Alfred Hawkins, Curator of Historic Buildings at Historic Royal Palaces.

Two skeletons raise questions

A 2019 trial trench turned up two skeletons near the chapel entrance, later examined in detailed lab work.

Researchers used radiocarbon dating, measuring carbon-14 left in remains, plus chemical tests on teeth to estimate age and origin.

A middle-aged woman and a young boy likely died in the early 1500s, and their bones carried different life stories.

Those first profiles set expectations for the current excavation, but two people cannot speak for an entire community.

Teeth store travel chemistry

Tooth enamel forms in childhood and can lock in chemical signals from food and water taken where a person grew up.

Scientists run isotope analysis, measuring tiny differences in atomic form, because those ratios vary with local geology and drinking water.

For people, strontium in enamel reflects the rocks under childhood soils, while oxygen echoes the water a person drank.

Interpretation depends on good baseline maps and careful sampling, so results usually narrow regions rather than name a village.

Diet recorded in bone

Bone collagen, a tough protein preserved in skeletons, carries carbon and nitrogen patterns that track long-term diet.

Higher nitrogen values often point to more animal or fish protein, because each step up the food chain concentrates nitrogen-15.

Short food shortages can also raise nitrogen signals, since the body recycles its own tissues when calories run low.

That double meaning makes context critical, so archaeologists combine chemistry with bone damage, teeth wear, and burial setting.

A burial cluster emerges

Dating suggests the tight group of graves formed in the 1300s, when the Black Death tore through England.

At East Smithfield, ancient genetic material, genetic traces recovered from old remains, has confirmed plague victims carried Yersinia pestis.

Similar tests could help decide whether the Tower’s 14th-century cluster reflects routine burial or a crisis-driven mass grave.

Even without microbes, burial spacing and timing can hint at emergency decisions, but results may stay uncertain without clear dates.

Coffins and rare objects

Some earlier medieval graves show careful treatment, including coffins and grave goods – items placed with a body – found beside the dead.

A shroud fragment is rare because textiles decay fast when microbes digest fibers in damp, oxygen-rich soil.

One burial held two pots of charcoal, a type of medieval offering reported only once before in England.

Such details may point to high status or local custom, yet later disturbance can move objects and blur their original meaning.

Evidence of a fire

Layers of ash and burned debris show that an earlier chapel ended in a major fire inside the fortress walls.

Archaeologists can match such burning horizons with building histories, then link them to foundations cut by later construction.

Records say a 1512 blaze destroyed Edward I’s 1286-1287 chapel, and a new one rose in 1519-1520.

Finding those foundations turns written history into physical evidence, but later repairs can erase parts of the original plan.

Beneath the burned layers, excavators found a compacted Reigate stone surface that could belong to the 1240 rebuilding ordered by Henry III.

Compaction and tool marks help date floor-like deposits, while their position shows whether they sat inside a room or outside.

A separate wall line may even trace Henry I’s 12th-century chapel, a structure otherwise known mostly from scattered records.

If later analysis confirms those phases, the Tower’s religious space looks far older than visitors assume today.

Legal limits on excavation

The Tower of London is a scheduled monument. As a legally protected site, accessibility upgrades can trigger strict oversight.

Because the lift is added, consent reviews force teams to document layers, record finds, and protect remains when work ends.

“We’re already gaining insight into the residents of the Tower in a way we have never been able to do before,” said Dr. Jane Sidell, Principal Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Historic England.

Future tests will have limits set by ethics and preservation, yet careful sampling can still add new chapters to the record.

The burials and building traces connect daily life, sudden death, and rebuilding into one long story under the chapel.

Laboratory work on bones, teeth, and soil may clarify origins and causes, but some answers will remain unknowable.

Image credits: Historic Royal Palaces

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