Couple renovating church into home make haunting discovery underground

Not many people can say they live in a medieval church – and on top of dozens of skeletons.

Lucy and Rhys Thomas and their family live in a truly one-in-a-million house in Peterstone Wentlooge, Wales, an old church they turned into a dream home after a few surprises along the way.

The first shock was when viewing the Grade I-listed St Peters Church and finding out that it had not been converted.

The second shocker was that they would be living on top of more than 80 human remains.

They bought the 900-year-old church at an auction for £405,000in 2021 after falling ‘hook, line, and sinker for the building and its charms,’ despite it needing a full transformation.

They were warned that there might be ‘five or six’ bodies under the floor as wealthy and powerful people were historically buried inside a church.

But instead of a few remains, ‘body after body’ were dug up, totalling 83 in the end.

The couple decided to leave the skeletons be out of respect and cover them with heating and flooring.

Lucy, 53, said: ‘We needed to have an archaeologist present when we started digging up the floor.

‘They said to me, ‘because we were digging down 40 centimeters, we would inevitably going to find a body somewhere as in the past often influential, religious or rich people in the community would be buried within the floors of the church’.

‘We didn’t know this, so we were a bit apprehensive – but they said we would only find about five or six bodies, when they started digging, it became apparent there was a lot more than we first envisioned.

‘The first few were uncomfortable but we gradually warmed to the process.

‘People were buried together – husbands and wives, parents with children, so we decided to leave them in their final resting places and continue the build around them.’

Lucy and Rhys, 45, spent four years converting the church, which was founded in 1142 in Peterstone Wentlooge between Cardiff and Newport.

The mum-of-five said they were ‘surprised’ to find that it was still a church and no work had been done as ‘we thought we were viewing a five-bed house.’

While waiting for the paperwork to be approved, they were only able to ‘chip away’ at the property during the first 18 months.

Rhys said: ‘It was a bit of a challenging job – we just learnt as we went along.

‘We spent lots of time googling and joining listed building groups.’

They have kept many of the original features like the engravings on the 100-year-old stone floor the couple removed themselves before a stonemason laid it outside as a patio.

With the challenging task of creating a mezzanine flitch frame, builderds were brought in to do the work because ‘between us we can barely change a bulb,’ Lucy said.

Thanks to the inner frame, the church walls could be left untouched.

They also kept the church tower and bells after a bit of TLC on the ropes to be able to ring the eight bells.

The church features modern comforts and luxuries like double glazing on windows, underfloor heating, a snooker table, a bar area and a hot tub.

Others get to take a sneak peek inside the church too as it is listed on Airbnb.

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