The Most Macabre Objects in London's Churches - An In-Depth Guided Tour

Hi, I'm Jessica the Museum Guide, and today I'm not inside the museum. Instead, I'm going to take you on a tour of some of the strangest, spookiest, and most macabre items in London churches, just in time for Halloween. We'll start our tour at the Hardy Tree, surrounded by stacked up tombstones. Then we'll go see the death bell rung before public executions at Newgate Prison. We'll head outside to see a watchtower built to catch body snatchers, and then an iron coffin at St. Bride's. We'll see a horrific statue of St. Bartholomew holding his own skin, before visiting a memento mori at Charles Dickens' favourite church. Then it's off to St. James' Garlic Hive to visit Jimmy Garlic, a mummy, before we end our tour at the oldest Catholic church in England to see a reliquary containing an uncorrupted hand. Remember to like and subscribe, and please leave me a comment and let me know if you've ever seen anything spooky, strange, or macabre in a church. I'm always looking for new museums and heritage sites to visit, so leave me a comment and let me know where you think I should go next. We're starting our tour today at St. Pancras Old Church, not only one of the oldest churches in London, but said to be one of the oldest sites in English Christendom. It's just a stone's throw from King's Cross and St. Pancras stations, but it's truly a different world. Let's start our tour at this unbelievable site. This is an ash tree surrounded by hundreds of old gravestones, which some say were placed here by novelist Thomas Hardy when he was working as an architectural assistant. So how did these weathered gravestones, most of them from the late 18th century and early 19th century, get into this strange pattern layered around the tree? Well it all dates back to the railway mania that exploded across the country in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s. London soon began outgrowing its earliest railway lines, and in order to accommodate new commuters, it was decided to expand St. Pancras station. There was only one problem, this ancient church and its massive graveyard were in the way. Architecture firm Arthur Blomfield of Covent Garden were hired to exhume the remains and then rebury them elsewhere, and the task of organizing this grim relocation was left to their youngest employee, who in the following decades would publish many classic novels such as Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D'Ubervilles. After he finished having the bones and corpses removed, he was saddened by the remaining headstones. Though some suggested that the headstones should just be destroyed or maybe just placed in a stack, the ever romantic Hardy wanted to preserve them. He placed them in a would not be disturbed by the railway. The site has since become an icon of the grotesque, a pinnacle of Victorian Gothic aesthetic here in London. But after all of that lore, there's actually no evidence that Hardy had really anything to do with the Hardy tree. We know he did work on the project, but some people doubt the fact that it was his idea to put the stones here. Some people even say that the tree grew later through the center of the stacked stones. Sadly, I've heard rumors that the Hardy tree might have some kind of disease, and that's why it's currently blocked off. You used to be able to go right up to it, but I still recommend coming here to visit. You can really spend a long time in this graveyard visiting the famous monuments and soaking in the very autumnal atmosphere. Now let's head inside the church for a few moments. It is said to have existed since 314, though the evidence for this date is quite scant. When the church was rebuilt in 1847, replacing a Tudor church, builders did discover Norman columns, an inscribed altar stone dating to 625, and Roman tiles, so it really could be from the 4th century. Here's an icon of St. Pancras. St. Pancras was a Roman boy who converted to Christianity and was beheaded for his faith around the year 304 when he was just 14 years old. The Hardy tree isn't the only interesting thing here at the churchyard of St. Pancras Old Church. There's also the memorial to Sir John Soane, who's famous for Sir John Soane's Museum. Let me know if you'd like to see a video about that strange and wonderful place. You can see the famous Soane Mausoleum here, which Sir John Soane designed for his wife Elizabeth. It's actually said to have inspired the iconic London red phone box, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. This graveyard was also the site of the courtship between Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Of course, Mary Shelley would go on to write Frankenstein, and Percy Shelley was a famous English romantic poet. It's here though, near her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's grave, that they planned their elopement. Some even say they consummated their relationship here, although of course I would never say that. We're now at St. Sepulchre without Newgate, which is modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. And this area also has an infamous association with imprisonment and execution, which used to occur across the street, right where I'm standing now. That's because Newgate prison was once here. It was destroyed, extended, and rebuilt many times between 1118 and 1902. Today, this more modern building, the Central Criminal Court, nicknamed the Old Bailey, occupies much of the old prison site. Prior to 1783, public hangings, which were big attractions, were moved to this site from the Tyburn Gallows, which had previously been a tree, to clear up space for the redevelopment of Hyde Park. It turns out that a tree full of dead men is not the most relaxing attraction in your pleasure garden, at least if you're Queen Charlotte. Between 1783 