morthouse

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English

The unusual circular morthouse at Udny in Aberdeenshire

Noun

morthouse (plural morthouses)

  1. A specialised secure building usually located in a churchyard where bodies were temporarily interred before a formal funeral took place.
    • 1828 April 8, William Mackenzie, “Anatomical Dissections. An Appeal to the Public and to the Legislature, on the necessity of affording Dead Bodies to the Schools of Anatomy, by Legislative Enactment.”, in The Kaleidoscope; or, Literary and Scientific Mirror, volume VIII, number 406, page 335:
      That the bodies of all persons dying in these towns, and, if need be, in all other towns, and also in country parishes, unclaimable by immediate relatives, or whose relatives decline to defray the expenses of interment, shall be conveyed to a morthouse appointed in the said towns for their reception.
    • 1989, Dane Love, Scottish Kirkyards, London: Robert Hale, →ISBN, page 154:
      Morthouses were sturdily built, with iron linings on wooden doors, even a skin of steel within the whole structure in some cases.
    • 2010, “Other titles published by The History Press”, in David Kinnaird, Haunted Stirling, The History Press, →ISBN:
      From burial grounds in the heart of Glasgow to quiet country graveyards in Aberdeenshire, this book takes you to every cemetery ever raided, and reveals where you can find extant pieces of anti-resurrectionist graveyard furniture, from mortsafes, coffin cages and underground vaults to watchtowers and morthouses.

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