The church crypt

Waltham Heritage Warden, Richard Snodin, reports on a recent trip of discovery beneath Waltham’s medieval church.

Speculation about hidden chambers and long forgotten tunnels with stalactites in the centre of Waltham sounds like fiction or local legend doesn’t it? Well not so, because it is all perfectly true! Recently, together with churchwarden Richard Miller and his wife Angela, I explored this fascinating ‘hidden world’ beneath our feet.

Click on the photo on the right to see what we discovered. (Click on the small arrows that appear on either side of the photos to view more in the sequence.)

For many years I had wondered what lay beneath a trapdoor in the churchyard, so we removed the rusted old padlock and descended into the gloom… a rather old and unsafe set of wooden steps led down 15 feet or so into a dark and creepy chamber, obviously constructed centuries ago as it was lined with stone and hand-made bricks.

This first chamber, or ante room, measures approximately 8x3ft – and yes, it does have stalactites! This then leads into the main chamber which measures around 12x10ft – and has the chilling old hand written inscription “Satan’s Living Room” scrawled over the arched doorway.

Leading from the main chamber is a large tunnel, which for the first few yards is high enough to walk through – but it gradually diminishes in height as it curves around under the church. The main tunnel appears to terminate under one of the heating ducts or grilles in the church main aisle, leading us to the conclusion that this labrynth was probably originally part of a primitive heating system.

Further evidence of this is the blackening of the walls in the main chamber, as though an open fire was lit down there during church services. We do know that in recent times a heating boiler was installed in this main chamber during the first half of the 20th. century, but has long since been removed.

Directly above the main tunnel, in the church aisle, are memorial stones indicating that prominent village resident George Noble was interred there in 1725 – and prior to that, his wife Mary in 1713 and Mary Hurst in 1708. So could the main chamber have been a crypt centuries ago?

There are at least two intriguing smaller tunnels branching off the main tunnel, but these have yet to be fully investigated. Sadly, this subterranean labyrinth is deemed unsafe for public access – but is, of course, preserved as part of our wonderful grade one listed church.

More photos: photo 2 : photo 3 : photo 4 : photo 5