The remains of 62 people buried in the cemetery of the former Lion Terrace Chapel at Gilwern have been removed as part of the dualling of the A465 Heads of the Valleys road.

Construction firm Costain was given permission to exhume and rebury an ‘unknown number’ of remains by the Ministry of Justice in September under The Disused Burial Grounds (Amendment) Act 1981.

Lion Terrace Primitive Methodist Chapel has since been demolished.

Experts from Wessex Archaeology, Costain’s specialist contractor, exhumed the remains from the marked and unmarked graves by hand before they were placed in individual caskets and taken by private ambulance to a local chapel of rest.

During the exhumations the site team kept the local Methodist Minister and congregation fully informed of progress.

The former chapel was built in 1838 and may have gone out of use as early as 1900.

Going by the information found on the cemetery’s remaining headstones, the team had expected to uncover the remains of ten to twelve people but in the event they found five times as many, from graves dating back to the 1800s.

The five headstones salvaged from the old cemetery bear the names of four adults and six children - including Thomas Watkins, who died aged ten months on St David’s Day, March 1, 1847.

Costain says the remains will be reburied at the Monmouthshire County Council cemetery next to St Elli Church. A service will be organised at the cemetery for the first reburial and a prayer service when all have been reinterred.