Showing posts with label churchyard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label churchyard. Show all posts

Thursday 1 January 2015

The Clergyman's Hand-book of Law 1909

"The Clergyman's Hand-book of Law"
Charles M. Scanlan
1909
Project Gutenburg




421. Statutes, Land.—There are sufficient statutory provisions on cemeteries to make a large book, and the frequent changes made in such laws render a full statement of the law impossible. The statutes against locating cemeteries near cities, dwellings, etc., should be carefully examined before buying land therefor.

Saturday 12 October 2013

Thursday 15 August 2013

Swaffham Parish Church - Styles

Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson
Elegant Scroll Cross
Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson
Decay and weathering
Swaffham Parish Church
© Godric Godricson

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Wednesday 30 January 2013

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Sunday 12 August 2012

David Vial Died 26th of March, 1873

The Parish Clerk (1907)
 Peter Hampson Ditchfield
[Link]



"A remarkable instance of longevity is recorded on a tombstone in Cromer churchyard. The inscription runs:
Sacred to the memory of David Vial who departed this life the 26th of March, 1873, aged 94 years, for sixty years clerk of this parish".

Saturday 11 August 2012

Joseph Rogers-parish clerk

The Parish Clerk (1907)
 Peter Hampson Ditchfield
[Link]



In Shenley churchyard the following remarkable epitaph appears to the memory of Joseph Rogers, who was a bricklayer as well as parish clerk:
Silent in dust lies mouldering here
A Parish Clerk of voice most clear.
None Joseph Rogers could excel
In laying bricks or singing well;
Though snapp'd his line, laid by his rod,
We build for him our hopes in God.

Friday 3 August 2012

Abused Churches - Saint Etheldreda


Abused Churches - King Street, Norwich [Link]
© Godric Godricson

Abused Churches - King Street, Norwich [Link]
© Godric Godricson



Abused Churches - King Street, Norwich [Link]
© Godric Godricson


Lost Burial Grounds - King Street, Norwich [Link]
© Godric Godricson



Wednesday 1 August 2012

The Parish Churchyard

In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious

W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

Project Gutenburg
The simple Breton people are deeply religious, and their veneration for the dead is intense. They are frequently to be seen—men, women, and children—kneeling on the ground in their churchyards, praying among the graves. It may therefore be well believed that in the period of burial reform which overspread the Continent in the earlier part of the nineteenth century there was great opposition in Brittany to the establishment of remote cemeteries. The thought of burying elsewhere than in the parish churchyard was to the minds of the parishioners a species of impiety.

When reasoned with they would answer:
"Our fathers were buried here, and you would separate us from our dead. Let us be buried here, where our kinsfolk can see our graves from their windows, and the children can come at evening to pray."
In vain they were shewn the danger of accumulating corpses in a place which was usually in the centre of the population. They shook their heads and cried:
"Death comes only by the will of God."

Possibly, to some extent, this feeling is universal among mankind. There is in our hearts an innate reverence for the burial-place; we tread by instinct lightly over the sleeping-places of the dead, and look with silent awe upon their tombs. The feeling being part of our humanity, we might suppose it to be universal, and be apt to conclude that, in our more primitive churchyards at least, we should find some effort to preserve the whole or a large proportion of the memorials which are there dedicated to departed merit, hallowed by love and made sacred by sorrow. But it may truthfully be said that of all the headstones (not to speak alone of decorated headstones) which were set up prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century, by far the greater number have disappeared! Indeed the cases in which the old churchyards have been the objects of any care whatever are lamentably few, while attempts to preserve the old gravestones are almost unknown. The ordinary experience is to find the churchyard more or less neglected and forgotten, and the grey and aged stones either sinking into the earth or tottering to their fall. It cannot be imagined that the clergy, the wardens, and the sextons have failed to see these things; but they have, presumedly, more pressing matters to attend to, and it seems to be nobody's business to attend to such ownerless and worthless objects".


Sunday 10 June 2012

Burial in a new churchyard


Ecclesiastical Curiosities - (1898)
Editor: William Andrews
Project Gutemburg

"Even at the present day there is a prejudice more or less deeply rooted against a first burial in a new churchyard or cemetery. This prejudice is doubtless due to the fact that in early ages the first to be buried was a victim. Later on in the middle ages the idea seems to have been that the first to be buried became the perquisite of the devil, who thus seems in the minds of the people to have taken the place of the pagan deity. Not in England alone, but all over Northern Europe, there is a strong prejudice against being the first to enter a new building, or to cross a newly-built bridge. At the least it is considered unlucky, and the more superstitious believe it will entail death. All this is the outcome of the once general sacrificial foundation, and the lingering shadow of a ghastly practice".