Forbidden History - Medieval Autopsy: Mystery of the St. Bees Man - Pt. 1

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Who was the St. Bees Man? In part one of this episode, we explore the incredible story of the Cumbrian Knight who was discovered in a lead shroud in 1981. With his body coated in beeswax, the man was found in a near perfect state of preservation... but how? Cast List: Tim Sutherland: Archaeologist, University of York Chris Robson: Local Expert Deirdre O’Sullivan: Archaeologist, University of Leicester Ian McAndrew: Local GP Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. An unknown grave, a sealed lead coffin, a man's identity forgotten to history, an archaeological discovery as unsettling as it was astounding. I remember just looking and just thinking,

Oh my God. Forensic science and detective work combined to solve a mystery 600 years in the making. Who was the man in the lead? In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we explore a fascinating story from the medieval world

from between the 5th and the 15th century. We're joined by Tim Sutherland, who is one of Britain's most exciting, experienced archaeologists. He and a team of specialists tried to understand medieval life by exploring the realm of the medieval dead. We have a classic view of the storybook medieval life.

We don't hear the stories about the common man trying to keep his family alive. In our stores there are hundreds, if not thousands, of skeletons. Archaeologically speaking, we can now focus in on the medieval dead people. You're looking for clues in the skeletons. who's in the skeleton all the time. You couldn't help almost look through their eyes thinking,

what did they see? How did they die? In 1981, the tiny hamlet of St. Bees in Northern England became the scene of an astonishing archaeological discovery. A body was found buried in a vault for hundreds of years. But instead of skeletonized remains, what they found was a shrouded, solid corpse. nothing like it had ever been seen before.

It was extraordinarily well preserved, and it provided a unique opportunity telling us what life and death were like in medieval times. Who was St. B's man? The borderlands between England and Scotland have a turbulent and violent history. The medieval times were no exception. Raiding and conflict were facts of life for the people on either side, even as far south as the English Lake District. In the early years of the 14th century, land-owning families here bore the brunt of war with

Scotland's William Wallace and Robert Bruce. At St. Bees on the Cumbria coast lies one of the largest priory churches in the north of England. In medieval times it was an important place, busy with monastic life and large estates across the rugged hills. In 1981, it became the scene of an amazing archaeological discovery. A routine excavation was drawing to a close. Trainee archaeologists had uncovered a dozen or so graves of medieval monks or priors. Simple burials, just skeletons remained, as expected after centuries in the ground. But then, they found something entirely unexpected.

They came across the remains of an earth-filled burial vault deep beneath the priory's parking lot. It held two burials. One was a skeleton like the rest, but the other was in a lead coffin. The trainees had no way yet of knowing, but they'd made the archaeological find of a lifetime. A man buried hundreds of years before, yet preserved as though he died only weeks ago. The discovery of St. Bees Man became known among academics, but in an era before today's mass media, it hardly made the news outside the local area. When Tim Sutherland first heard it, the story had already become the stuff of archaeological legend. I remember when I first heard about the St. Bees Man's story, it was fascinating in that it hit headlines, it was really big news, everybody was very excited, then it sort of faded away.

and it became less famous, less well known, almost disappeared from the background of archaeological literature, etc. And then a few years ago, somebody came to me and said, have you seen this video of the autopsy? I thought, this is amazing, it's 700 years old, an autopsy of an individual rather than a skeleton. And so I looked at the video and I thought,

this is unbelievable. We need to know more about this individual. We need to find out more, and therefore we need to take it away from the underground sort of anonymity of it and back into the public perception about what happened, how important it was, can we find out anything more about it? Tim heads to St. Bees to find out more about the story.

Ian McAndrew and Chris Robson are on hand to show him the dig site. The 1981 excavation wasn't the first. They remember how the investigations began originally on open ground near the Priory Church. Basically it starts with the dig, doesn't it? One over in Pradesh Paddock? Yes, the first two. Yes. What you always that was that?

