A Graveyard Watchers Watchhouse at St. Leonard’s Church in Walton le Dale
A Watchhouse, which is dated 1835, that is about 50 metres east of Church of St. Leonard in Walton le Dale. This is said to have been a small stone building used by graveyard watchers to guard against body-snatchers.
In the early 19th century, body-snatching (the stealing of corpses from graves for medical dissection) was a serious problem. To protect the newly buried, parishes sometimes built watchhouses (watch-houses)or watch huts inside or beside churchyards. Volunteers or hired watchmen could keep guard, especially in the first few nights after a burial. Body-snatching was a common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries, with illegally exhumed corpses sold to medical schools for dissection. These watch houses provided a vantage point for volunteers or hired watchmen to spot and deter “resurrectionists”.
The 1835 date makes sense historically: the trade in corpses for anatomy was rife until the Anatomy Act of 1832, which regulated dissection and reduced grave-robbing. Even after 1832, some communities continued building or using watchhouses out of caution. Families feared that their loved ones were not safe even after burial, leading to community efforts to protect graves.
This building is Grade II listed (List Entry 1072439), on the NHLE (National Heritage List for England), and described as “Watchhouse dated 1835 east of Church of St Leonard” at Walton-le-Dale.
Other alternative theories for its purpose have included a ‘Charnel House’ and ‘Tool-Shed’.
However, it was built too late for the Charnel House purpose. Many charnel houses were sealed, emptied, or destroyed after King Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. A charnel house is a building, vault, or chamber used for the storage of human skeletal remains, typically found near churches or cemeteries. These structures served practical purposes, holding bones that were dug up to make room for new graves, but they also held religious significance, facilitating prayers for the deceased and the salvation of their souls. The term can also be used more generally to describe any place filled with death and destruction.
With regard to the tool shed purpose, that seems a very likely use after the need to guard the recently buried bodies had gone. It seems unlikely that it was built for that purpose, but it isn’t totally implausible. The church had ties to the wealthy ‘de Hoghton’ family, and they were known benefactors. Rich families would often construct things like follies (a building constructed primarily for decoration) or mausoleums (a stately or impressive building housing a tomb or group of tombs), so building a very elaborate tool shed isn’t out of the question.
My personal feeling is that it also served as a building to house the parish bier (a wooden vehicle, often with rollers or wheels) for carrying the dead to burial.
The building is Grade II listed (List Entry 1072439), on the NHLE (National Heritage List for England), and described as “Watchhouse dated 1835 east of Church of St Leonard” at Walton-le-Dale.
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1361354
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Digging up a newly buried corpse in
the Walton-le-Dale churchyard
People in the area perhaps had good reason to be concerned about the digging up of corpses. There was a history of it!
Edward Kelley was born at Worcester, on August 1, 1555, as appears by the horoscope drawn for him by the astrologer John Dee. He began life as an apothecary’s apprentice, and showed some aptitude for his calling. It has been stated that, under the name of Talbot, he studied for a short time at Oxford, but left abruptly under a cloud. A few years later, he was exposed in the pillory in Lancaster for having either forged ancient title deeds or coined base money. Both feats are accounted to him. The next incident in his career is a charge of having dug up a newly buried “caitiff’s” [a contemptible or cowardly person] corpse in Walton-le-Dale churchyard, Lancashire, for the purpose of questioning the dead, or “an evil spirit speaking through his organs,” respecting the future of ” a noble young gentleman,” then a minor.
The passage is taken from JOHN DEE (1527 – 1608) by CHARLOTTE FELL SMITH in 1909. It can be read on the Internet Archive, here:
https://ia801308.us.archive.org/34/items/cu31924028928327/cu31924028928327.pdf
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