How Well Do You Know London?

[Rosemary]

Not sure why but this little article about Catherine Arnold's book caught my eye...

'Although macabre, London obviously had a great many plague pits during and after 1665. Among various ghoulish stories of pestilence, there is the fact that the Piccadilly Line tunnel between Knightsbridge and South Kensington follows a rather unusually bendy route in order to go around such a pit.'

Source – Catherine Arnold’s, Necropolis: London and It’s Dead

[chrispenycate]

Although I'd never heard the story, it does seem very reasonable. Kensington and Kightsbridge were villages outside the metropolis, yet close enough that the carts wouldn't be over inconvenienced. The only question is why bother to bypass the pits at all? There might be a few remaining intact bones, but no risk of disease, and the Victorians were generally practical about such matters.
The lines are very close to the surface in that region, which would suggest the pits were very shallow.