It’s no real secret around these parts that I like a spooky thing. The Gothic, horror, I love it all. When I lived in London, I made a real point out of visiting all the Magnificient Seven. I still recommend Highgate Cemetery as something really amazing and unusual to do when you are visiting London. So when I learned that one of England’s only surviving ossuaries was down the road from me, I could not wait to visit.
So what is an ossuary? An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary (“os” is “bone” in Latin). The greatly reduced space taken up by an ossuary means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than in coffins. The Catacombs of Paris, which house the remains of about 6 million people, are probably what first springs to mind when you might think about what an ossuary is.
The earliest parts of Holy Trinity Church in Rothwell date back to the 12th century. Holy Trinity church was on a pilgrimage route, and had an important relic, claiming to be a fragment of Jesus’s true cross. After the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1500s the church started to fall into disrepair. Around 100 years ago, the community rallied around the church and raised the money for the repairs themselves. Legend has it that a gravedigger fell into the forgotten crypt during this time. After falling through the darkness, the man discovered that he was in a small 13th century crypt that contained the remains of around 2500 individuals.
To visit the Bone Crypt you need to pre-book a ticket as only 5 people are allowed inside at once. You can do some by contacting the email listed on their website. Visiting the crypt is only an option on the second Sunday of every month from 2:30pm-4:30pm. There are four 25-minute slots commencing 2.30pm, 3pm, 3.30pm and 4pm. There is a small fee.
The stairs down into the crypt are very narrow and uneven. At the end of your descent, you are confronted with walls lined with shelves of skulls, and the centre has two large cages full of carefully arranged bones. Our guide explained that recent research by Sheffield University has identified that there are bones from mediaeval times, and also some from the 18th century. It was odd, the longer I was in the chamber the more the weight of mortality hit me and I was increasingly uncomfortable. But I am so glad that I was able to visit!
Holy Trinity Rothwell is located at Squires Hill, Rothwell, Kettering, Northamptonshire, NN14 6BQ.
Have you ever visited an ossuary?
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