‘Precious’ find: coffins of Canterbury archbishops

King James Bible overseer among cache

Last year, during the refurbishment of the Garden Museum, which is housed in a deconsecrated medieval parish church next to Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official London residence, builders made the chance discovery of a lifetime: a cache of 30 lead coffins that had lain undisturbed for centuries.

Closer inspection revealed metal plates bearing the names of five former Archbishops of Canterbury, going back to the early 1600s.

Two building site managers made their discovery by chance as the former chancel at St Mary-at-Lambeth was being converted into an exhibition space. Stripping out some York stone to even out the precarious paving, and enable disabled access to the old altar, they accidentally cut a six-inch diameter hole in the chancel floor — and noticed a hidden chamber beneath.

Attaching a mobile phone to a stick, they dropped it into the hole. What they filmed astonished them: a hidden stairway leading down to a brick-lined vault.

Inside, piled on top of each other, were the coffins. On top of one rested an archbishop’s mitre, painted red and gold.

Two coffins had nameplates, which belonged to Richard Bancroft (archbishop from 1604 to 1610), John Moore (archbishop from 1783 to 1805); his wife, Catherine Moore, has a coffin plate, too.

Also identified from his coffin plate is John Bettesworth (1677-1751), the Dean of Arches, the judge who sits at the ecclesiastical court of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

St Mary-at-Lambeth’s records have since revealed that a further three archbishops were likely buried in the secret vault: Frederick Cornwallis (archbishop from 1768 to 1783), Matthew Hutton (archbishop from 1757 to 1758) and Thomas Tenison (archbishop from 1695 to 1715). A sixth, Thomas Secker (archbishop from 1758 to 1768), had his viscera buried in a canister in the churchyard.

Details of the extraordinary find has been kept secret for months until Sunday to make safe the vault ahead of the museum’s grand reopening next month.

Of the identified coffins, the most important belongs to Richard Bancroft.

He was the chief overseer of the publication of the King James Bible. Production began in 1604, under Bancroft’s guidance, and the Bible was finally published in 1611, the year after his death.

“Archbishop Bancroft was chosen by King James I to put together a new English translation of the Bible,” says historian Christopher Woodward, director of the Garden Museum. “He didn’t write it, of course, but he made it happen, and the words he forced into print still ring out across a thousand churchyards every Sunday morning. It feels very precious to have his coffin as cargo in our hold.”