Cromwell's last resting place.

​I recently came across a book I had forgotten I had which is entitled "Who's buried where in England" by Douglas Greenwood, the dedication inside reads " To those of the historically famous who at one time proudly trod the soil of England and now lie deep within".
Curiosity got the better of me as I looked through the index and came across an entry for Oliver Cromwell so this is an addition to what I wrote a while ago on his last resting place which I thought may be of interest to some.

The entry reads as follows, (I have omitted some of the text).


Cromwell, Oliver (1599-1658)

Henry V11's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, London, in the small east chapel, now known as the RAF chapel, where a stone in the pavement records his burial there together with members of his family and some of the regicides. St Nicholas's Church, Chiswick Mall, London W also lays claim to his body.

He died in 1658 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. At the Restoration, however, his body together with those of other regicides was disinterred and hung on Tyburn gallows until 30 January 1661, the anniversary of Charles 1's execution, his head being stuck on a pole on top of Westminster Hall. 
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The Times of July 1969 reported that according to letters from Captain E. L. Dale, the son of the Reverend Lawford Dale, Vicar of St Nicholas's Church, Chiswick Mall in West London, in 1882, the Protector's remains has been switched at burial on the Protector's own orders and were later buried in the vaults of St Nicholas's Church.  If this is true, they are now sealed under a thick cement floor. A letter to the Times, 31 August 1989, from Phillida Grantham, stated that she once held Cromwell's head, 'then in the possession of the Wilkinson family', and that it is now buried at his Cambridge college, Sidney Sussex.