Shoreditch Church, Hackney

I attended the church talk and crypt tour in October 2018.

St Leonard's, Shoreditch is the ancient parish church of Shoreditch, often known simply as Shoreditch Church.
It is located at the intersection of Shoreditch High Street with Hackney Road, within the London Borough of Hackney.
Depending on who you speak to, this site is possibly the oldest continuously used site of Christian worship in England, with recorded evidence dating back to Roman times, when soldiers were first starting to convert to the new faith.

The physical church that stands here now is rather newer, being built in 1740 to replace a medieval version, which itself probably replaced a Saxon one which stood slightly further West. The site shunted sideways due to the local Soers ditch (clean water) overflowing and rotting the old wooden building.
The church is mentioned in the line "When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch" from the nursery rhyme Oranges 🍊 and Lemons 🍋 and is noted as being the resting place of many actors from the Tudor period.

One of my photos captures the Tomb of the Necromancer.
Necromancy is a practice of magic involving communication with the deceased – the tomb presumed to be this although the evidence is circumstantial.
Attribution aside, it is a very impressive tomb, and more so for being protected from the worst of Victorian pollution that would have reduced the decoration to formless blobs had it been in the churchyard.
Also you will see a bizarre old piano 🎹 rotting away down there. The tour was largely done in the dark so I observed with my torch on my phone to see around.
A few more burial vaults to see, and notice the way the weight of the lead coffins (see photos here and in my part 1 post) is crushing down on the lower burials, and a story about how undertakers would “bury” a wooden coffin filled with bricks. The lead lining having been sold – as was the body to surgeons.
However baring in mind this only happened to the rich as they could afford luxurious burials.  Whilst the poor were being dumped in paupers graves.