Viking-era ship (re)discovered?

A 1,000-year-old Viking longship is thought to have been discovered under a pub car park on Merseyside.

The vessel is believed to lie beneath 6ft to 10ft (2m to 3m) of clay by the Railway Inn in Meols, Wirral, where Vikings are known to have settled.

From the BBC. So why did they pay for a ground-penetrating radar survey?

The ship was first uncovered in 1938 when the Railway Inn was being knocked down and rebuilt further from the road, the site of the old pub being made into a car park.

Workers were advised by the foreman to cover the ship over again so as not to delay construction.

I wonder how many other finds could be made by researching similar stories.

ADDENDUM: A bit more background from the Times:

Archaeologists believe they have found the only intact Viking boat in Britain beneath the patio of a Merseyside pub. The 10th-century vessel was discovered in the 1930s by builders excavating the basement of the Railway Inn on the Wirral peninsula, but they covered it up because they feared an archaeological dig would disrupt their work.

The boat would have been forgotten had one of the builders not reported his discovery to his son, who passed the information on to academics at Nottingham University.

Posted by David on September 10, 2007 10:17 PM