Construction workers in London are currently busy with redevelopment activity across the city. But it often disturbs the graves of thousands of long-deceased Londoners buried deep beneath the modern city. The Wellcome Collection has brought together a carefully selected array of some of the more interesting skeletons whose history spans several centuries.

We found all of these skeletons. We actually have 17 thousand at the moment at Museum of London, but there were lots more and quite a few of them have been reburied. She saysforensic analysis can reveal much about the circumstances in which these Londoners lived.

And this is a female skeleton, and she was found at the site of Royal Mint, where they built the building to make the coins. And she’s got a lovely green skull and green teeth from thecopper. So when they made the coins, they threw away the copper waste and that’s turned her green. And she’s from the mediaeval period, and the rest of her skeleton, you can see, is normal bone color.

This is the skeleton of a child, aged about 11 years old. And as you can see from the skull, there’s an awful lot of destruction. But this destruction is from a disease, and also along the one side here and then down to the leg bones. And this child unfortunately suffered from congenital syphilis. And so that meant that the mother had venereal syphilis and it was passed from mother to child.

Fast-forward a few centuries, and the socioeconomic condition of modern-day East London has parallels to centuries gone by. In the furthest part of East London stands the City of LondonCemetery. In the mid 1850s, officials decided London burial should take place outside the city limits, as space for burial sites was becoming increasingly scarce.

The legislation that came in to protect the disturbance of remains in the 1850s was for a specific reason, I mean, creating the problems we’ve got now, of graveyards being full,cemeteries being full, and cemeteries being unsustainable. Therefore, we have to go, move forward to reusing graves.

Well that may not be an ideal solution for many. It will mean at least that the Londoners buried here will not meet the same fate as their 14th century counterparts.