The village of Udny is centred round the village green, quite unlike the usual village layout in the North East. The green is surrounded on three sides by tall beech trees and is overseen by the Victorian parish church.
In 1505 a law was passed allocating anatomists one corpse annually on which to practice dissection, from 1694 the bodies of vagrants, suicides, those who had been executed or died in what were termed 'houses of correction' could be used. Supply did not meet demand and there was a gristly if lucrative trade in the exhumation of freshly buried corpses which were sold on to medical schools. The fear of newly buried bodies being exhumed was very real so many kirkyards had high gated walls and watch houses in which relatives could keep nightly vigils until the corpse was too decomposed to be useful. In other instances heavy metal mortsafes were placed over the grave or alternatively, as at Udny the coffin could be stored in secure morthouse until it was beyond dissection.
The ingenious, windowless morthouse was designed by John Marr of Cairnbrogie and contains a turntable on which coffins were placed for at least seven days. The turntable was ratcheted round to allow more coffins to be placed in through the single door, coffins were removed in sequence for burial. The sturdy oak outer door had a complex lock which needed three separate keyholders to be present to unlock it. Within the outer door was a sliding metal door.
During the Second World War the morthouse was used as a rifle store.
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| A modern replica of a mortsafe at the Doune Kirkyard, Rothiemurchus |
