Bankside Open Spaces Trust, working with the Friends of Crossbones, opened the graveyard as a memorial garden. Transport for London (which owns the land) granted a three-year “meanwhile” lease, leading to further campaigns and fundraising to ensure the graveyard’s survival.
The Crossbones monthly vigils began. Taking place at 7pm on the 23rd of every month, the ceremony (“for all faiths and none”) gathers at the gates with candles, incense, poems and music. People come to honour both those interred in the graveyard and anyone who identifies as an outcast.
The first Halloween procession to Crossbones to honour "the outcast dead" took place following the production of a play, "The Southwark Mysteries", at Southwark Cathedral. Led by local playwright and poet John Constable, processors were invited to tie ribbons, trinkets and messages to the gates that border the site. They also lit candles and sang.
The site was disturbed during the construction of London Underground's Jubilee line. Archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology Service excavated 148 skeletons which, they estimated, accounted for less than 1% of the total burials. Locals established a campaign to save the site from development and stop further removal of human remains.
The burial ground on Red Cross Street (later Redcross Way) opened as a paupers’ graveyard for St. Saviour's parish. It remained open for nearly a century until it was completely full and deemed a threat to public health and decency.
The historian John Stow referred to a “single woman’s churchyard” in north Southwark. According to local lore, this plot of ground was located away from the parish church as a place to bury women who worked in the brothels and were denied a Christian burial. The precise location of the ground is not given.
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