'Tiny infants to full-grown adults': Remains of 280 people found under old Pembrokeshire store

More than 280 human remains have been found under an old department store in West Wales.

Archaeologists discovered the bodies whilst examining a medieval friary underneath the old Ocky White store in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.

The remains include people of all ages, ranging from 'tiny infants to full-grown adults'.

Experts believe the ruins were from St Saviour's Friary, founded by a Dominican order of monks in the 13th century, and was in use until the 16th century.

Dyfed Archaeological Trust are the organisation in charge of the excavation. Fran Murphy, manager of the project, highlighted the importance of the discovery for Haverfordwest as a town.

She said: "it's an amazing snapshot into the development of Haverfordwest. We can look at who's being buried here, do they represent the town?

"It's never been done before, it's the only time this has happened in this part of Pembrokeshire."

"I think sometimes Wales is often forgotten, so much work, so much development happens in England. It's little appreciated sometimes that we have the exact same length of history in Wales."

The initial excavation was part of a £6.3 million pound project by Pembrokeshire County Council to redevelop the Western Quayside in Haverfordwest.

Contracted by the council, Dyfed Archaeological Trust found that there was some 'archaeological risk' to the redevelopment. There was knowledge that the St Saviours monastery was somewhere in the vicinity of the redevelopment site.

After an initial dig took place in February of this year with three archaeologists, human remains were found, which then led the trust to go into 'full excavation mode'.

Even after the initial remains were found, Fran said they had no idea there would be bodies "found across the whole site."

12 Archaeologists, 100 volunteers and 280 bodies later, Fran says the whole town are now getting involved.

The Trust have converted an old shop on the high street into a makeshift museum for locals to see the latest finds and help volunteers to wash them. Fran says the fact that they have made the project "accessible to the people who live in Haverfordwest" is a big achievement in itself.

She said: "people just stop as they're shopping and look in the window for the new things that we've found.

"We leave the door open and they come in, schools come in, we've had groups come in with us, all different backgrounds.

"As one man put it to me 'I never knew all this was under my feet'. If anything, it's making people aware, that where they live, whatever problems it's going through now, has gone on through them in the past.

"There's all this accumulated history of their own town beneath them. It's so gratifying for me and the staff for people to stop us everyday and ask questions."

The full excavation is set to finish sometime next week. After this, all the various artefacts, including human remains will be sent off to be analysed.

Fran hopes that eventually, some of the artefacts will go to a museum "as local as possible."