One night in the early 1700s, Henry Trigg was making his way home when he heard a disturbance in the churchyard. Looking closer, he saw, to his horror of course, grave-robbers making off with a freshly-buried corpse.
He continued on his way, resolving never to let the same thing happen to him. (He isn’t reported to have tried to stop the outrage.)
Having made a decent stash as a grocer he offered his fortune to any of his relatives who agreed to one condition: that his body be “decently laid … upon a floor in the roof.”
In 1724 he died. His brother did as he asked, popped him, coffined, up in the rafters of the roof of his barn, and pocketed the cash.
There he lay.
In 1774 the barn became part of the Old Castle Inn. He slumbered on. In 1831 a new landlord checked up on him and found him safe and sound. In 1906 East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society had a peek and found him still in residence.
During the First World War, soldiers stationed in the town picked bits of him out.
In 1999 the new owner, NatWest bank, had him decently buried.
His coffin remains there to this day. No. 37 High Street, Stevenage.