Builders renovating the Garden Museum, housed at the deconsecrated church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, found a hidden crypt containing 30 lead coffins.

Site manager Karl Patten said: "We discovered numerous coffins - and one of them had a gold crown on top of it".

The remains date back to the 1660s.

John, dean of St Albans Cathedral, was put forward for the post of Bishop of Sodor and Man in February, but failed to make it on to the shortlist despite positive feedback. The rejection came shortly before he was passed over for appointment as Bishop of Llandaff after objections to his sexuality allegedly were raised.

In a new book, The Religious Lives of Older Laywomen, the sociologist Dr Abby Day of Goldsmiths at the University of London outlines how the financial and social structures of the Church of England are kept afloat by a shrinking band of committed women who are now entering their eighties and nineties.

No, thank you very much, Welby Sahib! I don't need another postcolonial foreign aid handout from you. Your white guilt doesn't make me feel good. I am not a victim and don't you dare call me one. I refuse to be labelled an ethnic minority--like a bird species about to fall extinct. I am a full member of British society and don't you deny me that privilege.