Dead House

The deadhouse was built by public subscription in 1826, it's a square ashlar vault with a crenellated parapet that stands a short distance from the 'back-stile' (right), a pedestrian entrance in the north wall of the churchyard. It served as a store-house for corpses for up to six weeks in summer and three months in winter before burial.

 

The inscription above the door reads 'Erected for securing the dead' with the date in Latin, 'ANN DOM MDCCCXXVI'.

 

In the early 19th century body-snatching was a highly lucrative trade, with large sums of money being paid for the delivery of fresh corpses to university anatomy departments for dissection by medical students. (Legally procured corpses were restricted to bodies of criminals who had been hanged.) Corpses had to be fresh, and the object of the deadhouse was to allow the bodies to decay sufficiently before burial to have absolutely no monetary value.