Eighty percent of people who die in the UK today are cremated, a practice which is causing us to lose touch with the customs and art forms of burial. London's crypts and charnel houses - the traditional repositories of human remains - offer fascinating and sometimes macabre and piquant insights into the social, cultural and religious history of the capital.

After the Great Fire of 1666 there was a frenzy of church building in the City of London. These new buildings had spacious crypts, allowing unscrupulous clergymen to earn extra cash by permitting wealthy parishioners to pay to be interred there. In this talk MALCOLM JOHNSON will relate stories of the recent discoveries made as these subterranean vaults have been gradually cleared to house modern day restaurants and wine bars.

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Malcolm Johnson is a retired priest, and has a PhD from King’s College, London. His books, Crypts of London (Past & Present) and St Martins in the Fields, were both published to critical acclaim by Phillimore.

Travel advice to the Dissenters' Chapel - During the day guests can walk through the cemetery to get to the chapel but at night the main cemetery gates on the Harrow Road will be closed and the only accessible entrance is on Ladbroke Grove. Previously the address for this entrance was 364 Ladbroke Grove but this number has now been updated to 391.

The two closest underground stations are Ladbroke Grove (Hammersmith & City or Circle Line) or Kensal Green (overground and Bakerloo Line). From Ladbroke Grove station there are several buses you can take to the Dissenters which include either the 28, 52 or 452. It's best to get off at the Sainbury's bus stop and then it's a short walk down Ladbroke to the entrance to the Dissenters' Chapel.