From Oulton to the sea

 
If you climb up and over the Great Orme at Llandudno in Wales, you come eventually to the lonely St Tudno's Cemetery Chapel, the last building along the coastline, which looks out over the Irish Sea. It's a great spot to be buried, an opinion the lady (and her husband) who chose the grave-place photographed here obviously must have shared.

The sea must have indeed meant something extra to her, as the carving wrapped around the top of the stone is of two dolphins riding the waves.

Although this is a photo of a place in Wales, it figures in this Staffordshire blog, because the inhabitant of this grave originally came from Oulton, a village in the middle of this county.

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Remembrance for Christina

One of the most brutal murders remembered in this county is the rape & killing of Christina Collins by two men in 1839.
Her body was discovered in the canal at Rugeley; and so she is buried in the town, not far from where she was found, even though she was not from this area at all.

As her family was not rich, this, her gravestone, was paid for by strangers: local people disturbed and horrified by the "end of the unhappy woman".
Even to this day, people leave flowers so that crimes against women may not be forgot.

Here lieth George

The earliest 'modern' gravestones erected to the memories of individuals date back to around the sixteenth century - but few of them survive.  Though this gravestone, from Rushton churchyard, is much later (1738), it has the same shape as ones of 200 years earlier.
The quote starts "Here lieth y' body ... George" and then goes on to mention his parents (probably). We can only guess what words are missing , as the fascia is crumbling off.

Late on Xmas Day

It seems strangely redundant to inform us all that the person in this Cheadle churchyard grave is, umm, the "late" Ralph Ratcliffe.  I'd have thought that was fairly obvious ... by his being actually buried in the grave!

Poor old Ralph had the misfortune to die on Christmas Day.  I wonder if he got a chance to open his presents?

And so - Merry Christmas one and all...!   (which is not exactly the quote from Christmas Carol)

All that is left of what-was

As one wanders along a wooded path in Longdon Green, suddenly one sees, up upon the bank, this gravestone: "William Edwards died 1775, Clerk of this Chapel for 19 Years".  Nothing else.
Apparently the chapel was pulled down years ago, and so all that is left of what-was is this gravestone... and it looks like (to me) somebody is regularly clearing it of ivy.  I wonder who.

Gravestones on the move

This amazing summer blazes on, with yet another day in the twenties (Celsius).

This rather uncomfortable quartet of headstones is to be found at Norbury Church, where the authorities have decided (or were they pressured?) to uproot the stones, away from their original graves-sites to 'more secure' spots.  In many English churchyards, the oldest headstones are being moved - for fear that they might fall on somebody.

The Staffordshire historian Fred Hughes calls some instances of this policy "institutional vandalism".  The end-result, certainly, is appealing to nobody.

Watching the gravestone

This graveyard angel is different to most in that, instead of standing above the grave, it is attached to and looking at the gravestone itself. 
It's worn, but it still has a strange, morbid fascination to it.
You'll find it at Great Haywood.

Impressed villagers buy old lady...a grave

Living to be 119 years old is a pretty outstanding thing to do - especially in the eighteenth century. Mary Brookes' fellow villagers in Horton (near Leek) seem to have been so astounded by this feat that they all clubbed together to buy this gravestone for her - "at their own expense to perpetuate this remarkable instance of longevity" - as is inscribed on the stone's face.

I suppose it was rather clever of her, at that.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Hollington weave

The markings on gravestones can be a bit of a mystery to the uninitiated (such as me).  This weave pattern on a stone at St John's in Hollington was, I thought, a graphic design based on the deceased man's name (Samuel Smith) - but it doesn't compute.

It's not a common pattern.  What does it signify?

Very grave Christmas trees

These are the oddest grave decorations I ever saw: mini Christmas trees!  I spotted them at the churchyard of Holy Cross in Ilam. 

Being as it's Twelfth Night this evening - when tradition says Xmas decorations should be taken down - will they be gone tomorrow morning?

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Christmas ghost story - 'buried alive'

At Rushton Spencer village churchyard, under the yew-tree, you'll notice a grave that is out of sync with the other burial.  Thomas Meakin (or Meaykin) is laid the 'wrong way round', ie his gravestone faces west instead of east.  This can happen for a number of reasons - but one is that the grave might contain an unhappy spirit.

If Thomas' story is true, then he would be unhappy.  His friends suspected that he had been drugged with a powerful poison, fallen into a coma, and been buried alive.  When they dug his grave up, it is said that he was lying not on his back, but on his front - a sure sign that he had waked after being buried.
Thus Thomas was re-buried the 'wrong way round', with the new inscription "As man falleth before wicked men; so fell I".

There are a few sources for the story - neatly pulled together on the Mondrem website.

Five in a grave

To lose five children, four of them just toddlers, must have been a huge blow to James & Mary Wyatt. That Sarah, who managed at least to get to twenty years old, in 1891, should have then died just as she was entering adultdhood, must have been just as terrible.
As the inscription, on this grave in Whitmore churchyard, says: A bitter grief, a shock severe / To part with ones we love so dear.

