I'm often asked what's the point in digging sites where there are detailed historical records such as diaries, registers of inmates, invoices, accounts and so forth. But documents often survive because they give the world an impression of the management's efficiency, whether they are civil servants, factory owners, hospital managers or bankers. That's why no good historian ever takes them at face value. But excavation can help reveal the painful truth. And that's precisely what we did at Norman Cross.
We knew that the camp was specially designed and built by the Navy's Transport Board in 1796-7 to house Napoleonic prisoners of war. This was a response to the horrendous death toll of prisoners housed in the so-called 'hulks' - old ships that were moored in places like the Thames Estuary. Once disease struck a hulk there was no escape and hundreds of men died. The Norman Cross 'Depot', as it was known at the time, was intended to hold up to 8,000 men who were housed in 16 barrack blocks, of 500 men each. These were arranged inside a fort-like camp with a stout outer wall and a deep ditch, to prevent tunnelling. Despite these precautions, there was a Great Escape in 1807 when 500 men charged the wooden wall and escaped. It was rapidly rebuilt in brick. The Depot eventually closed in 1814.
I can remember being driven past Norman Cross on the A1 many times when I was lad, back in the 1950s. At the side of the road was a memorial (a bronze eagle on a stone column) to the 1,770 or so men who had died there, largely through disease. Later the eagle was stolen and a replacement was sited closer to the Depot on the Peterborough Road. One reason for this was the dualling of the A1(M) to by-pass Peterborough New Town. Everyone believed that the cemetery holding the 1,770 men was still by the A1, well north of the Depot. This idea was based on a document that showed land there had been bought for the Depot, presumably for the cemetery. Time Team proved this to be completely wrong. Not only was there no cemetery alongside the A1, but we actually found the site where the men's bodies were buried, hastily and in little groups of four of five at a time - just what one would expect during a plague. They hadn't the time or staff to remove the bodies over to the new site, so they were buried close by the Depot's hospital. And here's a most remarkable fact: the actual cemetery discovered by Time Team is only a short distance away from the spot where the new memorial now stands.
