St Marys Church - Clophill - Bed's - Abandoned Cemeteries on Waymarking.com

The Old Parish Church, dates from the 15th century and probably marks the location of the first settlement.

The village of Clophill originally surrounded the church until the Black Death of 1349 killed most of the villagers and wiped out Cainhoe. Also recorded in 1376 that ten houses in Clophill stand empty as a result of the Black Death. The village was then burnt to the ground and rebuilt down the bottom of the hill where it now stands.

First mention of a church on this ground was in 1140 and 1146 when it states that the church of Clophill with two virgates of land was given to Beaulieu Priory by Robert de Albini. The Albini name traces back to Nigel de Aubigny or de Albini and is the only one of that name entered in Domesday. It states they own the land of Cainho ( Cainhoe) which incorporated also Clophill.

Robert de Albini belonged to The Order of the Knights Templar and it is probable that the land he gave for the use of Beauliey Priory in Clophill was used for the Leper Hospital that is believed to have also been on this ground.

The church is perpendicular in style. The nave is unusual in that it contains just two windows, one north, one south. The walls of the nave are older than the tower. It was originally planned to enlarge the church but when the rector fell ill and died in 1843 the new rector decided it would be better to build a new church at a more convenient site in the village.
The new church was consecrated in 1848 and the old church had its chancel removed and was then used as a mortuary chapel for the grave yard.

The churchyard possessed the unenviable reputation of being the haunt of body snatchers, and human many human bones have been dug up in fields of Brickwall Farm.

In 1963 one of the stone box graves was opened and the bones of Jenny Humberstone, an apothecary's wife who had died of small pox in the 1770's, were scattered about in what is generally considered to be a crude attempt at black magic. It took six burly policemen to put the lid back on the grave. More graves were similarly desecrated in 1969 and 1975. This has given the church the sinister reputation for dealings with the occult. The gravestones were removed from the graves and placed around the edges of the cemetery and the ground levelled to conceal the graves.


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Latest Burial: 01/01/1849 Earliest Burial: Not listed

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