and 1868, the hangings took place here, where I'm standing. This time period overlaps with the London Underground. Yes, that's correct. You could take the Underground to witness a public hanging. Puts it into perspective. Now that we know what was taking place across the street from the church, let's head inside to look at the bell rung outside the condemned man's cell the night before his grim fate. This bell was purchased for 50 pounds by a London merchant named John Dow in 1605, and he stated that it should only be used for one purpose. On the evening before a condemned man's execution, the bellmen of St. Sepulchre's church would ring this bell 12 times outside their cell. The only exception was for murderers. Dow didn't want them included. They had other fates in store, which we'll talk about very soon. After the bellman would ring the bell, he would read out, examine well yourselves in time repent, that you not to eternal flames be sent, and when St. Sepulchre's bell tomorrow tolls, the Lord above have mercy on your souls. There's actually a reference to this bell in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, and you can see it inside this church, which is usually open once per week. For the next item on our tour, we're actually staying right here at St. Sepulchre, but we're heading outside the church. See, the story of a hanged man doesn't end with the bell tolling and his death. No, for many years his body was even more vulnerable after his death. That's why this church installed a watch house, which is essentially a security guard's post here in 1791. It was considered such a delightful oddity that it was rebuilt after it was destroyed in the Blitz, even though it was no longer needed. Now, why would you need a security guard to look at a graveyard at night? Well, I should also tell you that we're directly across the street from Barts Hospital. We're going to talk about that a little bit later on, but at this point in history, in 1791, is exactly the same time that Barts Hospital opened its first medical school. Yes, if you were buried here in this graveyard, there was a very good chance that your body would be dug up by body snatchers. But just wait. Body snatchers actually preferred to be called the resurrection men. Resurrection men would dig up bodies buried in London's churchyard, take them to local pubs where the bodies would be put on display, and they would be bid on like quite a literal meat market by medical students. Any churchyard near a medical school or hospital was fair game, and these were the ones targeted most often by the resurrection men. That's why you can find watch houses like this one all across the country. Medical students at this point in history were just beginning the practice of autopsy. See, before the 1770s, 80s, and 90s, autopsy was considered ghoulish and macabre. See, physicians at that time in history very rarely cut into a living person's body, so there was no real need for autopsy to learn about internal medicine. They might prescribe you to go have your blood let, or give you specific prayers to say. But with an increase in medical knowledge and heading towards modern medicine, autopsy becomes more and more popular, no longer just for artists studying anatomy. Now, we did have a way for medical students to acquire corpses. In fact, the Murder Act of 1751 stipulated that the corpses of executed murderers could be used for dissection. But by the early 19th century, the rise of medical science and a lower number of executions meant that demand was outstripping supply. In 1832, the Anatomy Act went through Parliament to give license to doctors and anatomy students to dissect donated bodies. This didn't completely stop body snatching, but it did slow the trade down. Now, why would body snatchers do this job? They could earn a lot of money, up to 10 pounds, which could be a month's wages for a typical laborer, and that's just for one corpse. The most famous case of resurrection men, of course, is Burke and Hare. This occurred in Edinburgh, Scotland, over a period of about 10 months in 1828. William Burke and William Hare murdered 16 people and sold their bodies until they were eventually caught. Eventually, Hare snitched on Burke. Burke was hanged at a public hanging, and of course, he was autopsied. By the way, if you'd like to go and visit Burke, you certainly can. His skin was used to bind a book, which is currently on display at the Surgeon's Hall Museum in Edinburgh. Let me know if you'd like me to visit in the future. Now, of course, the resurrection men were greedy opportunists. They were just out to make money, but some of them did think of themselves as being men of science, and that due to their work, if you can call it that, modern science and medical advancements were possible. However, if it was you or your loved one who was having their body disturbed from their final resting place, you might think differently. I'm now approaching St. Bride's Church on Fleet Street. This church has a special surprise. There's a museum in the crypt. So, we've been talking about body snatchers, and here at St. Bride's, we're going to continue this theme. But first, let me tell you about this wonderful church. It was built by Sir Christopher Wren in the decade following the Great Fire of London in 1666. This was the tallest and most expensive church Wren ever built, second only to St. Paul's Cathedral. However, this is the eighth church to sit on this site since likely being built in the 6th century by Irish missionaries, and you can hear that in the name. St. Bridget or St. Bride is the second most popular Irish saint. But just think about that for a second. That means that this sits on the remnants of seven previous churches and crypts, as well as two medieval charnel houses, which are vaults for storing human bones once they're disinterred