It is a perfect Easter story – except, unlike Jesus’s empty tomb after the Resurrection, this tomb is crammed with the remains of former Archbishops of Canterbury.

Last year, during the refurbishment of the Garden Museum, which is housed in a deconsecrated medieval parish church next to Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official London residence, builders made the chance discovery of a lifetime: a cache of 30 lead coffins that had lain undisturbed for centuries.

Closer inspection revealed metal plates bearing the names of five former Archbishops of Canterbury, going back to the early 1600s.