SL15 was buried beneath the floor a a medieval church associated with a hospital dedicated to St Leonard. The hospital complex was situated in what is now Northumberland Park, between Tynemouth and North Shields, on the main road from Newcastle to Tynemouth. The hospital's name survives in the place name Spital Dene, and it is first mentioned in an assize roll of 1293 referring to "the bridge of the hospital of Saint Leonard." Medieval hospitals were commonly sited close to bridges, allowing residents to collect alms from travellers passing through.

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The site was first disturbed in the nineteenth century. In 1885, when the Duke of Northumberland gave the land for a park and workmen were laying it out, they rediscovered the hospital, uncovering tiled and stone-paved floors, two stone coffins, a limestone brass matrix, worked stones, and a few skeletons and grave covers.

Modern archaeological investigation came in three phases between 2011 and 2014, organised as a community archaeology project with Heritage Lottery Fund support. Excavation uncovered the foundations of the hospital church, with stonework of the west door identified as early twelfth century, suggesting the church was built around the same time as the rebuilding of Tynemouth Monastery after 1110. High-status cream, brown, and green medieval floor tiles were recovered, evidence of leaded windows, elaborate carved stonework, substantial roof tiles, and pottery. More than 70 skeletons were revealed. There is also evidence of an earlier church building on the site, predating the twelfth-century structure. The latest recorded burial at the hospital was in 1708, and by later in the eighteenth century the buildings were described as ruins in pasture land.

SL15's burial within the church itself - rather than in the surrounding cemetery - is a mark of high status, suggests strongly that he was a person of some standing within his community.