out of a full graveyard. Wren combined as many elements from the previous buildings as he could, but the site held some secrets that weren't uncovered until German bombs fell in 1940. The ancient crypt beneath the church had been used right up until the cholera epidemic of 1854 when Parliament ordered the closing of London crypts to stop the spread. At this point, the crypt beneath St. Bride's was sealed shut and subsequently forgotten, but the fires of the Blitz revealed 227 individually identified people interred since the 17th century, and a further 7,000 plus medieval human remains in the communal charnel house. And beneath all that, a Roman pavement, which you can see here. Now all of this is on display in the Crypt Museum beneath the church, which is open Monday to Saturday, and it's free to visit. While it's worth a visit to take in the entire experience, I want to draw your attention to an object directly related to the body snatchers. People came up with ingenious ways to protect themselves and their loved ones. The desire to provide, quote, safety for the dead, led many inventors to create increasingly ingenious inventions to stymie the resurrection men. One of them you'll see here, called a mortsafe. Now this particular mortsafe is in the churchyard of Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh. Kirk is the Scots word for church. However, I often see this very image in like Halloween BuzzFeed articles about how, quote, Victorians kept themselves safe from vampires. That couldn't be further from the truth. We didn't need to keep the living safe from the dead. We needed to keep the dead safe from the living. Another such invention was the iron coffin, patented in 1818 by one Edward Bridgman of Goswell Street Road. This iron coffin has a flange which, when engaged with spring clips in the lid, was designed to prevent the resurrectionists from getting inside. However, not every church would accept them. For instance, the church wardens at St Andrew's Church nearby refused to allow iron coffins in the graveyards because they wouldn't break down as quickly. In this case, the body was taken out and buried in a more traditional wooden coffin. However, the disgruntled relatives brought a lawsuit against the church, and the judge ruled in their favor. He also said that since such coffins took so much longer to disintegrate, the churches could charge a lot more for these burials. Due to the added cost, few people used iron coffins, and the practice soon petered out anyway with the advent of more modern medicine. We're really lucky that this one survived, and as I mentioned, you can come visit it for free in the Crypt Museum. Now we're heading towards St Bartholomew the Great, which is just a stone's throw from the Museum of London, which I'll cover soon. Have a look here. This entryway is a 13th-century stone arch with a half-timbered gatehouse above, so you can see that an opportunistic Tudor-era businessman partially covered the arch with his new house. This church is located in Smithfield, an area untouched by the Great Fire of London, and therefore home to some of the oldest buildings in all of the city, including this church. It's one of the few remaining Norman churches in the capital, first opened in 1123 under the reign of Henry I. It was founded by a monk called Reher, or Reherius, who had been Henry I's court jester, or some say just a nobleman. He was so distraught by the death of Queen Matilda and the drowning of Prince William that he went on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Bartholomew in Rome and had a vision. Some say he got malaria. And he came back here to build this church and found the hospital next door. We'll talk more about Reher in a few minutes. Now after the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the building was turned into a stable, factory, and later a printing press, before reverting to a church in the 19th century. Now let's talk about St Bartholomew for a moment. He was one of Christ's disciples, and he's said to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the first century. His hagiography, that means biography of a saint, states that Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis, in Armenia, and was flayed alive, beheaded, and crucified upside down. I mean just look at this statue. This is scarier than anything you'll see in a horror movie. When contemporary and controversial British artist Damien Hirst was first asked to create a piece of art for the church, he created this statue, Exquisite Pain. Hirst pays homage to the traditional image of St Bartholomew as flayed and holding his own skin as a shawl, but he added the unique twist. Instead of a knife, which the saint would normally be holding, this statue is holding a scalpel, just like the medical students across the street would have used during their surgeries and autopsies. In his other hand is a pair of shears, which I will explain when we go outside. Before we leave though, let's have a look at a few other things here in the church. Here is Rahir's effigy, which is extremely colorful and unusual. Of course, it wouldn't be an ancient London church if some didn't say it was haunted. People claim to have seen Rahir leading sermons or wandering the hospital next door to provide comfort to patients. There's also the Lady Chapel here, the site of the only recorded appearance of the Virgin Mary in London all the way back in the 12th century. A monk called Hubert witnessed her and she complained to him that he and his fellow monks were just not doing a good enough job singing her praises. The Lady Chapel is also where Benjamin Franklin worked for a short time when it was a printing press. Now of course, if you're only going to visit one church in London, most people choose Westminster Abbey or St Paul's Cathedral, but if you're into the dark and