A great documentary from 2001—“Changing Tombs”—is available in four parts on YouTube.

It chronicles the work of the London Necropolis Company, who were hired to exhume the remains of about 1,500 dead folks from the graveyard and crypt of the 18th-century St. Luke’s Church in London, to make way for its refurbishment as a London Symphony Orchestra facility. 

Highlights:

  • Part One (above): Astonishingly well-preserved remains exhumed from the site, dating from the mid-19th century
  • Part Two: An overview of the 19th-centurty “burial crisis” in the U.K. and some choice passages from George Alfred Walker’s Gatherings from Graveyards; and details about Necropolis job requirements, which include a smallpox inoculation (something the British public stopped receiving in the early 1970s)
  • Part Three: A Necropolis employee explains how his work helped him lose his religion; the difficulty of getting Chinese food delivered to a cemetery; and a sweet-ass Volvo hearse
  • Part Four: Conclusion of the project and reburial of all the St. Luke’s remains in their new home, a mass grave outside London

Hope you enjoy as much as I did!