The remains of five Archbishops of Canterbury have been found beneath a medieval church next to the current archbishop's official London residence.
The Garden Museum at St Mary-at-Lambeth, a deconsecrated church next to the Archbishop of Canterbury's official London home. Photo: Wikicommons
The remains of five Archbishops of Canterbury have been found beneath a medieval parish church next to Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury's official London residence.
Builders renovating the Garden Museum, housed at the deconsecrated church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, found a hidden crypt containing 30 lead coffins.
Site manager Karl Patten said: "We discovered numerous coffins - and one of them had a gold crown on top of it".
The remains date back to the 1660s.
The discovery at the deconsecrated church of St Mary-at-Lambeth was made during the refurbishment of Lambeth Palace's Garden Museum last year, and has been kept secret for months while work was finished.
The redevelopment team accidentally came across the entrance to the tomb when they began stripping back the flagstones from the church.
Mr Patten, from the building contractors Rooff, said his team were exposing the ground, lifting the flagstones in the church, when they uncovered an entry to what looked like a tomb.
They used a mobile phone camera on the end of a stick to search the darkened underground chamber.
Three of the coffins belong to Richard Bancroft (the archbishop from 1604 to 1610, who chaired the committee that wrote the King James Bible), John Moore (archbishop from 1783-1805) and his wife, Catherine Moore.
Visitors to the Garden Museum will be able to view the undisturbed coffins through a glass floor-panel.
