Medieval Cadaver Tomb - Southwark Cathedral, London, Great Britain.
N 51° 30.366 W 000° 05.379
30U E 701968 N 5710123
Medieval Cadaver Tomb of Thomas Cure - The cadaver sculptures were mostly used by high ranking church officials on their Tomb's as a memento mori (reminder of death). This stone Cadaver tomb is located in Southwark Cathedral, London, UK.
Waymark Code: WMRK61
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/02/2016
Views: 6
Thomas Cure was a Warden of the St Saviours Church. From 1905 it became known as Southwark Cathedral.
Thomas was a benefactor to the Church & the poor, He was also a Member of Parliament.
This stone cadaver tomb serves as a sobering reminder to those viewing it, that everyone must die. If you visit this Cathedral, this is the one monument you will probable never forget.
"Cadaver tombs were a departure, in monumental architecture, from the usual practice of showing an effigy of the person as they were in life. An early example is the famous effigy on the multi-layered wall-tomb of Cardinal Jean de La Grange (died 1402) in Avignon.
The term can also be used for a monument that shows only the cadaver without the live person. The sculpture is intended as a didactic example of how transient earthly glory is, since it depicts what all people finally become. Kathleen Cohen's study of five French ecclesiastics who commissioned transi tombs determined that common to all of them was a successful worldliness that seemed almost to demand a shocking display of transient mortality" Text Source: (
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From a sermon by: The Bishop of Southwark:
"In the North Choir Aisle, lies Thomas Cure of Southwark, who died in May 1588 during the reign of Elizabeth I and same year as the Spanish Armada set sail. The memorial plaque is above a medieval monument, a powerful momento mori, uncompromisingly skeletal, further ravaged and worn by the passage of time, reminding all who see it of our mortality. The monument reminds us that like Thomas Cure, who could not live up to his name, there is no cure for death unless we see death itself as the final healing." Text Source: (
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Biography of Thomas Cure:
"Thomas Cure was a very important person in Southwark and London. He was the MP locally, and in East Grinstead, as well as the Master Saddler to King Edward VI, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I. He founded almshouses for the poor of St Saviour’s parish. These stood for nearly 300 years in Park Street, until the new railways forced their move to West Norwood and eventual relocation, in the form of modern sheltered flats, to Purley, Surrey in 2006.
Today over 70 former Southwark residents benefit from the legacy of Thomas Cure, but the charity’s ambition is to develop even more almshouses. Read More & Text Source: (
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