Archaeological dig at Western Fair could turn up parts of London's past

Parts of London's history could soon be unearthed by an archaeological dig in the Western Fair District.

City council approved the plan on Tuesday night.

Jim Sherratt, the manager of planning and business development with Timmins Martell Heritage Consultants, is heading up the dig in a parking lot near the Canada Building on the fairgrounds. He outlined the scope of the project when he appeared Wednesday morning on CBC's London Morning.

"It's just around the edges of the building, where they're looking at either demolishing that building … or making some changes to it. So we'll be working around the periphery."

Sherratt said the property has a complex history involving multiple land uses, including a former military base, a residential subdivision and an old cemetery.

The burial ground used to be St. Paul Cemetery, an Anglican property that ran from Dundas and Rectory streets down to Florence. It was closed in the 1880s.

"As part of that closure they took six years to move bodies over to the Woodland Cemetery on the other side of the city, but we know from our experience in different parts of London and other cities that often there are burials left behind.  So there may be a few that you find underneath the parking lot."

Sherratt said if remains are found, it might be difficult to identify who was buried there unless there is a name plate on the coffin.

However, he said his team would be able to learn a bit about their gender, their age and possibly their socioeconomic status.

"Some things about how much money they had, because you're able to look at the grave and see they were buried in a certain way and they didn't have a lot of things with them, for example. So, yeah, you can learn a little bit about what  19th century life was like."

He noted there were a number of epidemics in the city during that time and some of the victims would have been buried in St. Paul Cemetery.

"This particular cemetery is interesting, because it's been moved more than once. It was originally moved [to east London] in 1852. And then in 1873, when they decided they didn't want to let people be buried in east London … they moved them again over to Woodland [cemetery]."

Sherrat said any human remains found during the dig will be removed and reburied in another cemetery, likely Woodland.

He said the excavators might also uncover some old buildings on the Western Fair property.

 "There's always a potential when you're doing an archaeological excavation that you learn something new."

Sherratt said the dig is expected to begin in late spring or early summer. It's expected to cost $100,000 and take no more than a couple of weeks to complete. The parking lot on the fairgrounds will be restored after the excavation.