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In 2016, during a routine renovation of the Garden Museum in London, England \u2013 formerly the medieval St Mary-at-Lambeth Church \u2013 as a result of lifting a stone weighing several tonnes, workers discovered a staircase that had been hidden for centuries. This unexpected architectural feature leads into a brick-vaulted area directly beneath the church (‘the Great Vault’), containing thirty lead coffins that have not been disturbed since their installation; These include five former Archbishops of Canterbury (the most notable being Richard Bancroft \u2013 he supervised the publication of the King James Bible in 1611). According to Archeology magazine, this accidental discovery had not come to light even in any modern survey; It is therefore showing an important part of London’s ecclesiastical history that has been buried three meters underground below the chancel floor for many centuries.<\/p>\n When the stone was finally removed from the floor no one knew what a great discovery it really was. The ‘Great Vault’ was no ordinary small cellar; It is a large chamber made of bricks and has been ‘lost’ for centuries. Most cellars in London were filled with dirt and other materials in the 19th century, but this particular cellar is air-tight due to the lack of any disturbance since the 17th century and has not been exposed to modern contaminants or moisture.The lead coffins located inside the vault were in such good condition that the remains could be identified by engraved lead nameplates and burial clothing found on top of the coffins, allowing non-intrusive historical assessment of the buried individuals.<\/p>\n According to the official collection of the Garden Museum, the biggest surprise for those who were working on the restoration of the church was the fact that they discovered a hidden staircase. Architectural drawings and surveys completed during the 19th century do not show any hollow area below; However, during the 1851 restoration the architects paved the entrance with York stone to level the chancel floor, effectively suppressing the chamber. So, when the restoration team uncovered this ‘connection to the past’, they also missed over 160 years of lost documents.<\/p>\n The decision not to disturb the dead by removing bodies or coffins was made in accordance with church law and the facultative jurisdiction of the Church of England in relation to sacred remains. Therefore, the museum used non-invasive technologies (such as lowering a camera through an opening made by workers in the vault) to view the remains of the deceased. To commemorate this event, the museum has installed a glass panel on the floor so that visitors can stand directly above where the workers stood and see the many layers of history in the vault buried three meters below, right at their feet.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2016, during a routine renovation of the Garden Museum in London, England \u2013 formerly the medieval St Mary-at-Lambeth Church \u2013 as a result of lifting a stone weighing several tonnes, workers discovered a staircase that had been hidden for centuries. This unexpected architectural feature leads into a brick-vaulted area directly beneath the church (‘the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[5566,479,10556,5974,3677,552,2513,1333,615,10022,1060,10554,10555,166],"class_list":{"0":"post-22923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-beneath","9":"tag-church","10":"tag-coffins","11":"tag-discovery","12":"tag-hidden","13":"tag-historic","14":"tag-lead","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-sealed","18":"tag-shocking","19":"tag-stairs","20":"tag-vault","21":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22926,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22923\/revisions\/22926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Inside the Great Vault: What the archaeological discovery revealed<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
The secret of the hidden underground staircase<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
How secure is the site today<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n