I think there's a skull in my garden wall

[anotheruser75]

As the title says really! It's a garden wall at the front of our house, we've just started doing some work and a bit of wall came off to reveal what looks like a jaw bone, although I could be completely wrong. If it is, I'm sure it's an animals but it begs the question why would an animal skull be inside our wall?

Picture

Photo?

Black magic.

Oh! That's strange first look I thought it was a chunk of tree but not so sure now

It could be an old bit of tree or root, but it looks very bone like

It doesn’t look like a skull on the photo does it?

Not sure it isn't stone tbh but there could be all sorts of reasons if it's a skull...

Maybe it got mixed up in building material, maybe they wanted to get rid of it and a wall was as good a place as any, maybe it was there to ward off evil...

The last would depend on when the wall was built but there's a long history in this country, until relatively recently, of putting such things into the walls or foundations of buildings to ward off evil or witchcraft.

I'm not sure of the age of the wall but the house was built in the 1930's so the wall is no earlier than that

Most old pubs in this country have a cat walled up in it somewhere. We we're a superstitious bunch once.

Call 101, they can send someone out to have a look!

We have a cat buried under our front steps. We know because we have a note about how it was carefully replaced when there was some repair work done in 1902. The cat has probably been there since about 1500.

So it seems to be a thing to bury animals in walls as a superstitious thing? That's interesting.

Cats were frequently buried in walls. In cemeteries the first/ last person was thought to have to guard it / go to hell, so black dogs were often buried first and last if no criminals were available to do the job.

Usually its under the doorstep or floorboards, not walls.

I don't think its bone.

what does it feel like!?

I still don't think it looks like bone, but I'd say 1930 is also early enough to find a cat's skeleton or similar built into the wall. Many of these traditions were still around until ww2/post ww2.

Could it be a fungus of some kind, they can look very odd sometimes.

Did the cats die of natural causes or were they killed for the purpose?

I don't actually know for certain snazzyjazzpants, but I wouldn't bet on them dying of natural causes :(

Is it a brick or cob wall? We are currently restoring our cob house and have found animal bones, clay pipes, bits of leather shoe soles within the walls. ..

Holy Cripes!

what does it feel like?

if you strongly suspect it's bone and ot's possibly human you need to report to the police.

All in all, it's probably just another cat in the wall.

@CircesLion

All in all, it's probably just another cat in the wall.

We need Dr Ruth Galloway.

I can't get my eye in to try and see what it could be but I'm really hoping someone knowledgable comes along with some answers.

I also never knew the cat thing was so prevalent for a time. Does anyone know when this trend petered out?