A Church Mystery Solved

Arksey Church from Church Lane

The Door in the Wall

On Church Lane, in the south east corner of the churchyard is a doorway to a little building in the wall. Just what was the purpose of this building and how long has it been there? Arksey Village, A History likes finding answers to mysteries, so has been on a mission to find the answer.

Contents

• A Scary Place
• The Letter
• A Burial Crypt
• The Answer!

A Scary Place

When I was young I used to walk past this funny little opening in the wall of the churchyard on my way to school. At that time there was no door on it and sometimes we used to dare each other to go in. It was very dark inside, and as there was a corner to go around, the light from the entrance was soon lost, so we never ventured very far and it was quite scary. 

To this day I don't know why we never took a torch in there, but when you're kids you don't always see the obvious do you?

The location of the mystery door

A close-up view of the door

The door had always intrigued me - what was it for? Where did it lead to? Everyone I asked seemed not to know.

The Letter

Then I saw this letter in our local newspaper, the Doncaster Free Press a few years ago:

"Air raid shelter memories - I’m an architect researching public air raid shelters (including workplace and institutional ones) and underground bunkers nationally but have had problems finding surviving sites in Doncaster.

I’d be grateful for any help from your readers on sites that they know about. 

I’d also be very interested to hear of any experiences readers had of either taking shelter during the war or playing in the abandoned shelters after the war. 

Please contact me at raynerarchitects@yahoo.co.uk
Chris Rayner, Kent"

The letter got me thinking about that little doorway between the church and the vicarage, could it have been an air-raid shelter?. 

Anyway, my mum asked an elderly friend who is a life-long Arksey resident about it, and she said it was used as a public air-raid shelter in the last war, but was doubtful of its intended purpose.

I wrote to Chris Rayner with this information, and sent him some photos. He replied by saying:

"many thanks. That looks very unusual - I wonder if it was a burial crypt originally. I'll try to find out more and will let you know."

Well four years on and Chris never got back to me, so it wasn't until I was researching for a forthcoming article about Arksey burials that I remembered this 'air-raid' shelter story.

A Burial Crypt?

With Chris Rayner's suggestion that it could have been a crypt, I looked into the possibility that it could have been an ossuary (a building to house exhumed bones from burial grounds). It seemed to fit the purpose - it was built into the boundary wall, which was usual, and there was a mound of earth behind it, leading me to believe it could be where the bones were placed.

The rear of the building and the mound

The Answer!

Well it seems I'd let my imagination run away with me as all thoughts of crypts and ossuaries were dashed in an email from the church warden Desmond Hart. I had written to ask him if there were any records of what it might be and indeed there were.

The building is in fact a store, a plain, simple store!

It is Victorian in date and was probably constructed at the time Sir George Gilbert Scott made alterations to the church. It would have been used to store tools and building materials.

Not a very romantic solution to the mystery I know, but at least it's not a mystery any more.



Alison Vainlo 

First written 2016, updated 2020