SIR -- I read with interest about the proposed search for a Civil War burial pit in the grounds of Worcester Cathedral.

There is indeed a "burial-pit" close to the cathedral.

It is under College Yard and was originally the chapel of the Charnal House.

As a teenage sea cadet bounty boy' I was a night time fire watcher' at the cathedral supervised by the then clerk of the works, Reg Smith.

In 1941 he took myself and a friend to a sub-basement (below the normal basement) beneath number 10 College Yard where an arch, partly protruding from the earth floor, had recently been opened up sufficiently to allow access to the chapel.

This was crammed from floor to a few feet from the ceiling with human bones, skulls and so on, and with lime scattered over them.

They were filled so high that it was possible, when standing on them, to touch the groining of the roof and, as I recall it from 60 years ago was an L' shaped chamber.

Mr Smith, who had an immense knowledge of the cathedral, said that the bones were placed in this ancient chapel after being unearthed when College Street was built through the old cathedral burial ground in the 1790s.

Surely Civil War remains could be among them?

L K EDWARDS, Worcester.