Historian Martyn Taylor explores the origins of The Charnel House, in the Great Churchyard, Bury St Edmunds
Tour guide, historian and author Martyn Taylor continues his in-depth look at the history of Bury St Edmunds. This week he turns his attention to The Charnel House, in the Great Churchyard.
Once known as Le Charnel, this bone depository chapel was founded in 1300 by Abbot John De Northwold (1279-1301), of the Abbey of St Edmund.
It came about when he saw a new grave was being dug but an occupier was already there, their skeletal remains, in his own words, were ‘indecently cast forth and left’.
His remedy was to build a two-storey rubble flint-walled chapel with stone dressings and a crypt to house the bones from those disturbed graves. Two dedicated chamberlains/monks were to say prayers over them on a weekly basis.
The Chapel of the Charnel is one of only a handful of such examples in this country. European culture may refer to them as ossuaries or even catacombs – those under Paris are quite amazing.
So the preservation of discarded skeletal remains was the reason for the existence of the Charnel House, serving the parishes of St James and St Mary’s. With the dissolution of the abbey in 1539 this facility was no longer in use – there were no monks to say prayers for the dead. Subsequently it would become, among other things, a blacksmith’s forge and, of all things, an ale house!
Prominent banker John Spink, who died in 1794, sought to purchase Le Charnel for his own family mausoleum, unfortunately his bank crashed before the completion of the purchase. A noble portrait of him holding the conveyance documents hangs in the Guildhall.
In 1844, some poor soul had the fright of their life when they fell through the floor of the chapel onto a two-foot (‘scuse the pun) high bed of bones. Surrounded by skulls, ribs, scapulas, tibias, fibulas et al, it must have been a horrific experience.
Though it may seem contradictory, years ago the dead were more reverentially cared for, burials the norm, cremations uncommon. However, at the fifth-to-seventh century Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Long Meadow, off Westgarth Gardens in Bury, four cremations were found.
For hundreds of years the church considered that a body had to be complete for it to arise on the day of judgement. Consequently, before 1884 cremations were not legal in this country, however, after an act of parliament was passed in 1885, the first official recognised disposal of a body in this way was allowed.
However, the idea of having your loved ones returned to you via an urn did not catch on in the UK.
In 1900, a meagre 0.07 per cent of the population were cremated, rising to 3.85 per cent in1940. Post-war, possibly because of a higher death rate, this figure rose to 15.59 per cent. Astonishingly, in 2022 it was 79.83 per cent.
This figure could represent rising burial costs and a lack of burial plots or just the fact that funeral directors can arrange a cremation far quicker than an actual burial. There have certainly been a proliferation of crematoriums catering for the needs of the community because, by the year 2000, there were 242 across the country. There are now two serving West Suffolk at Risby.
THE PERIMETER OF THE CHARNEL HOUSE
Now enclosed by cast-iron spearhead railings, sitting on a low brick wall, the Chapel of the Charnel, located in the Great Churchyard in Bury, is a scheduled monument but is also Grade I-listed, this was in August 1952.
Internally there are some blank wall plaques, but it is around the outside where there are several interesting plaques and inscriptions.
On a headstone to the left of the entrance, complete with angelic cherubs, is an inscription to Sarah Worton which says: “Good People, all as you Pas by, looke round See how corpes do lye For, as you are somtime Ware We And as we are so must you be.”
Other plaques are to: John Boldero, gargantuan landlord of the Angel Hotel; Mary Haselton, who struck down by lightning while saying her prayers at the tender age of nine; Henry Cockton, erstwhile Victorian author; and Bartholomew Gosnold, founder of Jamestown in 1607.
Gosnold’s daughter Martha (Martha’s Vineyard) is buried somewhere in the Great Churchyard – where is not known – but the plaque was erected in 2007, just in time for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.
Apart from Mary Haselton, perhaps the saddest memorial is to that of Sarah Lloyd, a victim of misogyny. Her co-burglar, Joseph Clark, got off scot-free, but she felt the full force of the judicial system in 1799 when found guilty of burglarising her employer’s home in Hadleigh.
Incidentally, the term scot-free literally means exempt from tax; it has since been broadened to indicate exempt from punishment.
REST OF THE GREAT CHURCHYARD – A BRIEF SUMMARY
When the Government decided in 1854 that burials were no longer to be carried out in urban areas, such as town centres, because of hygiene regulations, the Great Churchyard was closed, although family plots could still have recently deceased members interred.
Examples of this were that of William Chapman, who died February 1872, and his wife Harriet, in December 1891, perhaps the last burials here as their infant son William Mortlock Chapman, who sadly died aged 22 months on April 9, 1846, predeceased them. The oldest tombs with recognisable dates are to the Bourne family 1637-38.
The Great Churchyard had been in use since 1148 and was purchased by ‘Mr Bury St Edmunds’ of the day, James Oakes, in 1798 for £330 before eventually being given to the corporation.
Land for the new cemetery, in Field Lane/Cemetery Road/Kings Road, was purchased by the corporation in1855 from the executors of the estate of George Brown, of Tostock, as part of the Westfield Farm Estate, with the cemetery opening on October 1.
