St Leonard's Church, Hythe, Kent
The Ossuary in the Crypt
Visited September 2017
In the basement of the church of St Leonard's in Hythe is the largest ossuary in Britain. I'm not going to go into the details of dates etc, as their own website (link above) gives more information than I could ever hope to.
Round the side of the church is a small, nondescript path and stairway leading to a door, where (in summer only) you can pay the attendant £1 and go in to this incredible place in the crypt. It's not very big, it's probably not for the squeamish (there's nothing between you and the bones of about 2000 people), but it's really quite something. Skulls of people who died in about the 12th or 13th centuries sit on shelves in the arches, while their long-bones - and a few more skulls - form a solid pile which runs almost the full length of the crypt.
On the day I visited, there were a few other curious visitors in the ossuary at the same time, including children who seemed utterly fascinated by the whole thing. Is it an appropriate thing to do, to have these bones on display? I'm not entirely sure, given that it's likely these were local parishioners exhumed from their graves in the churchyard in about the 1600s, and, despite some scientific testing, are perhaps now seen more as a curiosity than as people. Still, at least no-one was touching them despite the lack of protection, and there seemed to be a real air of respect among visitors.
If you should make it to the ossuary, be sure to go into the lovely church upstairs too, and look out for the Medieval graffiti on some of the pillars.
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