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Charnel House at St Helens Church, Cliffe, Kent, England, 2015-05-06-5136
2015-05-06
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 4.0, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
The Charnel House, located in a corner of the graveyard at St Helen's Church in Cliffe, Kent, England. The Charnel House was built during the mid 19th century. It was used as a make-shift mortuary until the bodies were taken away to be buried. Its location close to the river Thames is key as bodies found were washed up or floating along the Thames were retrieved and taken to the charnel house to be stored awaiting identification and burial. The building continued to be used until the start of the twentieth century, when a series of Public Health Acts forced buildings such as this to become redundant. After this, the Church used it for storage and at one time a hive of bees was also put in there to deter intruders. It is now classified as a Grade II listed building by English Heritage.