the macabre, it should be St Bartholomew the Great. Damien Hirst's exquisite pain statue has a scalpel in one hand and a pair of shears in the other, and that's because this street is called Cloth Fair. There's also a pub just a few steps away called The Hand and Shears, and they claim to be the last place where a condemned prisoner would be given a pint of beer before their execution. You can see behind me that there looks almost like there's a moat around this church. It's not a moat, that's street level from a thousand years ago. And it was a church very much beloved by none other than Charles Dickens. He writes, it is a small churchyard with a ferocious strong spiked iron gate like a jail. This gate is ornamented with skulls and crossbones larger than life wrought in stone, but it likewise came into the mind of St Ghastly Grim that to stick iron spikes atop the stone skulls as though they were impaled would be a pleasant device. Therefore, the skulls grin aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears. I mean, yeah, that's an excellent description of what's going on here. The five skulls act as guardians to this repository for the dead. Underneath the trio of skulls reads the inscription Christus Vivere Mors Mihum Lucrum, which means in Latin, Christ lives, death is my reward. But why on earth would death be a reward? Well, ideally you're going to heaven, right? But even more than that, skulls like these are called memento mori, and they serve a very specific purpose. They were extremely popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries as a way to remind us to be pious and cherish what we have here on earth, for soon our time here will be over. While the records of this rather small church only stretch back to the 13th century, some legends say that it was built on the site of the Battle of London Bridge as early as 1014. If you descend into the crypt, a well can be found where it is thought that King Olaf of Norway, later Saint Olaf, rallied his troops around to assist Æthelred the Unready in driving the Vikings out of London with the cry, forward, crossmen. The rhyme might sound familiar. London Bridge is broken down, gold is won and bright renown, shields resounding, warhorns sounding, hilled is shouting in the din, arrows singing, mail coats ringing, Odin makes our Olaf win. It really does remind a lot of people of London Bridge is falling down. Whenever I come to this church with Norwegians, by the way, they're always really confused that one of their early medieval kings is a saint here in England. The church is also known for some strange burials. The strangest person said to be buried here is, quote, pantomime character Mother Goose, or at least the woman who inspired her. This churchyard also contains the grave of Mary Ramsey, a woman thought to have brought the Black Death to London in 1665, although this seems quite unfounded. There are, however, 300 more plague victims here in a small plague pit, just like grave robbing back at St. Sepulchre without Newgate. There's also a small hut here for guards to keep watch. Many people associate St. Olaf's with a different writer, although he would be absolutely mortified if he knew we were reading his diaries. Of course, I'm talking about Samuel Pepys, his wife's memorial here, as is his own body. Now, Dickens was known to have caught a handsome cab here on rainy, foggy nights and gaze at the skulls. Not quite the same on this crisp and sunny fall day, but still really remarkable nonetheless. Now, I'm here at St. James Garlic Hive, named for a, you guessed it, garlic market that used to be on the site. I've never actually been to this church, and I do know that it's called Sir Christopher Wren's Lantern because of all of the beautiful windows inside, which we're going to go and have a look at. But while we're here, we are going to pay our respects to Jimmy Garlic, the mummy. You might notice the scallop shells, which are both inside and outside the church. That's because this is technically a stop on the pilgrims route ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This church was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666 and was rebuilt by, who other than, Christopher Wren. It was heavily damaged again during the Blitz, and it's since been restored after a 500 pound German high explosive bomb crashed through the roof and buried itself into the floor in the south aisle. It was later taken to Hackney Marshes to be detonated. The church is often called Wren's Lantern, owing to the number of large windows inside. But while it's a stunning building with a storied history, we're here to talk about one of its residents. I'm talking about Jimmy Garlic. He was a well-preserved mummy of a man discovered in the vaults in 1855. For 150 years, his body was actually on display here in the church in a glass cabinet. In 2004, Jimmy Garlic was featured on the Discovery Channel documentary series Mummy Autopsy, which used modern techniques to establish that he likely died between 1641 and 1801. He had osteoarthritis and tooth decay, which conflicts with previous British Museum analysis that he had been a young man. The most likely theory is that he was a sailor who died on board a ship docked close by, and he was buried in the church in the late 1700s or early 1800s. Now, Jimmy Garlic wasn't just on display. He was a huge draw. People came here just to see him. The church actually charged visitors a few pence to have a look at his remains, and sometimes the choir boys carried the mummy around the church for a laugh. Now, I'm not talking about an ancient tradition. That was happening until the early 2000s. Of course, it wasn't long before stories began to circulate that Jimmy was now haunting the church in ghostly ire at being made a figure of public display. There's also a story that up until the Second World