morthouse

noun

1. A specialised secure building usually located in a churchyard where bodies were temporarily interred before a formal funeral took place.

   “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.”

   “Morthouses were sturdily built, with iron linings on wooden doors, even a skin of steel within the whole structure in some cases.”

   “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.”