ARCHAEOLOGISTS are disappointed after finding no more skeletons since the discovery of human remains at what was believed to be an historic burial ground in Worcester.

Employees at The Commandery thought more bodies might be discovered, after two, dating from the late mediaeval period were dug up on Wednesday, January, 14.

It was hoped the area, underneath the museum's staff room had always been used as a graveyard and would reveal skeletons back to the site's early Saxon period, around 700.

But after digging to around a depth of six feet, no further bodies were discovered and the area has now been refilled.

"This site was definitely used as a graveyard, because of the way the current bodies were positioned," said James Din, archaeologist at Worcestershire County Council.

"We're sifting through the latest soil remains but unfortunately there are no more skeletons."

The unearthed bodies were the first human remains found at the Civil War centre in Sidbury, and are thought to date from when the site was a monastic hospital.

They were laid next to each other in prepared graves and possibly died between the mid-1400s to 1500.

Archaeologist James Goad found the bodies, after an exploratory dig for the possible siting of a disabled lift.

Underneath the skeletons he discovered a mortar surface and earlier cobbled surface, but no further objects or remains.

He said the one skeleton was probably male, stood just over 5ft tall, around the average height for that time.

Its well-ground teeth suggested a coarse diet, probably made up mainly of root vegetables, wheat and pulses.

This was the basic foodstuff of the poor, only the rich were able to gorge on a meat diet. The monastic hospital would have been used as a place to treat the sick, home the elderly and provide lodgings for travellers.

Mr Goad is currently working on a second trench, near to the canal at Diglis.

One of the skeletons has been removed for further studies and the other reburied.