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    Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials
    Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials
    Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials

    By Trevor Yorke

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    If you explore our churchyards and cemeteries, you will be astonished at how much you can discover, not only about the people who are buried there and their standing in the local community but also about the history of the area. In this book, Trevor Yorke explains burial practices down the ages and details the development of the churchyard and the cemetery. He looks at the period styles of gravestones and tombs, and the shapes and features that help to date them. Using a wide range of photographs and line illustrations, he examines the carvings and symbols that can be found and offers clues to their possible meanings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCountryside Books
    Release dateNov 5, 2012
    ISBN9781846748387
    Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials
    Author

    Trevor Yorke

    Trevor Yorke is a professional author and artist who has studied and written about various aspects of England's architectural and industrial heritage. He has produced many illustrated books that introduce the reader to these topics and writes articles and reviews for various magazines. He lives in the UK.

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    • 4/5
      Published as part of the Britain’s Living History Series, this slim volume, for the book contains just 64 pages, yet contains a wealth of information. Written in a clear easy to read format with photographic illustrations and broken down into chapters complete with a concluding index. This book encourages us to delve beyond the name and dates on the headstone, and to look further at the style of the Memorial, the graphics upon it and the even the types of stone used to make it. Readers are encouraged to get out and about and explore their local churchyard using the knowledge within the book to gain further information about those commemorated upon the stones.The book further explores the how the churchyard and cemetery evolved within our Society, the styles of stones over the ages and how burial practices have changed with a the later section of the book dedicated to understanding the various carvings and what they mean, giving further information of the person they are dedicated to.This book is a welcome addition to any genealogist and family historian bookshelf and really does encourage us to get out their and explore.Book Review for Federation of Family History Societies book club November 2010.

    Book preview

    Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials - Trevor Yorke

    INDEX

    I am as guilty as anyone of assuming that old gravestones and tombs are no more than simple records of the deceased or collectively form a backdrop to the church. I had always thought they only mustered interest when massed together in the gloriously ostentatious Victorian cemeteries. It never crossed my mind to pay too much attention to them when visiting churches whilst researching for a recent book until, while leaning upon one such memorial to steady my camera as I photographed a small Gloucestershire edifice, I became aware that I was being stared at! Stepping back in surprise I found that I had made eye contact with a skull, and standing back further realised that he was not alone. In fact the tomb I had thought of as no more than a convenient tripod was crammed with carved skeletons, figures, books and tools surrounded by lavish decoration and with a central plaque which confirmed that this work of art was nearly 300 years old.

    This Eureka moment inspired me to look at my local churchyard in a new light and although I had walked through it many times before, it was only now I noticed strange carvings, mysterious symbols and humorous effigies. Here beneath a cloak of trees and ivy were fine sculpture and elegant calligraphy, centuries of changing styles which had mostly been forgotten. It was also clear that there was a lot more information about the deceased than just a name and dates. The type of stone used, the quality and quantity of carving and the additional text all gave clues to the person’s standing in society.

    This book sets out not only to aid the family historian or church visitor by translating some of the mysterious symbols and text, but also to open our eyes to the works of art which stand free to view. It begins by explaining the development of the churchyard and cemetery and the changes to burial practices. The second and third chapters then look at the period styles of gravestones and tombs and the shapes and features which help date them. The last two chapters look in detail at the carvings and inscriptions, showing the variety and quality which can be found and their possible meaning.

    Using my own drawings and photographs I hope to inspire the reader to take a closer look at the memorials in their local graveyard, and the sculpture and tragic tales carved upon them. Some may leave with a closer connection to the deceased, an appreciation of the skill of the mason and perhaps the feeling that life is not so bad today as we sometimes feel it is!

    Trevor Yorke

    FIG 0.1: Examples of the different types of memorials and some of their details which can be found in churchyards and cemeteries.

    CHAPTER 1

    A Brief History of Burial

    FIG 1.1: An imaginary churchyard with some of the memorials and features which can be found today after over a thousand years of burial. Such has been the displacement of soil over the centuries due to reburials building up on the same spot that many churches have a trench around them and retaining walls because the ground level has risen by up to a couple of metres!

    Ivy-clad gravestones and crumbling tombs illuminated by moonlight through a gloomy ceiling of trees with only the hoot of an owl to break the eerie silence. This familiar image of the churchyard was first eulogised by poets in the 18th century, then became a vital component in the Gothic novels of the early 1800s before being crystallised in our minds by 20th-century horror films. Yet this spooky incantation seems far removed from the neatly-trimmed landscaped sites we see today and, as you will discover, was quite different from that which preceded it. Before looking in detail at the memorials found within, it is worth explaining how churchyards have been transformed over the years, why cemeteries were founded and what features you can still find there.

    The earliest forms of burial we can readily see in the landscape today are the various types of earthen mounds and stone chambers erected from the Neolithic Age up to as late as the Early Saxon period to house either a corpse or cremated remains. Archaeologists regularly uncover cemeteries which can date from the second half of the Bronze Age through the Roman period (where they were usually sited outside of town boundaries) and into the Dark Ages. One key feature they look for to help date the graves is their alignment – where they are laid out in no set direction it implies a pagan burial but where they are on a roughly east-west axis the deceased was probably a Christian. This can usually be

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