Local History

For the last 20 odd years he's been under a bed in Highworth but a change in the law has meant that he can't stay there and he's got to be buried.

Jan Boddy from the Highworth Historical

So in a funeral, with no mourners in attendance and with no known relatives at the grave side, Yorick is about to get his last rites and be laid to rest in a grave with three other Highworth men in the town's Cemetery.

It was back in August 1965 that Yorick was unearthed in a garden in Oak Drive in Highworth. With his age estimated at a sprightly 2,000 years old he was automatically passed to the Highworth Historical Society. 

The society, however, was and still is museum-less which meant that Yorick had to be lodged with one of the society's members… chairwoman Jan Boddy to be specific.

And so for the last 20 years Yorick has been boxed up and stored under Jan's bed, in Highworth, where he's been the ideal lodger:

"He's been quite quiet," says Jan, "doesn't eat a lot and needless to say has been a perfect tenant."

In the Chapel of Rest

Now, however, a change in the law has meant that Yorick can't stay under the bed any longer and must be moved:

"The code of practice relating to the holding of human remains has changed," says Jo Clark the secretary of the society, "and has meant that we can no longer hold them.

"So the society has decided that it would be appropriate if the remains were re-interred in the area in which they were originally laid to rest."

And so on June 21, the summer solstice, Yorick and three other ancient Highworth men are due to be taken to Highworth Cemetery by hearse and buried in a mass grave along with "sustenance for the journey":

Jo Clark at Highworth Cemetery

"We've put in a little bottle of mead, that was made locally," says Jo, "some honey which has come from a local beekeeper, a bread roll and we're hoping to get three 2007 copper coins from the Royal Mint to go in as well."

With a service performed by Brian Elkington, an elder of the Congregational Church, the four Highworth men are due to be laid to rest in wicker caskets in a single plot in the older part of the cemetery:

"This site was chosen because there's an ancient track way that runs through here and, who knows, maybe the Bronze Age people or the Romano British person might have actually walked along this path."

The two Bronze Age skeletons (from around 4,000 years ago) found at Wrde Hill, Highworth, on 29 November 1977, the Romano-British skeleton (from AD46- AD600) found in Oak Drive, Highworth, on 14 August 1965 and a skeleton found in a mediaeval enclosure ditch at Haresfield during 1978-9 will be interred at Highworth Cemetery on 21 June 2007. 

The Internment will take place at Highworth Cemetery at 11:00am on June 21st, 2007.