Long-dead occupants of crypt have royal connection

One of the best preserved crypts in England is located underneath a centuries-old Kent church.

Several coffins are preserved under St Margaret's Church in Rainham, where the current building is thought to have been constructed more than 800 years ago.

Some are adorned with embossed emblems as they contain cousins of kings, according to Rev Nathan Ward, while others have funeral coronets.

"These would have been the most fine coffins you could buy," he told Secret Kent.

Ward said that among the dead were members of the aristocratic Tufton family, which held the Earl of Thanet title.

This includes cricketer John Tufton, believed to be the first recorded instance of a person being got out due to a leg before wicket, known as LBW.

The vicar said: "They're just in Rainham and that's weird, isn't it?

"We don't have to go to big museums in London, we don't have to go to royal burial grounds."

He continued: "Every Sunday we have a couple of hundred people over the course of a day come to worship.

"A couple of metres below, you've got the gentry just laid out, listening I guess, to what's going on today."

As well as coffins, a corner of the crypt is home to "what we believe to be the remains of the altar that was snapped in half at the Reformation", Ward said.

"It's just absolutely amazing."

The building's centuries of history is reflected elsewhere too.

According to the church, the oldest bell in its tower dates from 1582, while intelligence services reportedly stored arms in the churchyard during World War Two.

Ward said of the bell tower: "Always when I take people up there I say I'll give you £100 cash if you tell me what's on the back of the door.

"Dating back beyond 1950, is who won the Cambridge-Oxford Boat Race, and it's just chalked up on the back of the door.

"Isn't it a wonderful little tradition that just keeps on going?"

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