A morthouse[1] or deadhouse[2] was a specialised secure building usually located in a churchyard where bodies were temporarily interred before a formal funeral took place. These buildings date back to the time when bodysnatchers or resurrectionists frequently illegally exhumed dead bodies that were then sold for dissection as part of human anatomy training at universities, etc. Morthouses were alternatives to mortsafes, watch houses, watch towers, etc.
A morthouse differs from a mortuary or morgue, which is a facility for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification or autopsy prior to burial.