Peter,
the pits near Dundry are the ones by me.
ITS true that bodies from ancient burials were discovered by workmen in 1955 when excavations were started for the foundations of Lewis's store - which opened two years later in Broadmead Bristol.
This was not unexpected as this area had anciently been part of the vast churchyard of St James, the oldest medieval church in the city. Because screens were put up, rumours soon spread around the city that these bodies were those of plague victims — buried outside the churchyard.
Some of them may have died of some sort of plague — rather than the plague, which decimated at least a third of Bristol's population in medieval times — but most would have died of illness or just old age.
The real plague victims were not buried in the city — that would have put other people at risk — but were carried off at night by cart to large specially-dug plague pits near Dundry and the bodies covered with quicklime.