Improved design

The mound in the main picture is the original mort house at Belhelvie Kirk. The kirkyard, being just a few miles north of Aberdeen was a prime target for medical students requiring bodies for dissection purposes. - Students then later on professional grave robbers - known as Resurrectionists would steal recently buried cadavers. Measures to prevent this included the construction of impregnable mort houses in which bodies could be stored until they were of no use for dissection. This subterranean example was probably constructed in the early 1800s. However, it was difficult to manoeuvre coffins down the entrance steps and the replacement shown in the extra was built partially outside the kirkyard. The Anatomy Act of 1832 made more corpses legally available for dissection and eventually ended the need for morthouses.