The Deadhouse and Lightwells
1770s vaults; tombstones from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Beneath the paving of the courtyard runs a hidden world of brick vaults, stone arches and narrow passages. The Lightwells are the open trenches along the sides of the court that bring daylight to the basement offices, and from them you enter the Deadhouse, a low vaulted corridor that crosses under the courtyard. On its walls are set a row of carved tombstones and memorial tablets, some dated as early as the sixteen hundreds, with skulls, coats of arms and inscriptions to people who died long before Chambers laid a single stone.
The tablets come from the chapel of the old Somerset House, the Tudor palace that stood on this site. Queens who lived here, Anne of Denmark, Henrietta Maria and Catherine of Braganza, were Catholics in a Protestant country, and their private chapels had their own burial grounds for members of the household. When Chambers demolished the palace in the seventeen seventies the graves were disturbed, and someone had the decency to preserve the stones by setting them into the new vaults. Look at the carving on the older tablets, with the crude but expressive skulls that were fashionable reminders of mortality.
The Deadhouse was closed and forgotten for most of the building's life, and the courtyard above it was a car park with the vaults used for storage. Since the year two thousand it has been opened up, and its atmosphere has made it a favourite for art installations, film shoots and late-night events. The full length is not always accessible, but the Lightwells can usually be walked, and they give a rare view of the courtyard facades from below.
Did You Know? The tombstones in the vaults came from the chapel of the Tudor palace that Chambers demolished to build the present Somerset House.
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