How Hurworth village green is on top of a plague pit

In the parish register, the rector, the Reverend Thomas Thompson, explained in Latin how the bubonic plague was casting a terrible shadow over the district: “1645. Dominus percussit hie tres et quadraginta populos in hac mense Julii, omnes fere in hoc oppido, viz. Hurworth.”

Or: “1645. The Lord struck three-and-forty people here in this month of July, near all in this town, viz Hurworth.”

Edwardian footballers on Hurworth village green

The Black Death stalked the country for centuries, passed on by rat fleas. The first symptoms were flu-like, but then the lymph glands in the groin, armpits and neck boiled up into painful buboes until the whole body was one big black bruise – if you were still alive.

The Rev Thompson, who had taken over his position in 1617, recorded the names of his parishioners in the register as they succumbed. His handwriting began strong and firm, but with each successive name, it became weaker and more spidery until it just tailed away.

Then a new firm hand took the pen. It is said to have belonged to the vicar of Eryholme, on the south of the Tees. In his steady writing, he inscribed the name of the last Hurworth victim of the plague: the Reverend Thomas Thompson.

The rector had held on until the plague had burned itself out before dying himself.

In all, only 75 of Hurworth’s population of 750 survived. Neighbouring villages like Neasham, Eryholme, Dalton, the Cowtons and Birkby were also stricken.

It is said that the bodies from these places were ferried to Hurworth by boat on the Tees for burial in the plague pit on the green.

It is said that they were rowed there by a lone boatman to a jetty which was at the foot of a steep, dank lane called Knellgate that led up onto the green between the Old Hall and another large riverside property called Dovercourt – you can still see the lane, but its entrance is now blocked.

Children play cricket on undulating Hurworth Green about 100 years ago. All Saints Church tower can be seen on the left. The white building in the middle is Dovercourt with the old track known as Knellgate to the right of it

The boatman would haul the dead body up onto the green and leave it beside the plague pit. He would then ring a bell – which is believed to be the derivation of Knellgate – to warn the living to stay inside and to alert the gravedigger to the new arrival.

The bell was always believed to be that of the nearby All Saints Church, but in 2001, Dovercourt was renovated. A layer of render was removed from its exterior to reveal an old bellcote in the brickwork overlooking Knellgate – could this have been the remains of the old tolled by the boatman?

Thus alerted, the gravedigger would begin his work.

Some sources say that near the Bay Horse Inn, there was a limeyard. Other people point to Lime Cottage which is a couple of hundred yards away in Coach Lane.

The gravedigger would fill his barrow with quicklime and trundle over to the plague pit. He would enlarge the pit, line it with a layer of shavings onto which he would tip the body from the coffin – a single-use coffin is an expensive luxury, especially as some poor person would probably need it the following day.

He would cover the body with a sprinkling of lime, to speed its decomposition, and then he would complete the job with a layer of topsoil.

Hurworth scouts' annual strawberry festival on the village green. Picture: Peter Barron

And so the bodies – perhaps as many as 1,500 of them – lie ten deep in three mass graves beneath Hurworth’s gruesome green.

Occasionally it gives up a part of a human skeleton to remind the living of the fate of the dead.

For instance, the western end of the green towards Blind Lane is probably known as Chapel Green because somewhere here a thousand years ago there was the village’s first church. This green, outside the Old Parsonage which has the date 1450 over its ancient door, has regularly relinquished bits of human bone.

And in Victorian times, outside Dovercourt, the remains of two armed men were discovered – perhaps soldier victims of the plague.

This is the most grisly story attached to any green in our area. All the anecdotal evidence in all the old registers, books and newspapers suggests that there is at least a kernel of truth in Hurworth village green being a plague pit – but has anyone living ever found any clues about what might have happened 400 years ago to the villagers 400 who now lie beneath the daffodils?