Hunt on for the grave of Richard III: The Church of England Newspaper, September 16, 2012 p 4

The earliest surviving portrait of Richard III (c. 1520, after a lost original), in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, London

Archaeologists believe they may have found the lost grave of Richard III under a council car park in Leicester.

On 7 September 2012 the University of Leicester’s public affairs office reported that members of the Greyfriars project had uncovered the lost garden of Robert Herrick, the supposed site of the grave of Richard III.

This was “an astonishing discovery and a huge step forward in the search for King Richard’s grave.” said Philippa Langley from the Richard III Society.

The last of the Plantagenet kings, Richard III (1452-1485) ruled for two years until his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.  After the battle he was interred in Greyfriars Church in in Leicester, but the location of the church and the grave were lost over time.

In the early 1600s, Alderman Robert Herrick, a mayor of Leicester, bought the Greyfriars church from the Crown and built a large mansion house with a garden on the site. In 1612, Christopher Wren, father of the famous architect, during a visit to Leicester recorded in his diary seeing a three foot stone pillar in Herrick’s garden with the inscription: “Here lies the body of Richard III sometime King of England.”

In 1711 Herrick’s descendants sold the house, which was pulled down in 1870 and in the 1930s the city council built a car park on the site.

The modern hunt for Richard III’s final resting place began Aug. 25, when a team of archaeologists led by Richard Buckley began excavating the parking lot, uncovering floor and roof tiles, and window tracery fragments.

Dr. Buckley said they believe the tracery fragments came from the east window of the church, near the high altar, which itself is near the choir where Richard III was said to have been buried.

“Having overcome the major hurdle of finding the church, I am now confident that we are within touching distance of finding the choir — a real turning point in the project and a stage which, at the outside, I never really thought we might reach,” Dr. Buckley said.

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.