The Power To Shock

Sometimes it is the most seemingly innocuous of objects which has the power to shock me. Two examples have come to my attention recently.

St Laurence's in Lurgashall has a huge slab of stone sitting in its porch beneath a broken fragment of an ancient font. It is unremarkable and I thought not worth photographing. Since then I've discovered that this stone could be hired. Why you might wonder. It was used to cover newly dug graves to stop the bodysnatchers from taking the freshly interred corpse and is one of the few surviving Resurrection Stones. How terrifying that must have been for our ancestors having to face not only a bereavement, but equally the very real prospect that callous individuals would attempt to steal the remains of your loved one.

Or how about this one? A damaged comb which I saw a fortnight ago in our local museum.

This everyday item belonged to one John Haigh who is better known as the notorious Acid Bath Murderer.  A serial killer, he murdered and dissolved the bodies of his six victims in sulphuric acid. Although he was convicted in Lewes, he was arrested and charged in Horsham.

Without the historical context both objects would have passed me by unnoticed.

Arilx