rust 343 - a poignant memorial to Nasra Ismail at the "Cross Bones" burial ground, Soutwark, London

Nasra Ismail, who was murdered in March 2004, was unrecognisable from the loving mother and wife mourned by her family. the 27-year-old, a refugee from war-torn Somalia, was lost to them after she got sucked into a squalid life of prostitution to fund her addiction to crack cocaine

it was a sad, pathetic and horrific case which illustrated the depths to which both the killer and his victim sank while in the grip of crack addiction

a 55-year-old man, Daniel Archer, was jailed for life for the murder of Nasra whose body he cut up and left in his brother's flat before taking it on a bus and dumping it in a canal

Detective Superintendent Maureen Boyle, who led the police inquiry, praised several women who gave evidence against him and said: "Archer has shown himself to be a violent and manipulative sexual predator who deliberately targeted vulnerable women; he targeted women who he believed would be unable to speak out against him."

 

 

Cross Bones is a post-medieval disused burial ground in The Borough, Southwark, south London, in what is now known as Redcross Way.

 

it is believed to have been established originally as an unconsecrated graveyard for "single women," a euphemism for prostitutes, known locally as "Winchester Geese," because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within the Liberty of the Clink. the Liberty lay outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, and as a consequence it became known for its brothels and theatres, as well as bull and bear baiting, activities not permitted within the City itself.

the age of the graveyard is unknown - John Stow (1525–1605) wrote of it in A Survey of London in 1598 calling it the "single Woman's churchyard." by 1769, it had become a pauper's cemetery servicing the poor of St. Saviour's parish; up to 15,000 people are believed to have been buried there.

the historian and antiquarian John Stow wrote: “I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial, if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church.”

it was closed in 1853 because it was "completely overcharged with dead," and further burials were deemed "inconsistent with a due regard for the public health and public decency."  Southwark poet and playwright John Constable writes that, in 1883, the land was sold as a building site, prompting an objection from Lord Brabazon in a letter to The Times, asking that the land be saved from "such desecration." Constable writes that the sale was declared null and void the following year under the Disused Burial Grounds Act 1884, and that subsequent attempts to develop the site were opposed by local people, as was its brief use as a fairground

excavations were conducted on the land by the Museum of London Archaeology Service between 1991 and 1998 in connection with the construction of London Underground's Jubilee Line. Southwark Council reports that the archaeologists found a highly overcrowded graveyard with bodies piled on top of one another. tests showed those buried had suffered from smallpox, tuberculosis, Paget's disease, osteoarthritis, and vitamin D deficiency. a dig in 1992 uncovered 148 graves, dating from between 1800 and 1853. over one third of the bodies were perinatal (between 22 weeks gestation and seven days after birth). a further 11 percent were under one year old. the adults were mostly women aged 36 years and older.

beginning in 1996, local writer John Constable revived the story of Cross Bones as part of the Southwark Mysteries which is a cycle of poems and mystery plays inspired, he writes, by the spirit of a "Winchester Goose" and "the outcast dead". the work has been performed in Shakespeare's Globe and in Southwark Cathedral. interest generated by The Southwark Mysteries inspired the Cross Bones Halloween festival, celebrated every year since 1998 with a procession, candles and songs

the burial ground is now established as a site of local importance: Southwark Council nominated it for a blue plaque in 2005. an informal local group, Friends of Cross Bones, is campaigning for a permanent memorial garden, and is instrumental in the halloween events. the gates in Redcross Way are permanently decorated by a changing array of messages, ribbons, flowers and other tokens, like that for Nasra Ismail