The Victorian era was when the modern met the past. 
In the times before, death seems almost to have been a rite of life - albeit the last rite -; but the Victorians, so close to medical break-throughs, found the death of loved ones very, very hard to bear - as we still do now.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Misty day in the cemetery

Misty autumn day today, though the temperatures are still in the 'mild' range.

Tunstall Cemetery runs up the side of a long hill, so the graves at its top look out over the valley.

Scrooge's ... memorial

Real grave...fictional person! 
I came across this gravestone in St Chad's Church in Shrewsbury - and was a little surprised.  Well, a lot surprised actually (!), as Ebenezer Scrooge is, as we know, a fictional character from Dickens' story A Christmas Carol.

The stone is real enough though; it's not made of paste...

It turns out that the movie of A Christmas Carol was partly filmed here, so the set-designers simply flipped an old grave in the churchyard, inscribed the name of Scrooge, and ... there you are. 
It seems like they never flipped it back as the 'grave' brought so many curiosity-seekers.

By the way, I know that Shrewsbury is not in Staffordshire (though it is in the next county), but I felt I wanted to include this photo, because I have also taken a photo of the 'grave' of yet another Dickens character, Little Nell. (See that photo in this post). 

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Reflective angel in Aston

On a sunny day graveyards are simply calm and quietly reflective places - spots to sit and ponder the environment around one.  I have even seen people having picnics in them on such days - though that did seem odd, even to me.

When they are slightly overgrown in parts too, as in Aston churchyard, that adds to their charm.
Well, I think so.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Sarah's poisoned grave

One tombstone at Wolstanton's ancient church of St Margaret's is up there among all the most amazing gravestones to be found in the county.

Quite simply, it points the finger at a murderer – the murderer of the woman in the grave.   

From death, Sarah Smith accuses the perpetrator of the foul deed against her:
“It was C-----s B----w / That brought me to my end. /
Dear parents, mourn not for me / For God will stand my friend. /
With half a Pint of Poyson / He came to visit me. /
Write this on my Grave / That all that read it may see.” 

Whether Sarah dictated this before she died (in 1763), or her angry parents had it inscribed, who knows?  She was just 21 years old.
It’s believed that C…s B…w was never hauled up before the law - despite this indictment.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website 

Schoolboy remembered

What sad story does this grave tell? 
It is unusual to see a portrait on a gravestone in England, yet here is thirteen year old Edward Baddeley portrayed, and dressed in his schoolboy cap.
One can only imagine his grieving parents wanting to see their child fully remembered.

Of the little the grave inscription tells us, the only other telling fact is that young Arthur died at nearby Rudyard in June 1900. 

This grave is to be found at St Michael & All Angels Church, Horton.


This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website 

Slppery gravestones

Saint Giles Church in Newcastle-under-Lyme was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. The builders (it seems) couldn't be bothered to remove all the soil they had to dig up so they almost literally chucked it to one side, creating the hillock you can see next to the church to this day.

The gravestones too seem to have been disturbed at the time, and - with space in this urban centre very limited - seem to have been rearranged in the clumsy jigsaw fashion you see in the photo...  Walking over them is not to be advised on wet days, when they are almost waxy in their slipperiness.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website   

Grave of honour for dogs

Dogs are not often buried in historic town squares, but that is the case here in King Edward Place in Burton. Across the square from the old town hall you'll find this marker, which indicates the spot where three Staffordshire bull terriers lie.

The dogs are no ordinary ones of course. The dogs, all named Watchman, are the most recent mascots of the Staffordshire Regiment.  Watchman the Fifth (aka Watchman V) is now in post, and curiously (don't you love weird traditions?) is actually a Lance Corporal in the army.

The Staffordshire Regiment was mightily reduced under recent spending cuts and is now the '3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment' - so who knows if there will be another Watchman?

(By the way, 'Watchman' preceded the 'Watchmen' super-hero series... )

Link:  The history of Watchman 

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Poet surrounded by weeds

George Heath's gravestone stands, surrounded by weeds, in a lonely country churchyard near Leek.  Pretty much unknown now, he was in fact pretty much unknown then - even though this is 'The Moorland Poet' as he was called locally. George Heath died 150 years ago, at just 25 years old.

His poetry is a bit post-Wordsworth:
"Slow creeps the light athwart the concave still,
Steals a low whisper on the breathless calm,
Bringing the scent of opening flowers, a balm;
Breaks o'er the earth a grand, a rapturous thrill"   but, like in these lines, not bad either.

He's buried in Horton churchyard, which is a bit ironic, as he first caught the chill which led to his fatal consumption while restoring the old church there...

What's odd though is that there is no sign or pointer to his grave. Admittedly, he was not a Top Poet, but Staffordshire Archives feel that he is important enough to have recently published a guide to their collection of his works, so you wonder why there is no real attention paid to the grave.

Link: Guide to Staffordshire George Heath collection 

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website