St Peter's Church - Black Death Burials

(Written by Wayne Anthony & Richard Felix)

There are probably more bodies in St Peter's Churchyard than in any other graveyard in Derby.

St Peter's was once the most densely populated part of Derby and when the Black Death struck the town in 1349, more people died in St Peter's parish than in anyother part of Derby.

Of a population which then numbered 3,000, one-third died from the Black Death.

One of the symptoms of this plague was a coma or deep sleep. With so many people dying, so many red crosses painted on the doors and bells ringing as the carts loaded with corpses rolled through the streets with "Bring out your dead" the common cry, it is hardly surprising that some people, were pronounced dead who were really only in a coma.

There are reports at St Peter's of people clawing their way out of shallow graves, or pushing up the lids of coffins and climbing out.

So many people died that the town resorted to burying corpses vertically instead of horizontally, but even so they still ran out of space, so many of the unfortunate victims of the Black Death were buried at the boundaries of the town, one of these places still being called Deadman's Lane, off London Road.

There is a reported sighting, at the bottom of Ascot Drive, of a vampire, always accompanied by the smell of rotting fruit. And there is one more vampire tale connected with Derby. The very first public showing, anywhere in the world, of Hamilton Deane's stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's book Count Dracula was performed in Derby at the Grand Theatre on 15 May 1924. So Derby theatre audiences were terrified by Dracula before any other in the world.

Click here to read more about unusual incidents reported around the Deadman's Lane area.

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Side of St Peter's Church Yard

London Rd (Near Ascot Drive Junction) which has been connected with Black Death burials and also a reported vampire sighting