War, parishioners regularly spotted a shrouded man walking through the church before air raids. Apparently, a fireman even risked his life during the raid to rescue a pale-robed man who refused to leave the church, but who then faded from sight before his eyes. Now, I'll let you decide the veracity of that story. I'm just sad that today, Jimmy Garlic, who kind of sounds like an old mobster name, but Jimmy Garlic has been peacefully interred in the crypt. He's no longer on display. Still worth a visit, though. Now, we're heading to St. Ethel Dreida's Catholic Church in Hoburn. It's located in a really strange location at the end of a gated street. Ely Place is actually the only private street left in all of London, and it's still managed by a collection of Beatles and commissioners. It's sandwiched between modern buildings, and it's really easy to miss. This church really is well hidden. In fact, I never knew that it was here. The only way that I discovered it was I saw a sign on the main road with an arrow pointing to St. Ethel Dreida's church, and I thought to myself, that sounds like a Saxon name. I bet you that church is very old. I was right. Now, that's quite strange considering just how important this church once was. It's actually, it's the oldest Catholic church left in England, and it's one of only two buildings in London that date to the reign of Edward I. Now, he's the one with the delightful nickname Edward Longshanks, and the less delightful nickname the Hammer of the Scots. Now, before I tell you more about the church, let me tell you about Ethel Dreida herself. Ethel Dreida, known in modern English as Audrey, was an East Anglian princess who lived sometime between 636 and 23rd June 679. She was born to King Anna and Queen Saywara. At an early age, it was clear that she was a pious girl, and she made the decision to dedicate herself to the church. That is, until her family's duty called. She was persuaded by her father and other parties to enter into a political marriage, twice. At 14, she married Tonbergt, Prince of South Yirwa, the region bordering East Anglia, but she somehow managed to convince him to let her remain a virgin and stay dedicated to her dreams of becoming a nun. Not only did he agree, but he gave her the Isle of Ely, located at the swampy inland Cambridgeshire Fens, as a wedding gift. She was widowed three years later, and happily retired to her own private island, looking forward to a life of prayer and virginity, which is not what happened. Within a year, she was persuaded by the Northumbrian king to enter into another political marriage, this time to Agfrith of Northumbria. But this prince was not so understanding. Even though by this point Ætheldreida had officially become a nun, after 12 years of marriage, he wanted what was his, and he even tried to carry her from her cloister by force. She fled to Ely with two maids, and the tide is said to have risen miraculously, allowing her to make her escape from this brute. And let's also remember that the Isle of Ely was not actually an actual island, so that may have helped. Once safely back at Ely, she founded a large double monastery and ruled as abbess until her death. In 679 Ætheldreida died after contracting a large unsightly tumor on her neck. This is sometimes referred to as the Black Plague, but it was most likely Quincy, a peritonsillar abscess, and was thought to be punishment for wearing jewels on her throat when she was queen. And this affliction gave rise to her association with the neck and the throat. The 12th century Latin text the Liber Iliensis, a history of Ely, claims that in 695 Ætheldreida's sister Saber had her bones disinterred, and discovered that her corpse was not only uncorrupted, but that she was more beautiful in death than she had been in life. Incorruptibility is the Roman Catholic belief that the bodies of some saintly people will resist the natural process of decomposition, and this was seen as further proof that Ætheldreida should be canonized. In 1106 she was reinterred yet again to the monastery in Ely, and her body was still uncorrupted and said to be as fresh as the day she died. Her uncorrupted hand was gifted to this church in the late 19th century. There's the reliquary there, just to the right of the altar. This box doesn't have a monstrance, that's the name for a window into a reliquary, so we have to trust that Ætheldreida's uncorrupted hand really is inside. The relic had been removed from Ely in Norman times, and kept hidden safely on the Duke of Norfolk's estate during the Catholic persecution. Now this church is actually known for a few other things, as is Saint Ætheldreida. Remember at the beginning of this stop I told you that her modern English name is Audrey, and in fact her name is the origin of the word tawdry. See, pious and virginal Ætheldreida was beloved by locals on the Isle of Ely, and when she died they began to honor her memory with an annual funfair. People celebrated by selling and wearing inexpensive lace necklaces and scarves owing to Ætheldreida's association with the neck. These were eventually known as Saint Audrey's lace, and by the 16th and 17th century people would sneer at the poor quality of these items, and Saint Audrey morphed into tawdry, a word synonymous with showy, cheap, and tacky items. You certainly don't have to be Catholic to come and visit this unusual and beautiful church, and pay your respects to Saint Ætheldreida. I don't think there's anything tawdry about it. Thank you so much for joining me today on this weird and wonderful walk through some of the strangest and most macabre items in London's churches. If you enjoyed this video, please remember to like and follow, and let me know below which one was your favorite, and what other museums and sites in London you'd like to see. I'll see you next time I'm at the museum!