179. So there was a dig here before they found anything significant. They were digging around the Priory. There were two digs over in Prerty. There were two digs over in Pradesh. Right, so what did they find? Did they find any structures? A lot of water.

They were looking for the original monastic buildings on that side. In practice, they didn't find very much of any interest. And then they came in the summer that it only rained, wasn't it? And they said over there it was hopeless. So they came here and thought, well, okay, here's a car park. It'll be drier for a start. It'll be drier. They was trying to find stuff here.

And it was hopeless because they had to go down about three feet. Well, at least that. Then they got down to the monastic burial level and found a prior, bones of a prior with a chalice. But were they quite condensed in terms of the number of burials per... Yeah, I think there were about 12 of burials, I remember right now. The parking lot area had once been the site of the medieval priory's south chancel. Little was known about this, apart from when it was demolished.

This enabled the archaeologists to establish a rough date for the burial of the lead coffin. This was a South chancel, and that south chancel fell down in about 1,500. So in fact you would say, okay, this body has to predate 1500. Right. Because you want to bury somebody outside in that manner. That's right. But it wasn't outside.

But the Chancellor had fallen down. So you're almost on that bit of paper, say age, unknown, but pre-1500. Tim has seen the site as it is today. But to learn exactly what the dig uncovered, Tim visits the University of Leicester. Deirdre O'Sullivan was the lead archaeologist. The original dig plans and drawings are a mine. are a mine of information. So who excavated

St. Vizmann? Was that you? Well, a variety of people uncovered the coffin. We had to lift it first, and that was quite a big job because it was very, very heavy. And so it was lifted out of the vault and then taken to a space just off-site,

and then Malcolm opened it up. And I heard this, ah! And then there was a strange smell that wafted over the faces, the smell wafted over the air, and the faces of people all went, and I remember just looking and just thinking,

oh my God, because when he lifted the coffin lid, or the bit that he'd cut off, there was this body in a shroud, and I had no idea, no expectation at all. Ian McAndrew, who is a local doctor who is standing on the spoil heap with great stamina filming it all,

he made the suggestion that the local morgue in West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven might be able to accommodate It was realized that something had to be done to preserve this, but they didn't have any facilities to do so. And it was lucky that I happened to be there that day because I had contacts in the hospital through professional contacts. So I said, excuse me, I know where there's a big fridge. It's lucky Ian McAndrew was present that day for another reason. He had with him his Super 8 home movie camera, but he had little idea that this would enable him to capture.

a unique moment during the excavation. I don't know, didn't always carry the Super 8 camera with me. So I had some inclination or indication that there was a significant find, and I took the camera down with me for that. I must admit that I didn't expect what we didn't find. Ian's footage is a priceless record of the moment the heavy lead coffin was lifted from the grave. This is the other side of that dig area where they found various monastic burglades. I've seen the pictures of the autopsy, but this is...

To actually watch an excavation from 1981 is fantastic, but of an excavation that's so important is unbelievable. I can't believe that you or anybody else have the foresight to walk up to that site and start taking a cinefilm of it. I think at this stage we probably didn't realize how important it was because we hadn't opened the coffin. True. It wasn't until we opened it.

The panic started in a way. Dirdreau Sullivan and the crowd of villagers look on transfixed, as the coffin is opened for the first time in nearly 700 years. So St. B's Man is lying there, the lead has been peeled off the top, and you can see him, and you can see the state of the preservation in terms of the lead and the cord. So it's unbelievable, really. It was now that Ian's suggestion of the big fridge led to the bar,

led to the body being sent to a nearby hospital morgue. It was a race against time to preserve the corpse before it began to decompose. But as they found out, hospital red tape couldn't be bypassed. It was slightly bizarre because, of course, the hospital mortuary technician insisted on going through the normal procedure of admitting a body ship and asking her name, don't know, place of death,

Well, we found him in certain B's, but we don't know where he died. Age, no idea. But he was found just yesterday. But we think it must be at least 700 years old. And so it went on trying to fit this thing into modern admission techniques, which resulted in a somewhat bizarre conversation at the hospital. The hospital photographic department had a eumatic video camera, state-of-the-art for 1981,

