Plague Pits

The site of a 17^th century plague pit. Vinegar Alley, Walthamstow.
Places like Walthamstow were at the time considered to be outside London, and very much the countryside.
The graveyard to the North of Vinegar Alley, away from St
Mary’s Church and beyond the Almshouses was where the survivors of the Great Plague of London dumped the bodies of the dead.
Also called Vinegar Lane it is a very old pathway dating from the mediaeval period and probably got its name from the fact that in St. Mary’s churchyard there are two mass graves, one of them was for victims of the Black Death (c. 1347) and the other for those of The Great Plague of 1665.
Vinegar Alley is so named because they lined the surrounding paths with the only plentiful thing they had that warded off the diseaseor so they thoughtvinegar.
At the start of the plague outbreak, parishes did the best they could to provide proper burials for their parishoners, but soon ran out of space and began to dig mass graves within the city. However, the plague was so devastating that soon, in late 1665, the group graves began to be dug outside the city. Mentioned in Pepy’s Diary are deaths and not wanting to send people to common graves but the churchyard.
The church in Walthamstow village. First record of the church is in 1109 but the present building is later and also listed Grade II. The church yard area includes two plague pits — one from Black Death of 1348 and other dating from the 1665. The adjacent street is still called Vinegar Alley.