Background to the project

In 1986, University of Leicester tutor David Baldwin presented this paper to Leicester Archaeological and Historical Society identifying the Leicester City Council Social Services car park at Greyfriars as the most likely location of the grave of Richard III (provided that it had not been destroyed during any of the 19th/20th building work in that space).

For the next 25 years, historians knew the likely broad location of Richard’s grave but no serious consideration was given to an exhumation, not least because there would be no way to conclusively identify any remains unearthed.

The publication in 2011 of John Ashdown-Hill’s book The Last Days of Richard III provided a possible solution: the identification a female-line descendant of Richard’s sister, whose mitochondrial DNA could be matched against that of any remains found.

In March of that year, Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society approached University of Leicester Archaeological Services (a commercial service owned by the University) about employing ULAS to conduct an archaeological exploration of the Greyfriars site (and possibly locate Richard’s grave). However, the Society was only able to provide a proportion of the nearly £50,000 required.

Agreement was reached between the Richard III Society, the University of Leicester and Leicester City Council to jointly fund the dig with the largest part of the funding coming from the University. The full statement of costs has been published online.