As well as Ian's footage of the coffin opening, there would also now be an audiovisual record of something completely unique, the autopsy of a man, his body miraculously preserved, who had lived and died almost seven centuries before. Dr. Eddie Tapp performed the post-mortem. Ian McAndrew and Deirdre O'Sullivan were both present. Right from the start, they were all staggered. at the degree of preservation they found. When he was finally exposed and you saw his face,

it was really amazement that it was so well preserved. The fact that you could still see the pupils, you could see the iris. And there were details that you could see in this body that to find them in something that had been buried for so many years was really quite astounding. This was the face of a medieval man. He was about 40 years old. His beard and skin were stained by thick pine resin

that had been smeared all over the linen shroud. Archaeologists are used to skeletons, but this was something entirely different. I dug up dozens of skeletons myself, planned and recorded them and I've dug up some more since. At no time have I ever encountered anything like soft tissue, never mind a preserved body, and my expectation would be that such a thing was not within,

to put it mildly, the normal run of events of what you'd expect to find in a medieval cemetery. Deirdre could only look on as the autopsy continued. It seemed the remarkable state of preservation wasn't confined to the body's exterior. Ian and the pathologists looked inside the chest cavity. Just have a look at the head. It's not blood.

Liquid. red blood, hardly congealed, still visible inside a centuries-old cadaver. An important clue as to the cause of the man's death. The liver was sliced in two or three places. First slice, second slice, third slice. And the last slice was pink. The slice that had been done first, which was probably, I don't know, maybe a minute or so earlier, was brown. So you could really, as you You could see this slow color change from going from pink through to brown. And this was the effect of the oxygen in there, oxidizing the tissues. From the internal organs and intestines they found no disease or infection.

And from the stomach contents, they could discern his last meal. Oats and raisins, a kind of porridge or oatmeal. The man had been in good health at the time of death. But it's when they looked at the man's bones that they began to be. and to gain a clearer insight into how he might have died. His jaw was fractured in two places. So he had received a blow to his jaw. He'd had these fractured ribs, so he must have received a blow

to this chest cavity. So these were the two main injuries that he had. The fractured ribs and the blood found inside the chest cavity were clues as to a probable cause of death. The fractured ribs he had, had actually punctured the lung, or the lining of the lung. A pneumothorix, as the condition is called, is likely to be fatal if it's not treated fairly promptly.

It can survive it, but it's unlikely. In the case of St. B's man, he'd not only had the pneumothorax, but he'd also been bleeding into the chest cavity. So he had a hemothorax as well. And this is really what killed him. Fractured jaw, fractured ribs, a punctured lung. His death had been painful. But how had it happened?

There was no obvious indicator as to how the injuries had been caused. Massive blunt force trauma, yet no direct evidence of a weapon such as a blade or a spear. But there was hardly time to speculate before procedure had to be followed and the body returned to the grave. It couldn't occupy the morgue in West Cumberland Hospital in the expense of the National Health Service. And we certainly didn't have any facilities in Leicester for that. So it seemed the best thing to do. With simple ceremony, the man in the lead was reinterred at St. Bees,

where he still lies to this day. But who he was remained a mystery. Though the forensic research was over, the historical was just beginning. Local historian John Todd was driving the history, driven by the question at the mortuary. Name, please. A lead coffin buried beneath a Cumbrian chapel, a body almost completely intact, untouched by time.

The discovery of the St. B's man is as extraordinary as it is puzzling. But the real mystery is just beginning. In part two, we begin the search for his identity, piecing together the life of a man, the world forgot. So please join us next time for the final part of this story. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, please be sure to follow for more. We post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Don't forget to leave a comment below, and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. And for more from the Like a Shot Network, check out where did everyone go, Histories of the Abandoned, a deep dive into the incredible stories behind

forgotten places. Available now on your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for listening.