Looking back, I cannot honestly say that I set out to investigate mortsafes.
The trail emerged almost by accident.
My first visits to East Mersea and Borley had nothing to do with body snatching. East Mersea had been on my list for some time. Partly because of the old story of the caged grave and the witch said to lie beneath it. Borley was there for different reasons. Like many people, I had known about the village for years through the shadow cast by Borley Rectory and the stories that followed in its wake.
At that stage I wasn't thinking about resurrectionists at all.
They were simply places I wanted to see for myself.
Only afterwards did I begin to notice similarities.
The iron structures around the graves at East Mersea and Borley raised the same question. Were they merely examples of Victorian grave furniture, or had they once served a more practical purpose? By then, curiosity had begun to take hold.
The final piece came only a few weeks ago.
Unlike the earlier visits, the journey to St Mary's Church, Henham, had a very definite purpose. Suggestions had reached me that another possible example might survive there. This time I arrived not in search of folklore or ghost stories, but with the rather narrower aim of examining an alleged mortsafe.
Finding a third example did not answer the question.
If anything, it complicated matters.
East Mersea and the Witch's Grave
The first site I investigated was St Edmund King and Martyr, East Mersea.
People have been talking about the grave for a long time. Depending on where you read about it, or who is telling the story, the ironwork becomes something more than ironwork. A witch is said to lie beneath it. In some versions the cage keeps her in. In others it keeps something out.
The details seem to shift.
Standing beside the grave, I found myself wondering how much belonged to the nineteenth century and how much had arrived later. Strange objects often attract strange stories. Perhaps that is only human nature. Once a tale becomes established, it tends to gather a life of its own.
Whether the framework had anything to do with witches, body snatchers or something altogether more ordinary is difficult to say.
Borley
Borley came next.
Mention the village and most people immediately think of the rectory. The building itself disappeared long ago, but the stories never really did.
That reputation hangs over the place even now.
While exploring the churchyard, I noticed another iron structure around a grave. Once again, the similarities with East Mersea caught my attention.
One small curiosity also stood out. Unlike most Essex churches, the dedication seems to have slipped away somewhere along the line. Even Historic England records it simply as the parish church, with dedication unknown.¹
Like the East Mersea example, the ironwork invites speculation. Yet speculation and proof are not the same thing. Victorian churchyards made extensive use of ironwork, and after nearly two centuries it becomes increasingly difficult to know precisely why a particular structure was erected.
No contemporary document has yet come to light that explains it.
Henham
The final piece of the puzzle came at St Mary's Church, Henham.
Unlike the earlier journeys, this visit was made specifically to investigate reports of another possible mortsafe. By this stage, I had become rather cautious.
One unusual grave might simply be an oddity.
Two seemed intriguing.
Three certainly caught my attention.
Even so, standing in the churchyard at Henham, with my friend Darryl, we resisted the temptation to declare the mystery solved. The structure shares features with those at East Mersea and Borley, but not enough to settle the matter beyond doubt.
Perhaps certainty was asking too much.
Fear of the Resurrection Men
Whatever these structures once represented, anxiety about the safety of the dead was hardly imaginary.
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, bodies were being stolen and sold to anatomy schools. Newspapers carried reports of graves being opened and communities responded in different ways. Some organised watches. Others built mort-houses. In parts of Scotland, iron cages appeared over fresh burials. The Anatomy Act of 1832 was intended, at least in part, to reduce the trade in stolen bodies.²
Essex did not escape these fears.
While searching through the British Newspaper Archive, I came across an account from Foxearth published in 1864 concerning the grave of a Mr Viall. According to the report, the burial had been disturbed and a reward of twenty pounds offered for information leading to those responsible. The remains of a candle were said to have been discovered nearby.³
Cases like this show that grave robbing was not entirely unknown in rural Essex.
What they do not tell us is how common the practice really was.
That is much harder to answer.
Newspaper reports naturally concentrated on unusual events. Rumours spread quickly. Stories spread even quicker. Fear itself can leave traces behind.
Three Graves and a Question Mark
After following up various leads and visiting churchyards across the county, I found only three examples that might possibly represent mortsafe protection.
East Mersea.
Borley.
Henham.
Three structures among hundreds of churches and countless graves.
That is hardly overwhelming evidence.
Perhaps these iron remains really are survivors from the age of the resurrection men. Equally, they may represent Victorian grave furnishings whose original purpose has simply faded from memory. In the case of East Mersea, later folklore surrounding witches may have altered the way the grave came to be understood.
I suspect the answer lies somewhere in between.
And perhaps that is fitting.
Local history rarely offers neat endings. More often it leaves behind fragments, half-remembered stories and the occasional question mark.
Sometimes that is enough.
References
- Historic England, Parish Church, Dedication Unknown, Borley.
- The National Archives, Body Snatchers: What Led to the Anatomy Act of 1832?
- Morning Herald, 3 November 1864; reproduced in regional newspapers and accessible through the British Newspaper Archive.
- Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute.
- Sarah Wise, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-Robbery in 1830s London.
- Helen MacDonald, Human Remains: Episodes in Human Dissection.
Richard Clements is a writer and independent researcher exploring history, folklore and overlooked places.
The Essex Project is an ongoing series under The History Alchemist banner, documenting the county's landscapes, traditions and curious survivals through field visits and archival research. From forgotten churches and medieval graffiti to local folklore and unexplained stories, the project seeks to record the smaller details that help make sense of Essex's past.
Possible mortsafe or Victorian grave surround at St Edmund King and Martyr Church, East Mersea. The structure later became associated with local stories concerning a supposed witch buried beneath the grave. Whether the ironwork itself was intended as protection against body snatchers remains uncertain.
Iron grave structure in the churchyard at Borley. Although often overlooked amid the village's wider reputation for ghost stories, examples such as this raise interesting questions about nineteenth-century burial practices and fears surrounding grave robbery.
Iron framework surrounding a grave at St Mary's Church, Henham. The most recent discovery during the investigation and one of only three possible examples identified during visits to churchyards across Essex.
Nineteenth-century illustration depicting resurrectionists, or body snatchers, removing a recently buried corpse. Fear of such activities led communities throughout Britain to adopt a variety of measures intended to protect the dead.
A surviving Scottish mortsafe. These iron cages or frameworks were designed to protect newly buried bodies from resurrectionists until natural decomposition made them unsuitable for dissection. Their appearance provides a useful comparison with the more uncertain examples encountered in Essex.
Add comment
Comments